Description of Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are short stories that include characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants, mermaids, gnomes, and so on. Fairy tales are easily distinguished from other types of stories because they usually begin with the phrase, "Once upon a time." Sometimes, people may describe an event that ends happily as a "fairy tale ending." However, not all fairy tales end happily.

Fairy tales can be told aloud or read from books. The history of the fairy tale is hard to trace because only written stories are still around. However, experts believe that fairy tales have existed for thousands of years, although probably not always recognized as a genre. Today, most fairy tales come from stories that are hundreds of years old from many different cultures around the world. Fairy tales that are very old were originally written for adults in addition to children and they are still being written today.



Princes and princesses
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A book of Hans Christian
Andersen fairy tales
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