Do all famous fairy tales contain an element of truth?

[Philosophy Explorer]

Here's an example. The story of the Trojan war was just that: a story. Now though, with the discovery that Troy existed, lends credence to the story. You can comment on this story or bring up examples of your own.

PhilX

[hammock]

They're occasionally grounded in forgotten and known historical figures, events, and places distorted and embellished further over the centuries by regional re-tellings. Along with modified bits and pieces inspired by incidents / circumstances in the real lives of a story's chain of co-fabulists.

The White City at the 1893 Columbian Exposition / World's Fair provided the inspiration for Baum's Emerald City of Oz. If the allegory of Atlantis had any basis at all, it was probably derived from the destruction of Thera and the resulting tsunami that devastated the coastal settlements of Crete. Snow White, of course, may have been based on Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal or Margaretha von Waldeck -- or a mingling of both. Equally little need to mention the breathing archetypes behind some of the fictional characters of that most famous of pseudo-paedophiles, the maligned Dodgson, taken from his social circles.

[Skip]

Here's an example. The story of the Trojan war was just that: a story. Now though, with the discovery that Troy existed, lends credence to the story. You can comment on this story or bring up examples of your own.

PhilX

How does this relate to fairy tales?

Of course Troy existed and lost a 10-year-long war to the Greek alliance. Historical events have often been used by poets, novelists and dramatists as a setting for their stories. The fact that Hollywood made so much hay out of WWII doesn't make Germany or England, Japan and Italy, The USSR or the USA less real.
So were a great many ancient cities, and entire civilizations, as real as anything is today, independently of the survival of written records, or any surrounding folklore.

As for actual fairy tales, some are derived from ancient myth and legends; many were based on the prevailing conditions of the times in which they were first told; others were made up for moral instruction or just plain entertainment. They all have a central truth in the observation of human nature and relations.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

The Trojan war is hardly a fairy tale. Cinderella is a fairy tale. 'Evil witches' are reflective of the misogyny and paranoid superstition of the time. They were actually just healing women, hence the cauldron for mixing up potions and herbal remedies. Old people at that time tended to have no teeth which is where the hook nose and jutting chin come in. Stepmothers are always evil, and fathers are always weak, easily-dominated 'saints' (eg Hansel and Gretal and Cinderella). I'm not sure why the youngest child is always the hero/heroine. The oldest is usually evil. Perhaps it's because child mortality was so high, and people had more children to replace the dead ones, so the youngest would be cherished more. They youngest child does tend to be the most spoilt, even today.

[Skip]

Also the magic numbers 3, 7 and 9 - three being the most prevalent: Three is the charm. Thus, the first two attempts fail and the third succeeds; the first and second son [not evil, just not good enough .... which may very well be a reflection of medieval familial patterns: one for the army, one for the church, one to carry on the family name] don't get the treasure (princess, perpetual table, victory over the ogre), but the youngest does. The older sisters are bad only because they are the stepmother's - that is, of a different clan: usurpers; envious of, and never reconciled to, the true heiress. There is a lot of sociology and superstition in fairy tales .... and really not that many fairies, but plenty of royalty.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Also the magic numbers 3, 7 and 9 - three being the most prevalent: Three is the charm. Thus, the first two attempts fail and the third succeeds; the first and second son [not evil, just not good enough .... which may very well be a reflection of medieval familial patterns: one for the army, one for the church, one to carry on the family name] don't get the treasure (princess, perpetual table, victory over the ogre), but the youngest does. The older sisters are bad only because they are the stepmother's - that is, of a different clan: usurpers; envious of, and never reconciled to, the true heiress. There is a lot of sociology and superstition in fairy tales .... and really not that many fairies, but plenty of royalty.

That's true; not many fairies at all. Lots of witches though.

[Blaggard]

All fairy tales are meant to be allegorical, and contain a moral lesson. Like the Bible, that is allegorical in every way, the process is to tell as story and let those who read either Aesops Fables, or the brothers Grimm or whatever make up their own minds.

For example Beauty and the Beast is a tale meant to show women that arranged marriage, which was often the case in Europe at the time between well moneyed famillies or the nobility, would be a marriage of beauty: the woman, and the beast: man. but the woman would eventually grow to love him, thus encouraging women that such an affair was not to be feared. All fairy tales likewise have an element of truth, not often as much as beauty and the beast but somewhat.

That said those are more Christian Fairy tales, the Gaelic/Celtic ones are the same but far more horrifying and scary.

For example a boy was once curious about the nature of the Sidhe or Gods of the Celts aka the Faerie folk, and decided to enter the forbidden wood, it was told that anyone who entered the wierding wood would not survive the process, as tales told those who entered the places of the Aos Sidhe would often emerge if they emerged at all old beyond their time.

The boy however armed with a knife took it upon himself to enter, and while he was walking amongst the misty wood he came upon a deer, a fawn of the forest, a guin avar, in the Celtic. The fawn was trapped in a thorn bush, and the boy felt sorry for him, he tried to hack at the bush but it was too tough to break so in the end he tried with his bear hands to tear the fawn free, he succeeded and the fawn ran off.

The next morn when the boy awoke he found no scars on his hands and no marks on his body that he had suffered in the thorns the night before. He found only muddy boots and laid on the table was a silver dagger, one marked with an intricate design of a fawn on it's handle, and silvered beyond the ken of men at the time.

One must make up their mind what the tale means. A Celt would know immediately, a modern person would see it as a simple tale.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

All fairy tales are meant to be allegorical, and contain a moral lesson. Like the Bible, that is allegorical in every way, the process is to tell as story and let those who read either Aesops Fables, or the brothers Grimm or whatever make up their own minds.

For example Beauty and the Beast is a tale meant to show women that arranged marriage, which was often the case in Europe at the time between well moneyed famillies or the nobility, would be a marriage of beauty: the woman, and the beast: man. but the woman would eventually grow to love him, thus encouraging women that such an affair was not to be feared. All fairy tales likewise have an element of truth, not often as much as beauty and the beast but somewhat.

That said those are more Christian Fairy tales, the Gaelic/Celtic ones are the same but far more horrifying and scary.

For example a boy was once curious about the nature of the Sidhe or Gods of the Celts aka the Faerie folk, and decided to enter the forbidden wood, it was told that anyone who entered the wierding wood would not survive the process, as tales told those who entered the places of the Aos Sidhe would often emerge if they emerged at all old beyond their time.

The boy however armed with a knife took it upon himself to enter, and while he was walking amongst the misty wood he came upon a deer, a fawn of the forest, a guin avar, in the Celtic. The fawn was trapped in a thorn bush, and the boy felt sorry for him, he tried to hack at the bush but it was too tough to break so in the end he tried with his bear hands to tear the fawn free, he succeeded and the fawn ran off.

The next morn when the boy awoke he found no scars on his hands and no marks on his body that he had suffered in the thorns the night before. He found only muddy boots and laid on the table was a silver dagger, one marked with an intricate design of a fawn on it's handle, and silvered beyond the ken of men at the time.

One must make up their mind what the tale means. A Celt would know immediately, a modern person would see it as a simple tale.

It's a pretty awful 'morality' though, similar to the bible. Old woman=evil witch. Beauty=goodness. I always had a bit of a soft spot for Rumpelstiltskin. It was pretty mean how he split in two at the end. He didn't really do anything wrong in the story.
Aesop's fables on the other hand are really clever, and do have good messages. One of my favourites is 'the boy who cried wolf'. It's so apt, and you find examples of it often in everyday life.

[Blaggard]

Agreed but you cannot judge the standards of other times by the standards of the past. They simply lived in less informed times, and you have to accept that.

I love Aesop's fables, my favourite though was not of Aesop although it is the same tale told by Aesop himself if indirectly, it was the frog and the scorpion, asked to carry him to safety across a river the frog agrees. But mid river the scorpion stings the frog dooming them both, when asked why the scorpion simply says "it is my nature". A clever morality tale about the nature of humans and the nature of the world and its machinations, the nature of some people is such.