Introduction:
The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an
interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to
reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with
its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest
form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the
world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.
It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the
law of mental growth; it is the naive activity of the young imagination
of the race, untrammeled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the
fact.