2006-08-18 00:22:43 · 8 answers · asked by Fairy 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Mythology & Folklore
They were used to teach a moralstic story. I got some quite good answers to a similar question about who had read the originals, with sex, gore, destruction. They were illustrations to scare children straight, to follow the rules. They usually ended with the evil doers getting their just reward, but not always.
Sometimes the wolf won.....
2006-08-18 01:50:02 · answer #1 · answered by guhralfromhell 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
people, long ago, could not just go over to a friends house and express to them what was really going on in their families (all of the abuse they were suffering at the hands of others in the family, etc..) so they made up, what we now call fairy tales, to mask the desperation and the horrific struggles that they went through. When these poor people told their "stories," something they offered as "made up fairy tales" they could finally tell others part of their stories, while not having to suffer the dire consequences that went along with "telling" (revealing) others of their sheer torment of mental and physical abuse. In a sense, a fairy tale can be very literal, the characters are more or less just changed, to protect the innocent/or guilty as may be the case... some things are not to be taken literal of course, but if you change a few things around, you can really get the picture of what was going on with our ancestors.
2006-08-18 05:13:06 · answer #2 · answered by amber 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most fairy tales were not originally for children--they were folk tales for adults. That's why they sometimes have some very scary themes. And many have been cleaned up. In the original Frog Prince, the Princess had to share her bed with the frog, and I don't mean just sitting him on top of the covers. In Beauty and the Beast, the Beauty had 2 older sisters who went to find their father first, and they refused to stay with the Beast. And in Sleeping Beauty, the Prince didn't just kiss her, he raped her.
2006-08-18 03:49:02 · answer #3 · answered by cross-stitch kelly 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most were cautionary tales used to illustrate points of warning against breaking cultural taboo's.
2006-08-18 01:24:24 · answer #4 · answered by IndyT- For Da Ben Dan 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
storys about Fairys most of the original childrens storys have fairys or fairy Godmothers in them
2006-08-18 00:39:12 · answer #5 · answered by Mim 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
They're disguised tales to make people understand things, they have moralistic ends to show how not to behave.
2006-08-18 00:28:08 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
People think they see something and tell people about it
2006-08-18 00:30:31 · answer #7 · answered by owlpostforever 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they were meant to explain the unknown
2006-08-18 10:08:17 · answer #8 · answered by ericman315 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋