January 2026 List of the Month: Favorite Fairy Tales

Charming, disturbing, archetypal. There are many things that can be said about the stories we call fairy-tales. Our January 2026 List of the Month is devoted to our Favorite Fairy Tales, including collections, individual retellings, and fiction based on known fairy-tales. For the purpose of this list, this does not include fiction which has fairy-tale trappings (castles, princesses, etc), but is wholly original.

Each member may add fifteen titles, and if adding fiction, is encouraged to include a note indicating what story is being retold/adapted. Please only downvote titles which do not fit the theme.

For a complete list of topics covered so far in our project, please see the new section for Lists of the Month on the Zeitgeist page

We would welcome suggestions for future lists. Please add them here, and we will keep them in mind, going forward.

>1 AbigailAdams26: This is going to be way, way too technical, and you may not be able to answer it. That's fair. But I'm a folklorist. So: How are we to deal with folktales that have the same Aarne-Thompson spectrum but are told in different ways -- e.g. Charles Perrault's prettified French version of Cinderella versus the violent Grimm Brothers version? Or the various Beauty and the Beast complex of tales, and partial relatives like Asbjornsen and Moe's "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" (which is my personal favorite folktale).

For that matter, it's not clear to me whether this definition would include Hans Christian Andersen. (Personally, I don't consider his work to be fairy tales -- at least, they're not folktales -- but that's certainly not something about which people disagree.)

I concede that I probably should go soak my head, but I can't do this properly without further guidance.

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.

If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
Albert Einstein

>1 AbigailAdams26:

Would this include myth and myth re-tellings?

>2 waltzmn: So I don't know that I'm going to have a satisfactory answer for you, but I am not dismayed by your questions, since I was expecting them, having had many discussions over the years of what fairy-tales are vs folk-tales, and so on.

It's interesting that you'd exclude Andersen, as I would classify a greater number of his famous stories as fairy-tales, as compared to Grimm. A number are original creations, tales of wonder not based on any specific folkloric source (that we know of), or only partially based on folkloric elements. Of course, I think others (including one of my favorites, The Wild Swans) are more properly folktale retellings.

In any case, I tend to view "fairy-tales" as stories of wonder which sometimes have folkloric antecedents and sometimes don't, but always have a literary overlay, and character. But for the purposes of the list, I think it's ok to include anything traditionally viewed as a fairy-tale, as well as variants of those same stories from other cultures, which may be less literary and more folk. I hope this very un-scholarly answer helps somewhat! :)

>4 lilithcat: I would say no, as I consider myth a related but separate area from fairy-tales. Which isn't to say that a number of myths don't come to us through literary sources, such as Ovid. But that is really beyond what I was envisioning for the list.

>6 AbigailAdams26:

Thanks for the clarification! Maybe a list for some other time.

The fantasies of George MacDonald were called "fairy tales" when first published in the 19th century, but I am not listing them as they are "wholly original." I also think that Tolkien's Smith of Wooton Major qualifies as well as Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu does--which is to say, not. Even though my review calls the former (first composed in an effort a preface for MacDonald's The Golden Key) "unoriginal in the best possible way for a modern fairy-tale," I think both are too novel to qualify.

I suppose Wilde's The Selfish Giant is out as well.

>5 AbigailAdams26: It's interesting that you'd exclude Andersen, as I would classify a greater number of his famous stories as fairy-tales, as compared to Grimm. A number are original creations, tales of wonder not based on any specific folkloric source (that we know of), or only partially based on folkloric elements. Of course, I think others (including one of my favorites, The Wild Swans) are more properly folktale retellings.

So your answer basically "A fairy tale is anything that feels like a fairy tale." Mine is different: A fairy tale is anything that feels like a fairy tale and derives from oral tradition.

Your definition is reasonable (we could define it precisely if needed); there is unquestionably a genre that consists of "things that feel like fairy tales." (And I agree with your exclusion of myth, FWIW. Most myths are not fairy tale-like.) It's simply that it doesn't resonate for me, because of all the time I've spent deliberately separating folktales from imitations. My brain doesn't work in those terms. Hence my response to Andersen: With the possible exception of "The Ugly Duckling," which everyone knows and almost everyone learns from sources other than Andersen, his stories are still literary, not folk. Including even "The Little Mermaid" and "The Snow Queen."

I suppose that also resolves the problem of different versions of the telling. If origins are not taken into account, then the Perrault and Grimm "Cinderellas" are different tales and one can pick the version one wants.

I think I will pass, because a system that doesn't distinguish between folktale and folktale-like is uninteresting to me (even though I like many of the pieces in the latter category, such as >8 paradoxosalpha:'s suggestion of Smith of Wooton Major, which, now that I'm old enough to understand it, is one of my favorite stories). For me, there is a reliability problem about non-folktales; they may not stand up over time. But your clarification does, I think, define what you mean.

>9 waltzmn: FWIW, I do think that Abigail's definition is the only possible for a crowd-sourced list created by non-professionals.

>10 anglemark: I assume that that message was supposed to read, "FWIW, I do think that Abigail's definition is the only one possible for a crowd-sourced list created by non-professionals" (or similar)?

If my emendation is correct, I will agree that it's an easier classification. I don't think it impossible to distinguish folktale from modern fairy tale -- you can look at the book you got it from. But it takes more thought and effort.

The interesting question -- and I make no claim to know the answer -- is which of the non-folkloric tales achieve traditional status. There are some traits that tend to be fatal (and a lot of modern fairy tales have those traits; don't ask me why), but I can't point to many traits that guarantee survival.

>11 waltzmn:

Collodi's Pinocchio seems to have "achieved traditional status."

>11 waltzmn: I assume that that message was supposed to read, "FWIW, I do think that Abigail's definition is the only one possible for a crowd-sourced list created by non-professionals" (or similar)?

Yes. My native Swedish shining through there. (In Swedish, the "one" is superfluous in that construct.)

>12 paradoxosalpha: Collodi's, or Disney's? I agree that almost everyone knows a version of the story, but as The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales says (p. 385), most modern renditions are abridgements, and "the one that dominates world-wide perceptions of Pinocchio, even after 50 years, is Walt Disney's animated interpretation. While countless children have loved it for itself, it bears little resemblance to Collodi's Pinocchio,; the story is fundamentally altered, the mood softened and Hollywoodized, and the puppet deprived of his personality. Disney is sentimental where Collodi is uncompromising, challenging, and exhilarating."

Just for perspective, the first three other folklore dictionaries I checked don't mention Pinocchio at all. I really do think the tale is a Disney tale, not a folktale.

Or take the Pied Piper of Hamelin (which I thought of because it's right next to Pinocchio in the books :-). Would we know that without Robert Browning? I doubt it. The moral of the Pied Piper is a clear folktale motif; no problems there. But the story comes to most of us via print.

>14 waltzmn: Do you suppose Del Toro used Disney as his basis, or Collodi?

When I was little, I read a highly-abridged Collodi translation in an anthology that included Mother Goose and more than a few fairy tales.

>15 paradoxosalpha: Do you suppose Del Toro used Disney as his basis, or Collodi?

I honestly don't know; my knowledge of movies is very slight. My guess would be, since it appears to be an Italian production, that it's Collodi. But that is only a guess.

FWIW, I have no objection to fairy tale anthologies; my own first exposure was probably The Blue Fairy Book. On the other hand, folklore references are vociferous in their condemnation of Andrew Lang's decision to include "A Voyage to Lilliput." Not so much, I think, because it's by Jonathan Swift as because it so clearly doesn't fit the genre of the others.

>14 waltzmn:

I don't suppose that Disney had any more impact on the reception of Pinnochio than on that of Snow White.

>17 paradoxosalpha: Ugh. If anything, I'd say it had more on "Snow White." E.g. the complete Disnification of the dwarfs, who are very different in the original.

>13 anglemark: The original sentence seemed fine to me and I don't see how omitting the "one" changes its meaning

Do these count?

the Last Unicorn, Peter S, Beagle fantasy but also like Eld, reads like a fairy tale
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia A. McKillip, fantasy? but reads like a fairy tale
Fairy Tale, Raymond E. Feist, modern times, very scary.

>20 Gallishaw: Note that no actual definition of fairy tales was offered, other than mine which is not being accepted. :-) (Which is fair; mine was a folklorist/historical definition, and the goal here seems to be more of a type definition.) So you can include what you like. You might want to comment on each to explain why you think it fairy tale-like.

>20 Gallishaw: No, unfortunately I don't think those would qualify. Please note this part of the original post: "For the purpose of this list, this does not include fiction which has fairy-tale trappings (castles, princesses, etc), but is wholly original." Fantasy that reads like a fairy-tale, but isn't actually a retelling of a known fairy-tale is exactly what was meant, in this part of the parameters established.

>22 AbigailAdams26:

Now you've confused me, because I understood you to think that Hans Christian Anderson counted as an author of fairy tales. But his tales are original; that's why I would not count them.

This leaves aside the teaching aspect of fairy tales -- which is one distinction from "general" folktales, which may simply be amusing, or from folktales which are or purport to be history, which are sort of semi-educational.

>23 waltzmn: My apologies for any confusion.

Yes, your understanding is correct, regarding Hans Christian Andersen. Because many of his stories are original, I consider him even more of a fairy-tale creator than the Brothers Grimm, whose stories, while they have a literary layer, were mostly taken from folklore.

I distinguish between fairy-tales and folk tales, with the former having a more literary character to them. They can be based upon folktales, and often are, but not always.

>24 AbigailAdams26:

OK, I'm being irritating, and should probably just give up and let people define whatever they way -- but this still involves a complication, because magic, and fairies, and such, are not inherent to fairy tales. Oh, they are often used, just as magic is often used in medieval romances and in fantasy -- but often the magic is a shortcut: It lets you get to the moral lesson more quickly. It has no real necessity.

Take the very widely known tale that Charles Perrault called "Donkeyskin" and Katharine M. Briggs called "Catskin." An old king's wife, as she dies, extracts from him a promise that he will never marry another woman unless she is as beautiful, or as virtuous, or as something-or-other, as the old queen. The king, seeing that their daughter meets the condition, wants to marry the daughter. After trying to hold him off, e.g. by setting conditions, and failing, she dresses herself in a pauper's garment of a donkey skin/coat of cats' furs/etc. and flees his court. A prince, observing her at work, falls in love with her, and once he discovers she is a princess, he marries her (and kills the old king and inherits his kingdom).

Now in Perrault's version, the princess gets advice, but not much else, from a fairy godmother. In other versions, there isn't even a fairy godmother. Certainly no magic. Yet I've never heard anyone deny that it's a fairy tale.

Or take The Blue Fairy Book, the first of the series that surely is the standard for "fairy tales" in English. Most of the tales in it are tales of magic. But "Bluebeard" certainly isn't; it's just a scary tale with a warning. "The Story of the Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was" involves magic (ghostly creatures) in Lang's telling, but other versions don't. The story of Dick Whittington involves no magic, unless it's the Bow Bells sounding different words to Whittington than the rest of the world.

I think I remember someone once defining a fairy tale as anything that could begin "Once upon a time." I don't think that's enough; it needs the teaching aspect. But the lesson can be very subtle indeed.

And then there is the distinction in places between "Faërie" and "Elfland." But that one really is one that gets academic.