Fairy Tales NOT fables

(Original Italian draft Fiabe NON Favole)

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The words “fable” and “fairytale” are often used as synonyms. They most certainly are not.

I hold nothing against fables, but I have nothing to say about them.

Fables teach about morals and virtue.

A young shepherd used to play cry wolf.

When the wolf actually came, the shepherd boy tried to cry for help, but nobody would listen, and the wolf ate him.

The moral is: he who always lies won’t be heard when he’s telling the truth.

They teach what’s right and what’s wrong, through animals that behave like humans.

The grasshopper would do nothing but sing the whole summer, while the ant was hard at work storing food in its hill.

When winter came and the crops were dry, the hungry grasshopper came to the ant for help.

The ant said “I have so much food because I worked all summer, what were you doing back then?”

“I sang”

“Well you should dance now”

                                                

Fables belong to reason.

Everything they speak of has a purpose, clear and well understandable, that’s all I have to say.

Fairy Tales speak of princes, princesses, witches and spells.

They narrate events that happened who knows where and who knows when.

Some react with anger, they see chauvinism in princesses getting married, animal cruelty in skinned wolves, ignorance in old ladies being hunted as witches.

But that’s not the case.

Fairy tales do NOT belong to reason.

They simply don’t feature every day common sense.

In this blog I only write about classic fairy tales.