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The Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, did not invent fairy tales, but instead collected stories (especially from literate middle-upper class women) and edited them to promote a strong, unified German culture in a time of French domination.

Although some fairy tales were adapted from folk tales, there is a difference between them. A folk tale originates within a community and is passed down through generations, often orally and without a known author. A fairy tale has an author and its own literary genre, consisting of fantastical elements as well as a moral.

It isn’t clear who actually coined the term “fairy tale.” Madame d’Aulnoy was particularly influential with her book, Contes des Fées (Tales of Fairies), even though the term had been used by literary critics to describe her previous works. Although it didn’t exist as such by the time Charles Perrault (author of Cinderella and other tales) published his stories, he referred to his own as “contes d’ogres et de fées” (tales of ogres and fairies). “Fairy tale” was thus a gradual linguistic development rather than a sudden invention by a single author.

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