Mirror mirror on the wall, what's your favourite fairy tale?

        A fairy tale can be defined as a type of short stories that usually features folkloric and fantasy characters such as fairies, dwarves, giants, mermaids and gnomes. A very important literature genre, fairy tales exists in all cultures worldwide. Distinguishable from folktales, the author of fairy tales is known and they are written down, while folktales are spread by word of mouth and have no author. In comparison to legends and myths the time and place where it happens are not defined.

       It was not until 17th century that folktales were written down and preserved for future generation. Initially,adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children. Literary fairy tales were featured in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries fairy tales became associated with children's literature.

       Good and evil in fairy tales is usually clearly separated, often in good and evil characters. In the fairy tale Snow White, the good character is clearly Snow White while the bad character is her step mother, the queen. The content of fairy tales usually has a hero at the center and a conflict between good and evil, natural  and supernatural forces.At the end, good is rewarded, and bad is punished.

       The fairy tale choose to discussed about is Cinderella. Cinderella was written by the Brothers Grimm, they are probably the best known story tellers in the world.

The Brothers Grimm
(credit to www.worldoftales.com)

         Cinderella is about a girl who lives with her step sister and two step sisters. Her life with them was horrible. She was treated very badly, she had to do all the housework and treated as a maid or maybe worse than that. She was not allowed to go to the ball at the castle. She was given the chance to go by a fairy godmother, Cinderella was given a nice dress and nice pair of shoes. She was then taken to the ball by a carriage made from pumpkin and a horse that was transformed form a mouse to become a horse. Cinderella was given a warning that everything would turn to normal when clock strikes 12 a.m.

Walt Disney's Cinderella (credit to www.fanpop.com)

        At the ball, Cinderella danced with the prince, and she had a lot of fun there. She had so much fun until she barely made it out of the ballroom in time, but she left one her shoe at the stairs of the castle. The prince later found that shoe. He then commanded to find who can fit her feet into the shoe, the prince will marry her. He would then take the shoe all around the kingdom to find whoever would that shoe. Finally the prince would find Cinderella and her feet fits the shoe perfectly and the prince marries Cinderella.

Little Red Riding Hood (credit to cakechooser.com)

        There is another story that is also interesting that we would like to share that is Little Red Ridding Hood. This story was also written by The Brothers Grimm. This story resolves around a little girl who wears a red hood or cloak and walks trough the forest to send food to her grandmother. There is a wolf stalking her in the woods. The wolf asked her, where is she going and she naively answered she is going to her grandmother's house. The wolf suggested to her to pick some flowers for her grandmother which she does.


        The wolf then goes to her grandmothers house and ate her, and the wolf pretended to her her grandmother. When she arrives at her grandmothers house, she realized that something was different about her grandmother. She asked the wolf several questions before she end up being eaten. A lumberjack however comes to the rescue with his axe cuts open the wolf while the wolf is asleep. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerges unharmed. They later fills up the wolf's stomach with stone, and the wolf eventually dies because of the stones.