What is a fairy tale?

Fairy tales are children's literary works of novel genre, with popular words, just like children's words.

There are many supernatural characters in fairy tales, such as talking animals, elves, fairies, giants, witches and so on. In the writing methods of modern western literature, "fairy tale ending" usually refers to a happy ending, just like the princess and prince in most fairy tales.

Historical origin of fairy tales:

Fairy tales are originally part of traditional oral folk stories, which are usually told dramatically and passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Because of this, the history of the development of fairy tales is very difficult to verify. Especially the stories told by early illiterate storytellers, there is usually no written record for future generations to refer to.

The earliest fairy tale circulated in written form was in ancient Egypt in 13 BC. Since then, fairy tales have appeared in written literary works, such as Love and Beauty in The Golden Donkey written by Apuleius from 1 to 2 A.D. or Five Books written in India from 2 to 3 A.D., but it is impossible to know from the stories themselves whether these stories are reactions or not.