Fairy tales have a raw power to transport the hero or heroine out of everyday life into an enchanted space of transformation. Such crossing is frequently prompted by a problem—what to do with an unwanted child; how to find a wife; who will succeed to the throne—but it may also be an adventure of a more transgressive fear or seeking of forbidden knowledge: incest, abandonment, or murder. The magical space may be located in the outer world or in secret interior places: the woods, the depths of the earth, etc. Within this quest, however, primitive and raw emotions are encountered and mastered, and the hero or heroine emerges having grown psychically and socially. Forbidden and repressed conflicts (involving, e.g., incest, cannibalism, envy, sibling rivalry, sexuality) are taken up and worked through for resolution and psychic growth.

Oral folk tales are found in every human culture, and they go back a very long time—probably almost as long as language has existed. Written fairy tales, which derive from the oral folk tradition, appeared in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, blossoming first in Italy, then in France, and finally in Germany. Our Western tales can be traced back to Arabian,