Many medieval superstitions are preserved in folk tales,
or "fairy stories." Every child now reads these tales in books, but
until the nineteenth century very few of them had been collected and written
down. [30] They lived on the lips of the people, being told by mothers and
nurses to children and by young and old about the firesides during the long
winter evenings. Story-telling formed one of the chief amusements of the Middle
Ages.
[30] Charles Perrault's Tales of Passed Times
appeared at Paris in 1697 A.D. It included the now-familiar stories of
"Bluebeard," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," and
"Little Red Riding Hood." In 1812 A.D. the brothers Grimm published
their Household Tales, a collection of stories current in Germany.
FAIRIES
The fairies who appear so commonly in folk tales are known
by different names. They are bogies, brownies, goblins, pixies, kobolds (in
Germany), trolls (in Denmark), and so on. The Celts, especially, had a lively
faith in fairies, and it was from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland that many
stories about them became current in Europe after the tenth century. Some
students have explained the belief in fairies as due to memories of an ancient
pygmy people dwelling in underground homes. But most of these supernatural
beings seem to be the descendants of the spirits and demons which in savage
fancy haunt the world.
