Where Do Fairy Tales Come From? The Origins of 10 Popular Stories
Most fairy tales were told aloud long before anyone wrote them down. That's why the same story often turns up in many countries, with different names and details. The versions most of us know today come mainly from a few famous collections published between the late 1600s and the late 1800s.
Charles Perrault (France, 1697)
In 1697 the French writer Charles Perrault published Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales from Times Past), often known as Tales of Mother Goose. It included the first published versions of several stories that are still famous:
- Cinderella ("Cendrillon"), with the fairy godmother, the pumpkin and the glass slipper. Read our Cinderella.
- Little Red Riding Hood ("Le Petit Chaperon rouge"). Read our Little Red Riding Hood.
- Sleeping Beauty ("La Belle au bois dormant"). Read our Sleeping Beauty.
Perrault wrote for an adult audience at the French court, and each tale ended with a short moral in verse.
The Brothers Grimm (Germany, 1812)
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected German folk tales and published the first volume of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) in 1812. They revised the collection many times over the following decades. It includes:
- The Frog Prince, the very first story in the collection, originally titled "The Frog King, or Iron Henry". Read our Frog Prince.
- Rapunzel, which the Grimms based on an earlier German version. That version in turn drew on a French tale, "Persinette" (1698). Read our Rapunzel.
- Hansel and Gretel. Read our Hansel and Gretel.
- Snow White ("Schneewittchen"). Read our Snow White.
- Their own versions of Cinderella ("Aschenputtel"), Little Red Riding Hood ("Little Red Cap") and Sleeping Beauty ("Little Briar Rose").
The original Grimm tales can be very dark. That's one reason so many modern retellings, including ours, soften them for young children.
Beauty and the Beast (France, 1740 and 1756)
Beauty and the Beast began as a long novel-length tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, published in 1740. In 1756, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont wrote the much shorter version that most retellings follow today. Read our Beauty and the Beast.
English folk tales (Joseph Jacobs, 1890)
Two of the best-loved stories in English are folk tales, and their best-known printed versions come from Joseph Jacobs' English Fairy Tales (1890):
- Jack and the Beanstalk, which had appeared in print in various forms since the 1700s. Read our Jack and the Beanstalk.
- The Three Little Pigs. Jacobs credited the earlier collector James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps as his source. Read our Three Little Pigs.
Why there's no single "original" version
Because these stories were passed along by word of mouth, there's rarely one true original. Each writer, including Perrault, the Grimms and Jacobs, chose details and shaped the tale for their own readers. Retelling a fairy tale gently for a four-year-old at bedtime is part of the same long tradition.
You can read all ten in our free fairy tale library, or see our guide to gentle fairy tales for young children.