'Tell a fairy tale day'

For adults and children alike, fairytales have a special place in many of our hearts, and some of them are even aimed at the adults- a little bit too scary for the kids! Today is tell a fairy tale day, whether or not this tends to be implemented in schools or libraries I don't know, but I can imagine these would be the places to celebrate the day! For those of you with kids it might be the opportunity to get out some of the old-school fairytales or opt for the more modern day film versions of one of them!

Fairytales go back for centuries, originating as tales which were dramatically told or enacted rather than written into books, and the idea of telling such stories has carried on through the ages. The Brothers Grimm were the first to actually put the fairytales down into book form, in a way of trying to preserve the plot and characters of the stories. They initially collected German fairy tales, and later went on to re-write many of them to change them more into stories than folk tales.

Called fairy tales because of their inclusion of fantasy creatures, the term is perhaps a bit looser today than it was, but the stories typically include fairies, trolls, goblins, elves, dwarves, giants, witches etc. So it should be easy to find a tale with one of them in, have a read and enjoy tell a fairy tale day, or why not use your imagination and invent your own! (or get the kids to!)