Introduction

The anthology is preceded by a review of definitions of fairy- and folktale, and adopts a flexible and inclusive approach, emphasising elements of wonder allied to a strong moral stance. There is a short history of the emergence of fairy tale from the collections of Straparola, Basile and Charles Perrault: the purpose of the anthology is to stress the links of the genre they embodied with moralising wonder-tales of often over a millennium earlier. The association with children is not always consistent; and the antiquity of tales is argued as being as early as the earliest Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern narratives.