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Moral: Don’t Judge Others by Their Looks (AKA Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover)

In The Frog Prince (German) a princess meets a frog, who turns into a handsome prince when the princess kisses him. (Though, in the original version of the Grimm story, he turns back after the princess throws him against a wall.) This is not the only story with this theme by any means. In East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Norway), a young girl is given to a big white bear, and while she’s initially uncomfortable with him, she learns that he is a handsome prince and finds a way to break his spell.

This teaches children that they should not judge people by their appearances, but should instead base their opinions on their personalities.

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Moral: Don’t Give Up on Your Dreams (AKA Perseverence)

There are so many fairy tales that involve a changing of stations. The Twelve Dancing Princesses (German) involves a young gardener becoming a prince because he persevered and found out the reason the princesses were wearing holes in their shoes. Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper (literally everywhere!) shows a girl who perseveres through the hardships her cruel step-mother and step-sisters put here through with grace, and her fairy godmother rewards her for it. She becomes the princess of the land. There are many, many more stories with this common theme in them: commoners become princes or princesses, people work hard and overcome their hardships to meet their end goals and life happily ever after.

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Moral: Be Careful Who You Tust (AKA Stranger Danger)

The most known story with this moral at the center of it is definitely Little Red Riding Hood (European). In the initial story, Little Red Riding Hood is actually eaten by the wolf, who she had met in the forest and told exactly how to get to her grandmother’s house. This is clearly a lesson for children reading the story: Be careful with who you trust, and don’t talk to strangers.

There are other stories with this theme in them: stories where tricksters get the better of unassuming people who can’t seem to believe that they would be duped by this random person (or being, as it often seems to be). While the trickster almost never gets away with their goals in the end, the moral still stands that you need to be careful around people you don’t know, and be careful with trusting those people as well.

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The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood vs. The Princess Mayblossom

Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale written originally by french writer Charles Perrault (with another version by the Grimm brothers). A king and queen have a baby, but they insult an evil fairy by not inviting her to the christening. Out of spite, the fairy curses the child to one day prick her finger on a spindle and die. The last fairy that still has yet to give the princess a gift says that the princess will only fall asleep, and will one day be woken by true loves kiss. When she’s woken, a hundred years have passed and she lives in secret in the woods with the prince coming to visit her every day. She has two children, and when the prince’s cruel ogress-mother dies, he and Sleeping Beauty become king and queen.

The Princess Mayblossom was written by a french author as well, Madame d’Aulnoy. An evil fairy is spurned as a nursemaid for a princess, and then is not invited to the christening. She curses the child to be unlucky until she is twenty years old. The last fairy to give her gift says that after her twentieth birthday, however, she will be extremely happy. The princess is locked in a tower, until a few days before her twentieth birthday, when suitors start arriving. She manipulates her ladies in waiting to let her peer through a small pinhole in the wall, where she sees and falls in love with the ambassador of a prince. Once she’s freed, she runs away with the ambassador who turns out to be a terrible person, and much more unluckiness befalls the princess. The fairy is eventually saved by the last fairy to give her gift, and falls in love with the handsome prince.

While these two stories do have some immeadiate and obvious similarities, what happens after the princesses are cursed is quite different. In Sleeping Beauty, the princess comes across a spindle quite by accident. In The Princess Mayblossom, however, her unluckiness and unhapiness is somewhat of a self-fullfilling propechy. How could the princess not be unlucky and unhappy after being forced to live in a tower for close to twenty years? Both have happy endings, but both princesses have to go through some hardships to get there.

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Devious Princesses - Sometimes the princesses in fairy tales can be quite sly and manipulative in their ways!

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (German) - The twelve princesses sneak out at night to an ancient castle, where they use special elixirs on princes to put them into a sleep-waking state so they can dance with them all night.

The Princess Mayblossom (French) - Princess Mayblossom is locked in a tower until her twentieth birthday, but manipulates her ladies maids to let her look out a tiny hole in the wall. This inevitably leads to some bad stuff happening to the princess.

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Magical Objects

The Bronze Ring (Middle East or Central Asia) - There is a bronze ring that grants wishes because there is a genie living inside of it.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (German) - Using a laurel from a magical bush, a boy turns invisible.

Soria Moria Castle (Norway) - There’s a magical ring that will let the hero go “there and back again by wishing.”

The Princess Mayblossom (French) - When she runs away, Princess Mayblossom steals a handkerchief from her mother that can turn her invisible.

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Personifications of Nature

Snowmaiden (Russian) - The Snow Maiden’s mother is Spring, and her father is Frost.

Vasilissa the Wise and Baba Yaga (Russian) - On her way to Baba Yaga’s house, Vasilissa sees three men on horses rush past her: the one in red brings the sunrise, the one in yellow brings the light of the day, and the one in black brings the night time.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Norway) - To find her prince at the palace that is east of the sun and west of the moon, a girl asks the winds of each direction, and ends up hitching a ride to the palace with the North Wind.

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Commonly used numbers - some numbers seem to pop up in a number of fairy tales; specifically the numbers three.

The Three Sillies (English) Cap-O-Rushes (English) - the king has three daughters. The Story of the Three Little Pigs (English) Fenist the Falcon (Russian) - To find her true love, Fenist, again, Marushka must walk to the ends of the earth and wear out three pairs of iron shoes, three irons staffs and eat three stone loaves. There are also three helpful Baba Yaga, and the heroine is the youngest of three daughters. The Flying Ship (Russian) - The hero of the tale is one of three brothers. The Rosy Apple and the Golden Bowl (Russian) - Tania is the youngest of three sisters.

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Transformation into/from Animals

The Cricket (Chinese) - The main characters son slips into a coma and takes control of a cricket for a year, to help his father gets money from winning cricket fighting contests.

The Waiting Maid’s Parrot (Chinese) - A maid’s talking parrot is actually her sister from her past life. They were both parrots, but the maid was reincarnated as a woman.

Suited to be a Fish (Chinese) - a business man falls into a coma, during which time he is living as fish. He’s on the verge of death the entire time, until the fish is killed, and the business man wakes up. He goes to the place where the fish was going to be served, and told his whole story. Disgusted, the cooks throw away the meal, on learning that this business man seems to have been the fish.

Fenist the Falcon (Russian) - A handsome young man becomes a falcon during the day. He is separated from his love when he’s caught by a queen and forced to marry her.

The Frog Princess (Russian) - A princess was turned into a frog by her father. As a frog, she catches a princes arrow and must marry him. Eventually, she turns back into a beautiful princess, after the prince has gone on a journey to save her.

The Well of the World’s End (English) - A frog helps a girl get water from the well using a sieve, on the condition that she does whatever he asks. He follows her home and asks her to hold and feed him. In the morning, he asks the girl to chop off his head, which she does with regret. But the frog was actually a prince cursed by a witch.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Norway) - A prince is cursed by his step-mother to be a bear by day, and a man by night. A girl eventually breaks his curse and becomes his wife.

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(Step)Mother and Daughter Relationships

A common theme in fairy tales seems to be mothers--oftentimes step-mothers--being jealous of their daughters. A lot of times, this leads to the mother attempting to kill the daughter, though it never seems to end well for the mother.

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree (Celtic) - A queen, Gold-Tree asks a trout who the most beautiful queen in the world is, and the trout says Silver-Tree, her daughter. Gold-Tree goes to some lengths to kill her daughter, believing she’s succeeded two times, before she is poisoned by Silver-Tree’s sister-wife (yes, her sister-wife!).

The Rose-Tree (English) - A step-mother kills her step-daughter, who gets revenge as a bird by dropping a millstone on her head.

Vasilissa the Wise and Baba Yaga (Russian) - Much like Cinderella, Vasilissa has a cruel step-mother and step-sisters who treat her like a servant. They get theirs in the end though: a skull with a candle inside that Vasilissa took from Baba Yaga’s home turns them to ashes.

The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen (Irish) - Not daughters, but three princes who are locked in a tower have a wicked step-mother who sends them on a quest that she believes they will never return from. Jokes on her, though. They return and she throws herself off of a tower.

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Seeing into the Future

The Story of Deirdre (Celtic) - There’s a soothsayer, who tells a man that his daughter will cause the greatest amount of blood shed Ireland has ever seen.

The Cricket (Chinese) - A man’s wife visits a fortune-teller who tells her where her husband needs to go to catch a cricket. Crickets are very important as they are made to fight each other.

Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess (France) - A king seeks out a fairy to tell him how to win a princess. She tells him how to, and also tells him that they will have a son, who will be very happy until he learns just how large his nose is. Of course, this all comes to pass, and the princes nose really is quite enormous.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (German) - A young man has prophetic dreams where a beautiful woman appears before him and tells him to go to the castle, where he will marry a princess. This all comes to pass.

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Mysterious Maidens

Connla and the Fairy Maiden (Celtic) - a mysterious fairy maiden appears and steals Connla away from his father.

The Shepherd of Myddvai (Celtic) - three mysterious maidens appear from the sea in front of the shepherd. One promises to marry him, and says she will be as good as any earthly wife, unless he strikes her three times without cause. However, she considers his tapping her on the shoulder as striking her, and leaves him after the third time.

Sea Prince (Chinese) - A man meets a woman who says she works for the Sea Prince. She hears the Sea Prince coming, and must leave. The man then sees a snake that traps him to a tree. He poisons the snake, and kills it, but the snake was actually the woman, who was a serpent spirit.

A Girl in Green (Chinese) - A mysterious woman visits a student in his room each night. One night, the girl says she feels her death coming, and that she is restless and their relationship must end. Sung, the man, tells her not to worry, but she tells him to keep an eye on her until she’s over the wall. She rounds a corner and Sung hears a shout. But when he gets there, there is only a green bee caught by a spider. He saves the green bee from the spider, and when she is better leaves, ending the relationship.

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Talking Animals

Conall Yellowclaw (Celtic) - There is an entire troop of bards consisting of cats!

The Country of the Mice (Tibetan) - A talking leader of the mice makes trade deals with the Tibetan king, and eventually wins a war for them.

The Animals’s Revenge (Russian) - A group of animals gets revenge on a trickter fox by convincing him to put his tail into a hole in a frozen lake to catch fish.

The Bronze Ring (Middle East or Central Asia) - A delegation of talking mice find the bronze ring for the man who’d had it stolen from him.

Jack and his Golden Snuff-Box (English) - When Jack is tricked out of the castle he wished for, some very helpful animals, including the Mouse King, help to get it back.

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Witches

The Horned Women (Celtic) - 12 horned witches take a over a woman’s home, and tell her to make things for them. When they leave for a short while, the woman uses the things she made for the witches to keep them out.

Vasilissa the Wise and Baba Yaga (Russian) - Baba Yaga is a witch who tries to keep Vasilissa forever. She flies around in a mortar and steers with a pestle.

Fenist the Falcon (Russian) - There are three Baba Yaga sisters in this tale, but they are actually very helpful, and give the heroine the objects that help her save her true love.

The Princess Mayblossom (French) - The evil fairy witch Caraboosa curses the princess because her parents shunned her as a nursemaid and didn’t invite her to the christening.

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Faeries and Trickters

The Field of Boliauns (Celtic) - Tom Fitzpatrick meets a “Lepracaun” that says he will show him a crock of gold. Tom ties his red garter over the boliaun that has the pot of gold, then runs back for a spade. When he returns, the Lepracaun has removed the garter, and Tom is left looking at a large field of Boliauns.

Guleesh (Celtic) - Guleesh meets some fairies who take him across the ocean, where they steal a princess from her wedding. Guleesh then steals her from the fairies, and they curse her to be mute. Eventually, Guleesh learns that the cure was outside his house the whole time!

Tom Tit Tot (English) - A woman’s mother accidentally tells a king that her daughter can weave five skeins each day, and the king says that as long as she does, he will marry her, and not have her killed. A small, strange fellow appears, and says that he will weave the skeins, but she must guess his name by the final night, and if she can’t, she‘ll belong to him. On the last night, she overhears some guards talking about a small little creature, and learns his name. In the end, she out-tricked the trickster. This story is very evidentally inspired by Rumpelstiltskin.

Jack and his Golden Snuff-Box (English) - A boy’s father gives him a snuff-box, but tells him not to open it until he’s near his death. Of course, he opens it and three little red men come out, and grant Jack’s wishes. They then trick him, and cause him to go on a long quest to get the castle he had wished for back.

The Animals’ Revenge (Russian) - A sly fox tricks other animals into giving her food. They get their revenge by telling her if she places her tail in a frozen lake and repeats a phrase, she’ll catch lots of fish.

The Master Thief (Norway) - The title character is quite a trickster, as evidenced by his title of being the master thief.

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Descriptions of Ladies

There’s a certain way of describing a woman’s beauty that is undeniably “fairy tale.” Often, certain body parts of facial features are compared to something else. White as snow, red as a rose, etc., etc.

The Rose-Tree (English) - “The girl was as white as milk, and her lips were like cherries. Her hair was like golden silk, and it hung to the ground.

Binnorie (English) - “...with her cherry cheeks and golden hair...”

Guleesh (Celtic) - “The rose and lily were fighting in her face, and one could not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and hands were like the lime, her mouth as red as a strawberry when it is ripe, her foot was as small and as light as another one‘s hand, her form was smooth and slender, and her hair was falling down from her head in buckles of gold.“

The Story of Deirdre (Celtic) - “Deidre grew like the white sapling, straight and trim as the rash on the moss.”

The Wooing of Olwen (Celtic) - “More golden was her hair than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain. Brighter were her glances than those of a falcon; her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheek redder than the reddest roses.“

Snowmaiden (Russian) - “Her skin was whiter than the driven snow,her fair hair gleamed with a touch of ash or silver birch, her eyes were bluer than the frosty sapphire sky.”

The Rosy Apple and the Golden Bowl (Russian) - “She was as lovely as the flowers in spring, her eyes were as radiant as the rays of the sun, her face was as fair as the sky at dawn, and the tears rolling down her cheeks were like the purest pearls.”

The Little Mermaid (Danish) - “Her skin was as clear and as soft as a rose petal, her eyes as blue as the deepest sea.”

The Princess Mayblossom (French) - “The Princess had been named Mayblossom, because she was as fresh and blooming as Spring itself, and she grew up tall and beautiful, and everything she did and said was charming.”

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Cinderella compared to Cap-O-Rushes

Cinderella is a story that we all know. Almost every one of us has watched the Disney cartoon. The original story is much different from the Disney-fied version though. The stepsisters actually cut off parts of their feet to try to fit into the slipper!

Cap-O-Rushes is an English fairy tale. A king has three daughters, and he asks how my they all him. When he gets to the third daughter, she says she loves him as much as meat loves salt. The king is furious and says that she doesn’t really love him. The girl leaves the castle, and becomes a maid at another castle. She disguises herself by placing a bunch of rushes on her head, and goes by the name Cap-O-Rushes. A ball is held, and each night she dresses nicely and dances with the prince. The prince falls in love with her, and when she finally reveals herself, they are married. At the wedding, her father attends. The feast has unsalted meat, and when the king eats it, he realizes that meat without salt is terrible. He cries that he knows now how much his third daughter loves him, and wishes he could see her again. The princess then reveals herself to her father.

While the stories might seem extremely different, there are some similar themes used: Both have a ball that goes for several nights. Both ladies attend the balls in disguise, where they dance with the prince and then mysteriously dissapear. The princes fall in love with them, and vows to find her, and then both ladies marry their princes.

Cap-O-Rushes was written by Joseph Jacobs as another addition to the various cultural versions of Cinderella. So while some aspects of the story are very different, the main themes stay the same.

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