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Typical daydreams paraphrasing the important emotional constellations of childhood are paraphrased and related to types of childhood story which cater for them. The author suggests that essential parts of each story, plot, motivation, and conflict, remain unconscious and for this reason exert their appeal. Recent decades have provided a story where fantastic happenings are closely interwoven with highly realistic and prosaic details which in a way act as a denial of the magical elements on which the stories are based.
Stories exemplifying the phantasy of loss and return portray the experiences which beset those whose mothers leave them even for a short while with an unconscious reproach to the absent mother. Stories where the weakest becomes the hero, heroic stories where unconscious oedipal goals are attained, Bad Boy stories, Twin stories, and a type called by the author the Early Tale are described. The latter is so called because of its appeal to the very young. It eliminates all problems of genital sexuality and the slow encroachment of death, while retaining an inner emotional consistency within the framework of the young child's world.