Talk:List of fairy tales

Merge
I do not think that the difficulties of maintaining two lists is worth any advantage of having them. One of the lists is incomplete even now. Goldfritha 02:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)  Ok good points i agree they should be merged but Goldfritha please help me with the list i am working on just look at the talk page it has what needs to be transferred--Alpha774 02:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not want to lose the talk page which has everything that needs to be added to the article so please help me then we'll merge the articles --Alpha774 02:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think a list by place of orgin is more useful than an alphabetical one. --Banana04131 03:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that we don't have a place of origin and we have no way to find out. The best we can do is the place where the tale was first recorded in a form that survived to the present day, a rather different proposition.  Goldfritha 00:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

  I agree with banana04131's comment but let's finish the by place of origin one then merge --Alpha774 04:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The origin list is done. How are we going to organize the final list? I liked the origin list better when the tales were broaken up into sections so a table of contents could be used. --Banana04131 05:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I am done with it note this is my other account--Jesusmyth 05:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I got rid of the old version because there were many different table and they were of different widths also you can use control f for editing and also i am working on the table of contents and just recently made a correction on the list apparently a italian story was listed under german --Jesusmyth 18:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I merged them and am making some edits to the alphabetical list for example the author, collection, dates, and origin are not linked on many of his so i am linking some also i changed all the lapp under origin to the more common term sami on the alpha list --Jesusmyth 19:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we should have only one list and just put any tales on the alphabtical one not in the orgin list in the list, merge one into the other. --Banana04131 23:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree let's see what Goldfritha says --Jesusmyth 00:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC) Also i am not sure exactly what you are talking about please explain but you are saying something about removing one list which i disagree with--Jesusmyth 00:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC) are you saying we shouldn't list their origin if they're on the alpha list if so i disagree because someone might want to use the alpha list to find out where a certain tale is from --Jesusmyth 00:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Banana04131: two lists is overkill.  The alphabetic one would be better.  Goldfritha 00:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't delete mine someone might want to look up tales of a certain place and me and banana04131 worked hard on it don't delete it--Jesusmyth 02:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

how about making the top list into either list of fairy tales from germany of list of german fairy tales for the german tales and just split it up into seperate articles what do you think? --Jesusmyth 02:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Please do not complain that "I worked hard" on Wikipedia. Your hard work being ruthlessly editted is a fact of life here.  What we need is a reason for two lists.
 * Furthermore, I have yanked the title "place of origin." The countries listed here are not the places of origin of the fairy tales that are listed here; they are merely countries where the tale was collected at one time or another.
 * And what on earth would making it just German tales do? It would gut the list. Goldfritha 05:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you think we should split the place of origin into seperate articles list of spanish fairy tales, list of russian fairy tales, list of german fairy tales, list of italian fairy tales, etc. --Jesusmyth 02:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If we're going by "place of origin", we would have one list, for fairy tales of unknown place of origin. Goldfritha 02:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There is still no reason given why two lists have to be maintained. I will propose re-merging every article you split out.  Goldfritha 03:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Why can't we have the place of origin as a list of links for example list of arabic fairy tales list of english fairy tales list of german fairy tales

i think we should split the place of origin section up into smaller sections--Jesusmyth 03:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC) Having seperate articles is preferable and does not take too much space--Jesusmyth 03:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We do not have a place of origin section.  We do not have places of origin for fairy tales.  Nowadays folklorists admit that tracing the origin of a fairy tale is past doing.
 * Preferable? I've asked for a reason for why two lists have to be maintained, and you still haven't given one.  This would be worse for the editors.  What benefit would it be for the users?  Goldfritha 03:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Many people like fairy tales of a specific region and like to know where they are from--Jesusmyth 03:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Nothing is required for that that was not in the original list. Goldfritha 04:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Since the only reason you offered is adequately fulfilled by the original list, I am merging. Goldfritha 02:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I moved 'Boy who cried wolf' into place alphabetically because it was the first 'B' listed. I also changed it to read 'The boy who cried wolf', so it now has the same title as the wiki artical it links to. EmilyMckenzie (talk) 17:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Criteria for Fairy Tales?
I do not think that Alice in Wonderland counts as a fairy tale: what are the criteria for fairy tales by which these were selected? Disney movies?
 * The criterion is that they are frequently called fairy tales. Which Alice has -- perhaps less commonly now that the genre of fantasy has been defined, but I can give you cites.  Goldfritha 23:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This isn't a good criterion. I would delete Peter Pan from this article. --Weissmann (talk) 08:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first post under this section. Alice is not a fairy tale, mostly because it did not come out of an oral tradition. The page for fairy tale on Wikipedia specifically says it is told orally. Alice is the work of one man and though it was told orally to Alice Liddell and her sisters, that version is not the same as the published version beloved around the world. Also, unlike Grimm, Anderson, and Perrault, it was not inspired by tales commonly told to children. Or, if it was, it was a spoof on the didactic literature being published for children in Victorian England. The Alice books may be considered classics in Children's Literature, but they are no more fairy tales than The Wizard of Oz or The Chronicles of Narnia.

It seems to me that there are a number of "tales" on this list that are actually just children's novels. Who wants to do the risky task of going through and deleting them, though? musicalmeg20 (talk) 09:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Religious Works
I think it would be good to discuss religious works and their listing in this article. I think that since there is a list of religious works here, they should not be listed on this article as well. Also, listing them here implies that they are not true (that they are fairy tales), which is impossible to prove/ disprove, regardless of the religion. Tnxman307 (talk) 16:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh come on! I'm about as fervent an atheist as it gets, and even I can see that calling the Bible a fairy tale is extremely POV. I don't particularly care if the sensibilities of Christians are offended, but including the Bible and other religious texts still in use on this list is an unacceptable violation of WP:NPOV. Van Tucky  talk 20:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I stopped reverting User:Largestill, per 3RR. Thanks for giving your input as well.Tnxman307 (talk) 20:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The Bible ought to be included. It's full of fairy tales. Completely meets the criteria. No matter how many people believe certain related events "really happened." Matt2h (talk) 22:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Unmanageably long
This list has become so long that Mozilla exhausts its patience twice, when I hit one of the sort arrows. How about splitting it up according to the Aarne-Thompson classification system‎? &mdash; Sebastian 05:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it is too long. Although I am not sure that all the stories here are 100% appropriate.  Maybe we could add another column for the AaTh?  Andrew Keenan Richardson 05:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Uncited works
I am removing works listed which have neither an article nor a citation, unless I am able to find a citation. I have removed these: ! Amun, and the ugly beast
 * 1030
 * Spain
 * Juan de Timoneda

! Big Claus and Little Claus
 * Danish
 * Hans Christian Andersen

! Garbancito
 * Spanish

! John, the soldier
 * 1859
 * Spain
 * Fernán Caballero
 * Cuentos populares andaluces

! Marcelino, bread and wine
 * 1953
 * Spanish
 * José María Sánchez-Silva

! The Red Hen
 * English

! The Sleeping Knight
 * Polish

! Tom Tom and his Apple Machine
 * 2007
 * English
 * Tenstone Yiptake
 * Marvellous tales for Marvellous Children

! The Walnut Baby ! 2010
 * Piglatin
 * Mr.Peanut
 * Nut stories and other tales.

Some stories I have not removed but have left with a citation. Andrew Keenan Richardson 04:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If you lot don't come up with a proper criteria about what a "fairy tale" is by around the 27thish...
...then I am going to ruthlessly purge a hell of a lot of crud from this list. And my criteria is going to be gut feeling. Egg Centric 02:39, 24 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My best guess is that stories that have no history beyond the "formal" publication are not fairy tales. For example, Alice in Wonderland and Bambi are both stories that were written by a novelist and have no history prior to that publication. On the other hand, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty have longer histories of being told orally through generations before being published. musicalmeg20 (talk) 02:19, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That sounds fine to me. Purge time? Egg Centric 15:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is roughly in line with the article lead: "Generally speaking this list includes only fantastic tales from oral folk traditions." It would be helpful to find suitable refs for the lead material, perhaps from the Fairy tale article? --Mirokado (talk) 20:07, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Go for it! I don't want to step on any toes, so you go for it first. My only tip is to look at the article for the "story" when in doubt to see what is said about the history of it. musicalmeg20 (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I have the Oxford Companion the Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes but have been busy (it's the holiday season!) and haven't had time to check each against his book. A quick scan shows that most in the list are in collections, and the few that aren't such as Charlotte de la Force's for sure are fairy tales. The lead needs a complete rewrite, but I can do that, or anyone else. What it takes is good scholarly sources, time spent reading and synthesizing the material, and time to write well. Will return here in January. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, Alice in Wonderland is called a fairy tale by Jack Zipes who is the preeminent scholar in the field. Bambi is not in his book, but would like to research that a bit more before pulling. What we do is check sources before threatening a purge. So that I don't have to spend the enormous amount of time that it will take to check every entry, can EggCentric please put together a list of what they think should be purged, with a list of sources they've checked? I'll then check my literature to see what I can come up with. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * We need to decide if this is a list of fairy tales, or a list of stories that have been called fairy tales. I have no objection to any particular criteria - I just want one established. Or perhaps we need two different lists... Egg Centric 15:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * What we do is follow the sources. According to the sources this list adheres to a similar list compiled by the preeminent scholar. Do you have any sources to offer that say anything to the contrary? Also, please provide a sublist of entries you think shouldn't be here, with rationale backed by reliable sources. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to do that until we can agree on criteria. Why are these chap's criteria better than others? Egg Centric 16:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Because this "chap" wrote the definitive scholarly book on the subject. These are Wiki pillars - material is verified with reliable sources and we use the best sources we can. It's that simple. If you don't want to make a list or find sources that's fine, but don't say "we" have to make a definition until "we" have read the scholarship. The sources drive us - we don't drive the sources. In the meantime, please don't go forward with the proposed purge. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I had/have no intention of purging unless and until everyone was/is satisfied. It is, I assume, clearly apparent that this is not an area that I know very much about. What is also clear is that this list is not fit for purpose because it isn't at all clear to a non-expert like myself what constitutes a fairy tale. It also seems that Fairy tale itself is using a definition of fairy tale different to that used by the experts like Zipes. As I have not been a student for quite some time I don't have access to any of the scholarly literature that I have found online (or at least without paying for it, which I must confess I don't plan on doing ) which I would need to rectify this situation myself, but I at least hope this thread highlights the need for someone to do it.
 * And that, to be honest, is all I can contribute at the present time, as you have given me enough information to convince me (with the aid of google) of the merits of your position. I will do a bit of research into whether the wikimedia foundation has considered buying access to journals though - this seems a rather good idea, and if it hasn't already been shot down I shall propose it. Egg Centric 16:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Local libraries are wonderful things. That's where I get all my books (free to be borrowed, read, and information disseminated), and in fact where the book I've cited came from. Although I might buy it - and yeah it is an area in which I have some knowledge. And no, I'm not a student. I've done a quick rewrite of the lead, but will rework it completely as soon as I have time. In the meantime I'm serious about putting up a list of those that seem doubtful so we can evaluate. Truthkeeper (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've done as far as the 'G's here by my arbitrary, in-my-head criteria (note: just listing questionable ones, not necessarily saying they ain't tales) - feel free to edit. I will do the rest later if not... Egg Centric 18:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a tricky question, as even scholarly writings are a bit open-ended on the exact definition of the fairy tale, and that definition (in my opinion) is somewhat different to commonly held views. There are certainly tales on the list that don't conform to my own view of what a fairy tale is - Cupid and Psyche springs to mind, for example, as belonging more to the myth genre - but that's neither here nor there. The new lead presents a definition that agrees with that set forth in my Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (by Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Pritchard) as "[N]arratives set in the distant past, of events that would be impossible in the real world. ...Though fairy stories have often been passed on by word of mouth, they frequently show the influence of literary treatment. Some have been composed by identifiable authors, while the best known of those whose origin is popular own their present established form to particular writers or collectors" (177). The element of magic sets fairy stories apart from other types of tale, the "literary treatment" from oral folk tradition. Kafka Liz (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * A couple of things - I put up a quick and nasty definition based on the first para of the first source at hand. I have other sources, Carpenter's book for instance, and The Riverside Antholody of Children's Literature which has a good definition, (pretty much what Liz put up above), so I think this can be worked on - a lot. Strangely Cupid and Psyche is consisered a fairy tale because it's not technically a myth and has elements in common with Beauty and the Beast. EggCentric, I've quickly scanned your list, and anything by Hans Christian Anderson such as Bluebeard or by the Grimm brothers by definition falls into the genre of fairy tales. I can give sources for the ones on your list if you'd like, but again ask that this not be something that needs to be rushed. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe Charles Perrault was also a compiler of fairy tales more than an author, thereby making the stories attributed to him fit. Maybe we can pay attention to the name of the "Collection" for these as well? It seems to me that a tale found in a collection titled "English Fairy Tales" or "The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales" would qualify as a fairy tale. Please everyone keep in mind that (1) folk tales and fairy tales seem to often fall under the same literary category, and (2) many of these tales will be ones we have not heard of personally, but that does not decrease their qualification. I don't have a lot of formal expertise on this, just gut feeling from having read many fairy tale books growing up. I'll keep checking in as this progresses. musicalmeg20 (talk) 10:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * EggCentric, I'm thoroughly confused now. Your page that you're working on, is the goal a list of the ones to keep or the ones to be deleted?? I can't figure it out. There's barely anything left of the parts you've gone through, so I feel I should assume the final list will be the ones to take off, except that you left a few in that section you've gone through that appear to be fairy tales... musicalmeg20 (talk) 10:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Er, it's a total mess, I didn't actually look at the results of my "handiwork" and I was trying to edit it with the textbox in one tab and the list in another, and don't even know what I've done. Still, I am surprised to hear that Bluebeard counts as a fairy tale - one of the "in my head" criteria I was using - freely admitting this is something that made sense to me intuitively and you two are now telling me (and I believe you) is nonsense - was that if the author is known, he/she must have intended it to be a fairy tale for it to be one. Is anything even approximately like that indeed the case? Egg Centric 18:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * EggCentric - we can't use the "in your head" criteria. We have to follow sources. I have sources (very good reliable scholarly sources) that verify Hans Christian Anderson's work is in the genre of fairy tales, that Alice in Wonderland (although some scholars place it in fantasy so it requires more research) and anything written by the Grimms is a fairy tale. Any chance of getting a straight unformatted list of the ones you want to take out? The question is not when, or how, or by whom the story was written; the issue is whether a scholar places it in specific genre. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I haven't been completely clear - what I am getting at is that I'm wholly unsuited to doing this. They say that conscious incompetence is the second stage of competence, I think I've done quite well in getting here that quickly but that's about as far as I will come any time soon... Can't I just be here for moral support? This is me. Look into my eyes and try to say no. Egg Centric 19:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry too, I didn't mean to come across heavy-handed. I can source everything if necessary. I do intend to write a new lead, very soon. I was serious about asking for a list, or maybe you could feed it to me piece by piece and I can verify whether or not a story should be in the list. I've got a couple of writing projects going at the moment and don't have a huge amount of time for this list is the problem for me. But I do have the sources - so we could work together. Very cute puppy, btw. Truthkeeper (talk) 19:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 11 years later. I got confused by the inclusion of Alice in Wonderland (the first title that caught my attention in a list of "fairy tales". It seems there is no consensus on what constitutes a fairy tale, and, though some attempts were seemingly made, this list is just a strange mix of tales and stories. It also seems someone found a loose definition that would suit all the titles already included (the one quoted in the initial paragraph of the article), which seems to me a poor justification of the pre-existing list.
 * Can't we just use the Wikipedia definition that's given in the Fairy Tale article, namely "a short story that belongs to the folklore genre", and clean this up? JBeens (talk) 11:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Moving on
If anyone here is interested on working on this list, I think it might be worthwhile to separate into separate tables for fairy tales by country - i.e, Germany, France, etc. I have sources that I can use to write a little blurb at the beginning of each table. Also we have really a lot of images for fairy tales, so a section could be added to each row for images - which could spruce up the tables a bit. With some work, this actually could be a really nice list. In the process we could pull out the ones that don't fit the criteria. This would be long-term project and I haven't a lot of time to help, but would be willing to write the prose when the tables are sorted out. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The list is sortable by region. 60.228.53.175 (talk) 02:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ Like the German de:Liste von Märchen, it makes sense to separate by country, as Truthkeeper88 suggests.
 * But under "Arabian Tales" it does not profit to give a partial list of 1001 nights stories, when a full List of stories within One Thousand and One Nights is already created.
 * Ditto for German: Grimms' Fairy Tales, Norwegian: Asbjornsen and Moe.
 * Russian: Afanasyev, Russian Fairy Tales can also be groomed into a full list.--Kiyoweap (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres
Maximilianklein (talk) 23:13, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

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External linking viol
Adding external links directly in the lists violates WP:ELLIST. I think it's fair to just purge them on sight.

Yes, they can be kept if they are inline-cited, but the onus should be on the person adding that link to go through the tedium, and unfair to dump the chore on others. What do other editors think on this? --Kiyoweap (talk) 21:28, 28 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Ok, I purged these direct external links, but URL themselves are mostly retained (I moved them into inline bare URL citations). I did delete a lot of these at first, especially ones that sounded commercial, but kept them down the list.


 * I also removed info on which library's copy was used and "via Internet Archive" verbiage which seemed superfluous.--Kiyoweap (talk) 07:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Consolidating references
There are a lot of duplicated citations in this article, contributing to its length. I will consolidate them (by which I mean make callouts refer to a single instance of each citation, as in other articles). I will do this one citation at a time, at least to start with, so that the differences are clear. This will probably take some time: normal editing for other reasons can continue uninterrupted. --Mirokado (talk) 19:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I've now done the first two. I'm thinking that since many of these callouts are preceded by the book title, it will be much better to link that directly to a list of citations in the references section. More later... --Mirokado (talk) 22:16, 1 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I realized they Irish tale volumes were all inconsistently changed, and I was doing the consolidating in my offline copy but I see you guys have already done that. I was actually going to sort and separate them into different tables for each country/language. But I'm not sure if I'm so resolute doing about that, now with intervening edits like indexing occuring.--Kiyoweap (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2020 (UTC).


 * On re-examination, I will separate the tables by country, some super-grouped into areas: Scandinavia, Baltic, Slavic, Iberia, East Asia. My copy will restore the Type column and bare external links.


 * The suggestion and the hatnote has been posted long enough for it.


 * The type probably should not be removed without discussion. The bare external links could be removed but I am probably not doing that sub-task in the next upload.--Kiyoweap (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)