The web will provide all kinds of information on this subject but scholars who dived a bit deeper will inevitably lead to one conclusion: the oldest known fables come from East Asia with Panchatantra as an example with more than two thousand years of age and the oldest fairy tales (in today's sense) come from France in the 17th century with roots in Italy, where Straparola's The Pleasant Nights (the 15th century) and Basile'a Pentamerone (the 16th century) made the base for French authors.
Fables and Fairy Tales; What's the Difference?
The terms 'fables' and 'fairy tales' are often used interchangeably but they are not the same. This article will show you the main differences between fables and fairy tales.
So you wanna know more about fables and fairy tales? What are their basic characteristics? What do they share and where are the main differences? While most people don't really care, others know that each literary form has its own structure, own set of rules, and - not last, and definitely not least - its own goals.
Fairy tales and fables are related, of course, and we tend to connect both with children. We expect both in colorful books and adapted to cartoons. Well, such thinking soon leads us to slippery terrain. I believe the majority of people can point at the morals of fables and fairy tales, and maybe also note the difference in their lengths, yet there is much much more, and here is a chance to make things straight once and for all.
Or at least until a better article pops up. So here is a list of 10 differences between fairy tales and fables!
1. Origin
2. Goal
This difference is easy to spot if you have a bit of background in literary history. Fables are supposed to be written to educate kids of the kings with clear morals and a few entertaining notes to be more attractive to present and easier to digest. Essentially they are educational tools from the very beginning and they still are.
Fairy tales, on the other hand, were written told, and performed (performance of fairy tales in front of guests was a big deal) for entertainment only. First morals to the fairy tales were added with obvious irony, even sarcasm, and only Jacob and William Grimm started looking at them as a chance to instill some moral values in the audience, which brings us to the next difference.
3. Audience
We already stated that fables were written for teaching kids. Only later grown-ups realized their universal appeal. With fairy tales, it was vice versa. They aimed at a spoiled adult audience which was very hard to impress. Unbelievable plots (poor boys become kings, for instance) with the addition of magic were mixed with rough and saucy humor, mostly inappropriate not only for kids but for most decent people as well.
Only later, Grimms played an important part here too, the focus of fairy tales changed to younger audiences, and the existing tales were heavily censored.
4. Magic
Yes, magic is one of the major differences between fables and fairy tales. Even the word fairy suggests the presence of supernatural beings and happenings. But fables are a completely different kind of beast. If we forget the talking animals who are the most common protagonists, the action is very down-to-earth. Fables are realistic and fairy tales are imaginary.
5. Message
Each fable or fairy tale carries a specific message but generally, we can make two groups of messages. One for fables and one for fairy tales. Fairy tales mostly tell us how the world could be and fables are telling how the world is.
6. Number of characters
Fairy tales have typically more characters than fables. For a fairy tale, it's normal to have a dozen, even ten or more characters among which many play only supporting roles. At fables it's different. We typically have only two or three characters. And all the roles are crucial.
7. Development of characters
The development of characters is the essence of fairy tales. Their characters make mistakes and learn from them. They make friends and enemies by the way and most of them learn too.
Characters in fables can be reduced to pure functions. Each one starts with a set of skills and after an interaction with another character with a different set of skills something happens but nobody really changes. A fox is still a fox and a crow is still a crow. None of them will ever become a prince or a princess.
Plot
A typical fairy tale consists of an introduction, several scenes, and a grand finale, typically with the main opponent destroyed, followed by a celebration.
A fable is mostly one scene only. Two ideas clash and one wins. That's that.
9. Settings
Fairy tales typically have colorful settings which can play important roles in plots as well. Think about a glass mountain or a dark wood. There are huts and caves and castles and all sorts of places where interesting stuff can happen. In the same story, a setting can change several times
Fables don't really bother with settings. A lake is just a lake, a lawn is just a lawn. And one setting is in most cases enough. Many fables don't even need one. The presented idea could be often developed in different settings in completely the same way.
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10. Interpretation
Fables are based on morals. They were mostly written this way: moral first, presentation later. This means their messages are very clear and can hardly be misunderstood. Of course, with some fables being several thousand years old, some of their messages could be positioned in different contexts, which can lead us to rewritings and reinterpretations, but essentially one fable carries one message in that's it.
Fairy tales, on the other hand, can be (and should) understood in numerous ways. By this, I mean that each (at least the good one) fairy tale brings different morals. Just think about Puss in Boots saying from: 'Life's not fair.' to 'Make the best of what you got.' and everything in between.
Image credits:
https://ameblo.jp/vintageart/entry-12824166752.html
https://yesterdaysdream.hatenablog.com/entry/2023/10/14/212928
https://brinsley-le-fanu.mystrikingly.com/blog/fontaines-fables
https://ameblo.jp/greatoldbooks/entry-12811015762.html
Did You Learn Something New?
TolovajOct 21, 2023
DerdriuMarrinerOct 21, 2023
Catering to "a spoiled adult audience" contradicts 21st-century filmed and graphic-noveled and rewritten representations of fairy tales that dare their political correctness not at all in "rough and saucy humor" unkind to the time's "underserved" peoples.
For example, have you seen graphic-novel versions of Rapunzel and Snow White?
Fairy-tale initial audiences look quite different from Grimm-brothered fans.
DerdriuMarrinerOct 21, 2023
Did that kids-teaching exist on its own or was it accompanied by something adults-teaching? (Or were adults expected to be kids grown up for the better because of their exposure to fables early on;-D?)
DerdriuMarrinerOct 20, 2023
Grimm emphases on moral values puts fairy tales closer to or overlapping with fables.
Might there be overlaps in fable and fairy-tale moral values? Or would fables have emphasized some sets and fairy tales others?
TolovajOct 20, 2023
DerdriuMarrinerOct 19, 2023
Fairy-tale goals of entertainment delight me even as their added goals of irony and sarcasm regarding moral values disappoint me.
Is that clear from my phrasing?
There's no way that I'd want you to think that I was disappointed in this wizzley or in fact in any other of your ever-educational, ever-entertaining wizzlies;-D!
TolovajOct 19, 2023
TolovajOct 19, 2023
TolovajOct 19, 2023
DerdriuMarrinerOct 19, 2023
Might the added irony and sarcasm arise from lower classes trying to replace upper classes or upper classes trying to suppress lower classes when the two started sharing entertainment forms?
DerdriuMarrinerOct 19, 2023
An educational tool for leadership through artistic and oral-tradition means is effectiver, kinder and popularer, to my way of thinking, than the whipping-boy learning-tool for princely heirs and spares.
Might it not surface among peoples either still in oral-tradition stages or yet between oral and written account-keeping?
DerdriuMarrinerOct 18, 2023
Have you read the book The First Signs, by Genevieve von Petzinger (daughter of a participant in the Nazi code-breaking team at Bletchley Park)?
Wouldn't it be interesting if the symbols -- identified by von Petzinger as common cave-art inclusions -- turned out to be an alphabet that preserves the world-earliest fables (complete with illustrations in the form of cave-art animals ;-D)?
DerdriuMarrinerOct 18, 2023
Is it not interesting that cave art, as world-oldest art, emphasizes animal motions and shapes?
Might it not be possible that these animal figures served as cave people's equivalent of slide-show cues that kept their human tellers on target in terms of the plot progression of world-earliest fables?
TolovajOct 17, 2023
TolovajOct 17, 2023
TolovajOct 17, 2023
TolovajOct 17, 2023
DerdriuMarrinerOct 17, 2023
It draws my attention that fairy tales domiciled in 16th-century Italy before dwelling in 17th-century France.
Is there something cultural, political or socio-economic that accounts for Giambattista Basile's writings weathering the long land passage from Naples northward through northern Italy, westward through Monaco and northward to central France or the rough water passage westward to the Iberian Peninsular and northward through Spain to central France?
DerdriuMarrinerOct 17, 2023
The writer Giovanni Francesco Straparola, according to internet sources, dwelt in the Caravaggio town of central-north Italy and then in the northeast Italian city of Venice.
Might there have been cultural, political, socio-economic configurations that permitted Straparola writings to survive the mountainous journey westward through Italy and Monaco and southern France to central France within 200 years?
DerdriuMarrinerOct 16, 2023
East Asian origins interest me for fables because of the latter's attention to animal sentients. It's interesting what got ancient Iranian attention, such as subcontinent animal fables.
Internet sources mention Buddhist jataka tales and oral traditions as fable precedents. The former moves fable origins back another 200 to 400 years, to the 400s and 600s BCE depending upon which date is accepted for Gautama Buddha's birth as Prince Siddhartha.
And would dating Buddhism to before Gautama Buddha -- who received the wisdom (and jataka fables ;-D) of the previous Buddhahoods -- as 28th of 29 Buddhas, push that date even way further back?
ThamisgithOct 15, 2023