Your favourite Fairytales

[Thesleepypencil]

Everyone PROBABLY has a favourite fairytale. And everyone definitely has heard a fairytale (ie through disney) they have been around for sooo long. And i personally adore fairytales, i have 4 different stories and universes that revolve around them so of course I'm going to talk about it.

FIRST! And most importantly. What is your favourite fairytale??? Is it commonly known and why do you love it and love fairytales.

Example my all time favourite fairytale is The Light Princess.
A young princess was cursed as a baby to float, and must always be careful she doesn't float away. The cure to the curse is for her to cry, but even as a baby nothing could make her cry. The only time gravity takes effect on her is when she is swimming. So she loves swimming. And she meets a prince when he sees her swimming and mistakes her for drowning. Comedy ensues.

i also love the cinderella esque story 'the bear', the russian fairytale 'the magic pony' and 'the seven ravens'

Also what do you consider a fairytale. I remember being offputted by the show once upon a time once they brought in alice in wonderland, peter pan, dr.frankenstein, and oz. Because i don't consider them in fairytales. But thats just me what do you think?

[Kayke]

Peter Pan is definitely a fairy tale in my opinion! And my favorite one, actually. I was in love with the story of Peter Pan when I was little and I used to sit at my window before bed and find the "second star to the right" and make wishes on it and hope Peter would hear me. Sometimes if I left my window open at night my parents would leave me little gifts saying they were from Peter

Other than that, I liked any story that had witches. Good witches, bad witches, it didn't matter to me!

[Thesleepypencil]

Lol even though i never felt like it was a fairytale i definitely understand the amount of LOVE had for peter pan. My love for him growing up was huge. I would watched the disney version, the sequel, the live action adaption, and hook over and over again. My goal in life was to become a lost girl.

I wish my parents did something like that that sounds so nice <3

[igneriss]

I love most of Grimm brothers' fairytales, as this is what I used to read when I was a kid (or first, just looking at illustrations, haha... though some of them were really scary!). My favourite one is the Juniper Tree, which I know by heart together with the little song there~
I also liked one that I have no idea who is it by or the tittle, I had it recorded on a tape (oldtime audiobooks CX) and lost it later. I remember that there was a girl who was given some impossible tasks to do (like pouring the water out of a pond with a bucket with a hole in it), but some magic creature would always help her (i don't know why I think it was a devil, but it's not really possible in this type of a fairy tale, I guess). I don't remember much of it, just that I used to really like it CX

[TrustyShamrock]

ok @Kaykedrawsthings pretty much stole all my thoughts for this. i looove peter pan! like i never gave up hope on going to neverland some day. and i also agree about anythin with witches. i love witches. theyre my favs. theyre my favorite thing to see and make stories about
i think snow white, hansel and gretel and any baba yaga story are my favorite witch ones

[Chopythes]

My most treasured fairytale was and still is "Sagan om älgtjuren Skutt och lilla prinsessan Tuvstarr" by Helge Kjellin and illustrated by John Bauer.

Some of you might recognize it ;D

But I've always been fascinated by old fairytales, such as "The little Match Girl" and "The little mermaid" both by HC Andersen.

I've always been fascinated by stories that had no happy ending, I loved how cruel the world could be and just loved to hear about how my favourite hero died.
I was... A pretty morbid kid, I guess.
Googled the fairytales that HC Andersen wrote and I gotta say... I've read and loved almost all of them<3

But oh man, Rip Van Winkle was pretty cool too<3

[Kura]

I was really not a fan of fairy tails growing up and even now I'm still not a big fan of them.

Beauty and the Beast was the only one I can think of that I got really attached to.

On the other hand I used to love the old folktales I would be told as a kid usually by elders (who tended to come from all kinds of different places in the world) or my superstitious dad/relatives from his side of the family, not all of them would be complete stories, some could be pretty brief, like a small explanation of an event that explains 'why the leaves turn yellow' or 'why the wind blows' 'my country you have to feed the ghosts, or they come into your house kill you' (dad is not very good an English) To even just descriptions or introductions of creatures like "In my country, there's a water spirit that looks like a horse that hunts small children, it tricks the children into getting on it's back but it's skin is so sticky they can't get off, then it dives back into the water and drowns the children"

[phen]

I LOVE the The Little Match Girl! It's so bittersweet and lovely -- an abandoned little girl trying to sell matchsticks on New Year's Eve sacrifices herself for a dream of a loving relative. I first saw it in an oooolldd encyclopedia from the 70's (my parents', heh) and was lucky enough to keep it around!

[understatedcomics]

We have a large book of Grimm Fairytales I love reading them over and over again.

My current favorite is The Twelve Huntsmen; where a prince and a princess, meet, fall in love, and become promised to be married. Shortly after, the prince hears word that his father is dying. So he returns home to see about him, while there, to honor his father's dying wish he becomes betrothed to another girl. The Princess hears about the news, and gathers a group of ladies about the same build as her. They disguise themselves as huntsmen to win his trust ad get back at him (at least that's what I think happened). There's talking lion, a helpful servant, it's a pretty fun story though I don't know if it's that well known.

I also like Snow White and Rose Red and The Seven Swans .

[bakasama25]

Hans Christian Anderson? It's hard to recall what stories of his have a happy ending outside of Princess and Pea, The Ugly Duckling, or The Snow Queen.

[Thesleepypencil]

that story sounds super fun i need to look it up.

also i think the seven swans is verry similar to the seven ravens and both are super fun

[Thesleepypencil]

Hans christian anderson also wrote thumbelina and while the whole story is a little sketchy in some points, it ends on a good note.

also he wrote the little mermaid with a ending that is both sad but he perseived as good. The little mermaid had while wanting and loosing the prince, also was in want of a soul which mermaids didn't have. So once he broke her heart and she chose to kill herself. she was turned into what could be concidered an angel and was given the quest of being able to do a certain amount of good deeds she would be granted the soul she wanted.

[NickRowler]

My favorite it probably Godfather Death. It's sort of obscure.

I also like The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. (My sister also likes this one)

When it comes to well know ones, my favorite is The Tin Soldier

[Thesleepypencil]

I've never heard Godfather death it sounds interesting???

I HAVE heard the story of the youth who went for to learn what fear was. I like it. It slightly reminded me of the boy who drew cats. though be are fairly different.

The tin soldier is more like the more known of the lesser known than a well known one. kinda like the little matchstick girl. known but not largely.
but the rin soldier is adorable <3

[bakasama25]

I'm not sure if Frankenstein is a fairy tale, it seems to me like an early sci fi story.

The Oz books, are fairy tales but more modern, more American. Still, Oz has some things you wouldn't usually find in fairy tales like history of it's kingdom, a map of a kingdom, a really large cast of characters and a series of sequels..

[demthorshie]

Oh! The little match girl is heart wrenching yet beautiful! I remember being sad all day the first time I ready this :S!

[noctuidae]

Bluebeard is less of a favorite and more of something that terrified me as a child, but if it sticks out in my mind that much then it's worth mentioning haha. The mental image of the room filled with wives still gives me shivers.

[timinabox24]

the girl with matches ;-;
i cri evritiem ;-;

[phen]

It totally etched into my memory like that, too! I asked my mom about it because I thought maybe I misunderstood the story (I was like, "SHE FROZE TO DEATH AND THIS IS HAPPY??") and she explained to me it's actually about how the little girl was so caught up in her dreams, she didn't feel any pain/wasn't actually lonely when she died.

SO YEAH, that pretty much shaped how important I feel like chasing your dream is -- it's just a dream of your own, but even once you reach the end, you won't be sad and alone~

[AnnaLandin]

Oooh, I have a bunch! Fairytales are fun!

I always liked the Swedish fairytale Prins Hatt under jorden, or Prince Hat underground.

A king who is on his way home stumbles upon a bunch of enchanted leaves that he wants to give to his youngest daughter. The enchanted leaves belongs to Prince Hat, who says the king can have them, if in exchange Prince Hat is given the first living creature the king encounters when he returns home.

Because you all know how fairytales work, of course the first person the king encounter is his daughter, so she goes to Prince Hat. The quirk here is that a.) prince Hat is under a spell that means he cannot allow anyone to see him, so he comes to see her only at night, in the dark. In some versions of the fairytale they have a bunch of kids, in some they don't, but one night the curiosity overwhelms her and she gets a candle and lights it after he has fallen asleep to see what he looks like. Unfortunately, she spills a bit of wax on him, waking him up, and Prince Hat is distraught as his curse takes effect - he is a.) captured by a nasty witch and sometimes b.) blinded. The princess then has to go rescue him by breaking his curse.

It's pretty unusual in that it is a fairytale in which a princess has to rescue a prince, rather than the other way around. It's been a favourite of mine since I was a kid, and read a version of the story in which Prince Hat is a giant bear-like monster most of the time, except for that time when she lights the candle and sees that he is actually a man. It's kinda like Beauty and the Beast, except Prince Hat is never a grumpy-pants to the princess, and she gets to go on a quest and rescue him at the end.

I also like the Russian fairytales of the beautiful Vasilissa, and the one about Ivan Tzarevitch, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf. Russian fairytales tend to be quite... dark? The story of Ivan and the Firebird, at least in the version I read it, contained some quite gruesome dismemberment, and the story of Vasilissa involves her finding her way through the woods with the help of a torch made of a skull with glowing eye-holes on a stick, IIRC.