fairy tale, n.Definitions

The Fairy tale is a matter of grave importance commanding utmost respect in a utilitarian age.

A Fairy tale is a horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.

The Fairy tale is quite a different thing for our ancestors, who took the certainty of morality and the world on faith. For them, it amazed by allowing its listener for once to float and to escape the rules of eternity. How very different things are for us, who are forever floating. For us, what is amazing is the feeling of momentarily standing with both feet on firm earth.

The Fairy tale is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind - it thus secretly lives on in the story.

The Fairy tale is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind. Even today it secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.

The Fairy tale is, along with play, not something belonging only to childhood. We give these things other names, to be sure, and feel differently about them, but precisely this is the evidence that they are the same things, for the child too regards play as his work and fairy tales as his truth.

The Fairy tale is more than true... not because fairy tales tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The Fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.