What’s the Difference Between a Folktale and a Fairy Tale?
It’s complicated…
Is “Little Red Riding Hood” a folktale or a fairy tale?
Or is that a trick question?
Folktales and fairy tales both belong to the folklore genre of stories, but although they are closely related in the folkloric family tree, not all folktales are fairy tales, and not all fairy tales are folktales!
But where is the line drawn?
Some say that folktales are told orally, while fairy tales are written. Others will say that folktales don’t involve magic, but fairy tales do.
While both of these distinctions may appear in common parlance, neither are quite correct, in theory or in practice.
So, what’s the truth?
First, let’s consult the dictionary
According to Merriam-Webster, a folktale is a “characteristically anonymous, timeless, and placeless tale” that is shared among a culture of people through oral storytelling.
On the other hand, a fairy tale — yes, it’s two words, and no, I’m afraid we don’t know why — is defined as a story, often for children, that involves “fantastic forces and beings”, such as magical creatures.
You’ll notice that there’s nothing in the definition of folktale that excludes stories that involve magic!
There’s also nothing in the definition of fairy tale that insists on the story having been written down, and common sense tells us that stories of magic are far older than literacy.
Which leads to my next point…
Folktales and fairy tales aren’t mutually exclusive
Cinderella, for instance, is not only an animated Disney film.
It’s also the catch-all term for folktales about a mistreated young woman who receives magical help and remarkable prosperity.
This particular type of tale, in a myriad of forms, has been handed down through centuries and across cultures. It’s even been traced back to more than 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece, where the glass slipper was just a sandal.
It would be quite correct to say that stories of this type are both folktales and fairy tales.
So, that should settle things, right?
Not quite.
Not all fairy tales are folktales
Here’s where it becomes more complicated, and where some of the confusion arises.
As we’ve already established, folktales are timeless, anonymous stories shared through the oral tradition of a people.
In the case of some fairy tales, however, we know exactly who the author is, when the story was published, and all of the changes they made to put their own particular spin on it.
For instance, French author Charles Perrault published “Cendrillon” in 1697, which would soon be Anglicized as Cinderella in the English-speaking world.
Cinderella was published in Perrault’s collection of stories, Tales of Mother Goose — which, despite its name, was intended for grown-up audiences of the French aristocracy.
Although Perrault was inspired by existing folktales, his retelling contained several additions that were entirely unique to his own version.
These new story elements soon became iconic of the tale we know today: the pumpkin, the glass slipper, and the fairy godmother.
There’s fairy tales, and then there’s literary fairy tales
Although writing and publishing fairy tales doesn’t seem groundbreaking today, fairy tales emerged for the first time as a literary genre in the 17th century in Europe.
This new literary form began taking shape in the late Italian Renaissance, with authors such as Giambattista Basile and his collection of fairy tales Il Pentamerone.
Then, at the end of the 17th century, French writers like the previously mentioned Charles Perrault and the famed Madame d’Aulnoy were also pioneers in the new genre.
It was Madame d’Aulnoy who coined the term “fairy tale” in the title of her collection of stories, Les Contes des Fées, which means Fairy Tales in English.
(The term folktale, on the other hand, is derived from folklore, which first appeared in 1846.)
Later, in the 19th century, Danish author Hans Christian Andersen drew on themes from folklore in his original fairy tales for children and adults, such as The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen.
Meanwhile, in the same century in Scotland, author George MacDonald was writing longer fairy tales such as Phantastes and The Princess and the Goblin, which would become foundational in the fantasy genre.
These stories all became synonymous with the term fairy tale, but…
A fairy tale is a fairy tale, regardless of authorship
Some observers, both human and the artificially intelligent, have concluded that a fairy tale is always a written work of fiction, with a credited author.
This just isn’t the case in practice!
Just because the term “fairy tale” has its origin in the birth of a new literary genre doesn’t mean that it can only be applied to written stories.
Long before it was first published in 18th century England, “Jack and the Beanstalk” was both a fairy tale and a folktale, simply based on the tale’s magical story elements and the fact that it was passed down through generations for thousands of years.
It’s the magic that makes a fairy tale, well, a fairy tale.
So, what about Little Red Riding Hood?
Is it a fairy tale, or a folktale?
It’s both!
Although “Little Red Riding Hood” was published in the 17th century by Charles Perrault in his collection Tales of Mother Goose, the tale itself dates back hundreds of years in Europe, and a variant was included in the Brothers Grimm’s famous collection of folktales.
One of the earliest versions is traced back to peasants in the 11th century in modern-day Belgium, where it was recorded by Egbert of Liège, a cathedral schoolmaster.
It is a tale of the people — the folk — and a tale with magical elements. It’s a folktale and a fairy tale.
In summary…
- A folktale is a story that belongs to an oral tradition circulated among a culture of people.
- A folktale may or may not contain magical story elements, but a fairy tale always contains some form of magic.
- A fairy tale can be a retelling of an older story, or an original story that borrows themes and motifs from folklore.
- A fairy tale may or may not have a known author, but this is never the case with a folktale.
