Storytelling fairy tales
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The most popular fairy tales throughout the ages. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast and more!
20 Mins+ Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales
The story of beautiful Snow White, the seven dwarfs and the evil Queen.
10 Min Stories Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Animals Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales German Fairy Tales
A mother goat leaves her seven kids at home alone... are they smart enough to outwit a visiting wolf ?
5 Min Stories Age 7-12 All All Fairy Tales Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Fairies Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales German Fairy Tales Illustrated Bedtime Stories Magic
A shoemaker and his wife have magical assistance from some elves every evening when they go to bed. But do the elves need help too?
10 Min Stories Adventures Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales German Fairy Tales Magic Princes & Princesses
A king suspects that his twelve daughters go dancing every night... and a young prince takes the challenge to discover them.
20 Mins+ Adventures Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Arabian Nights Fairy Tales Arabic Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales
Ali Baba discovers a wonderful cave of riches... but will the forty thieves discover him?
10 Min Stories Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Animals Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales Monsters Norse Fairy Tales
Three Billy Goats Gruff try to cross a bridge - and outwit a Troll who wants to eat them!
20 Mins+ Adventures Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales German Fairy Tales Magic Princes & Princesses
The classic tale of a beautiful girl, a wicked Queen, a magic mirror, and seven dwarves!
10 Min Stories Adventures Age 7-12 All Fairy Tales English Fairy Tales Fairy Tales Famous Fairy Tales Magic Picture Books Vintage Stories
Tom Thumb is a boy the size of a thumb - imagine what adventures he has! Reading time: 10 mins.
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Fairy Tales to Enchant You…
Welcome to our huge fairy tales library!
Browse our most popular fairy tales collections
Famous Fairy Tales
The story of beautiful Snow White, the seven dwarfs and the evil Queen.
A mother goat leaves her seven kids at home alone… are they smart enough to outwit a visiting wolf ?
A shoemaker and his wife have magical assistance from some elves every evening when they go to bed. But do the elves need…
The classic Hans Christian Andersen tale of a Little Mermaid, and what she will do for love.
A king suspects that his twelve daughters go dancing every night… and a young prince takes the challenge to discover them.
Ali Baba discovers a wonderful cave of riches… but will the forty thieves discover him?
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Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
A Prince called Desire seeks a bride in warmer lands.
This marvellous musician has a strange way of making friends and keeping them!
Three Dwarfs meet a poor girl who shares the last of her bread with them.
A younger brother is a wise dwarf who teaches his brothers kind things.
A little tailor tricks two giants and a King, winning against all odds.
The story of beautiful Snow White, the seven dwarfs and the evil Queen.
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Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
A butterfly takes his time in deciding which flower he should marry.
A beautiful story of a much loved Grandmother who dies, by Hans Christian Andersen.
A snow man falls in love with a hot stove…
Five peas in a shell discover their destinies…
A sick boy goes on a magical adventure of the imagination…
A Prince offers a Princess gifts that she refuses.
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English Fairy Tales
A witty wife helps her husband solve his problems in all sorts of sticky situations!
A Prince steals a magical ring from a fairy queen in order to defeat a wicked dragon.
A little weed feels worthless, until it helps some hungry birds.
A giant keeps Jack prisoner for seven years… until finally he makes his escape!
A prince learns how to have empathy with the help of a fairy and a ring.
A young man wants to marry a silly girl… but must find three sillier people first!
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French Fairy Tales
A Princess, by enchantment, transforms into a white doe. Will true love prevail and help her break the spell?
A handsome courtier begs a princess marry a king, but the princess falls in love with him instead.
A prince has a red hat that makes him invisible, and uses it to pursue Love.
A pair of lovers are separated when a king is turned into a blue bird.
A friendly frog helps a queen and a princess to escape a lion witch.
A yellow dwarf forces a queen and her daughter to make a promise they cannot keep…
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Chinese Fairy Tales
Molo goes to great lengths to help others and become a sword hero.
A family of human-ogres shows strength in the difficulties they face being both.
When the king’s daughter is taken by a bird with nine heads, who will save her?
Rose of Evening is beautiful and kind, but what is she keeping secret?
Giauna is beautiful but also kind, and can heal the sickness of others.
A boy called Bamboo helps a turtle escape a temple, and goes on a big adventure.
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Oscar Wilde Fairy Tales
The status of a Prince begs a sparrow to help him bring happiness to the sad and poor of his city.
A short story about a beautiful child of the stars, who learns about humility.
The tale of a selfish giant who closes his beautiful garden to children.
The tragic tale of a selfish miller, and his poor and generous friend.
The haunting story of a nightingale who creates a red rose for a lover.
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A plump pancake manages to escape being eaten by 7 children!
A boy keeps meeting a rat who promises they will soon be married.
A child called Minnikin conquers three trolls to save two captured princesses.
It all seems like a perfectly normal wedding… or is it?!
Cinderlad is lazy, until he meets a King that will put him to the test!
The story of a cat who literally eats everything in sight, even the moon!
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Aesop’s Fables
A wordless counting picture book based on the Aesop fable.
A raven tries to copy an eagle, but finds it’s not so easy! An Aesop fable.
A collection of Aesop’s fables in short poetry form – along with vintage illustrations.
A town mouse and a country mouse visit each other’s home, to find they like their own best.
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Japanese Fairy Tales
A story of the Sun, the Moon and an Empress all working together for peace.
A hare deceives some crocodiles, and learns to tell the truth.
A hero fights an ogre, and steals his arm.
An old man loves his dog, who brings him tragic heartache and good luck.
The story of Prince Yamato Take and his protector the Sun Goddess.
Princess Hase has a cruel stepmother, but she remains kind.
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Scottish Fairy Tales
A Prince meets a strange ghost in an inn, who asks him to do her a favour.
Lady Janet acts courageously to rescue her True Love from a fairy queen’s grasp.
The fairy tale of a Princess, a boy, a magical Grandmother and an army of Goblins.
When a Princess is caused by a spell to be as light as air, a Prince discovers the way to make her happy.
Janet must trust a fairy named Tamlane, in order to return him to human form.
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Russian Fairy Tales
A Princess trusts a wicked old witch, who turns her into a white duck.
A boy is stolen by a wicked witch, and recovered by a kind and brave girl.
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Or read our complete library of fairy tales!
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Reading and telling fairy tales for the development of a child's speech
A fairy tale in the life of a preschooler
Listening to stories and fairy tales performed by masters of the word or their loved ones, children learn the accuracy of the word (in stories), in fairy tales, the accuracy and expressiveness of their native language is revealed to them .
Preschool children are listeners, not readers. The content of any literary works is brought to them by an adult. The purpose of reading fairy tales to children:
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To convey to the kids the content of the work.
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To be able to reveal the author's intention, to cultivate a moral attitude towards literary characters, their feelings, actions.
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Intonation to convey your attitude to the heroes of the work.
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Develop interest in fiction.
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To teach to distinguish a fairy tale from a story.
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To develop the ability to tell fairy tales, encourage children to dramatize.
Naturally, it is possible to achieve these goals and objectives provided that sufficient attention is paid to storytelling and reading at home.
It should be remembered that listening in itself, and then reading does not come: it must be developed from early childhood in order to develop in children the ability to listen, listen to the artistic word and understand its meaning.
The development of a child's speech through a fairy tale
In this article we will consider only some questions of the role of a fairy tale in the development of the speech of preschool children. Acquaintance with fairy tales begins from one and a half to two years, when we introduce our kids to the fairy tales “Ryaba Hen”, “Turnip”, then “Teremok”, “Gingerbread Man”, etc.
The best way to get kids interested in listening to fairy tales is to look at colorful toys and pictures. Next, start your acquaintance with the illustrations for the fairy tale in the book, arousing the child's interest in the book and illustrations. When looking at the illustrations, the adult simply pronounces the correct content of the tale and involves the children in the conversation with questions like: “What did the Ryaba chicken take down?”, “Who broke the testicle?”, get the children to repeat the expressions after you: “.
.. grandfather beat - beat, woman beat beat…” and so on. Kids love such repetitions and are happy to participate in such dialogues. A fairy tale in the development of children's speech is an acquaintance with the features of the folk conversational genre.
Adults need to take into account that such a genre as a folk tale requires telling, not reading, which enhances the emotional impact on children, contributes to a better perception of the main idea of a fairy tale, as an adult talks to a child. It is during storytelling that the important ability to listen and understand the speech of an adult is brought up.
A fairy tale in the life of a child conversation
With children of three years old, after telling a fairy tale, it is proposed to recall the most interesting moments of the fairy tale and repeat them in words. If adults remember their childhood, they will surely restore in their memory the interesting stories of their grandparents about how they patiently, mysteriously and emotionally told fairy tales to them.
I will give an example from the communication of a grandmother with her granddaughter. After the grandmother told Tanya the fairy tale “Masha and the Bear”, she asked the girl to answer the question: “What words did the Bear say when he wanted to eat a pie?” The granddaughter could not answer, which is quite natural. Then her grandmother reminded her of these words: “I will sit on a stump, eat a pie?”, And they repeated them together several times. They did the same with Mashenka's answer: "... I see, I see, I hear, I hear ...". Grandmother was so able to beat the fairy tale that in the evening the girl herself repeated at the right moment the words of the Bear and Mashenka. Later, when listening to the fairy tales “The Wolf and the Seven Kids”, “The Cat, the Rooster and the Fox”, Tanya was asked to memorize the songs of the Wolf, the Fox, the Rooster, inviting the girl to remember which song the Cockerel sang, how the Goat sang to her kids, repeat the song of the Wolf to the kids, and so on.
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When repeating songs from fairy tales, children memorize words and figurative expressions well, catch the consonance of lines, and can also use these expressions in games, dramatizations, retellings of fairy tales.
The development of speech when telling fairy tales by children
Adults should pay attention to the fact that all these fabulous expressions and words are used by children in the correct grammatical form. All this will be necessary in the future for the correct perception of more complex works, the further development of speech.
At senior preschool age, children are able to deeply comprehend the content of fairy tales, understand the main idea of a fairy tale and correctly evaluate the actions of its characters. In addition, children 5-7 years old should be able to distinguish a fairy tale from a story, a poem. Therefore, after telling a folk tale, it is advisable for the children to ask questions: “What did I tell you? (told)?”, “Why do you think this is a fairy tale?”.
These questions are aimed at children's awareness of the characteristic features of a fairy tale - beginnings, repetitions, ending. It is also necessary to ask questions that reveal the sequence of events and determine the characteristic features of the characters of the fairy tale and pay attention to the means of artistic expression of the fairy tale. For example, after telling the fairy tale "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka", ask the child to describe the pond in which Alyonushka was drowned. Ask which expression in the fairy tale the child liked the most and why. Such tasks and questions allow children to express their opinion, which is valuable for the development of their thinking, attention, imagination, memory.
It is necessary to know and remember that if folk tales are best told to children, then author's tales should be read, since each author uses his own individual characteristics of speech, which children should be able to perceive and distinguish.
Fairy tales by A.S. Pushkin, P. Bazhov from the cycle "Malachite Box", M. Gorky "Sparrow", V. Odoevsky "Moroz Ivanovich", S. Marshak "12 months", "Cat's House", S. Aksakov "The Scarlet Flower", Andersen's fairy tales , Brothers Grimm, etc.
The meaning of a fairy tale in the life of a preschooler
Listening to fairy tales, children begin to talk not only about how a fairy tale differs from a story, a poem, but also to explain the actions of the characters, draw conclusions, determining their attitude to fairy-tale characters, their relationships. The task of adults is to educate the correct perception of the content of fairy tales and the ability to use words and expressions from fairy tales in speech. For this, it is good to use creative tasks, as Valera's mother did. The woman skillfully used walks with the boy in the park. She asked the boy to describe the pond in the city garden after getting acquainted with the fairy tale "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka.
" Watching the sparrows, they recalled M. Gorky's fairy tale "Sparrow". Such creative tasks have a great influence on the enrichment of the children's vocabulary, teach kids to conduct a dialogue, develop the ability to describe the necessary events, remembering what they read and heard. The children begin to skillfully use synonyms, comparisons, understand their meaning. All this brings up in children attention to the word, its meaning, emotional coloring, accuracy of use.
Dramatization of fairy tales
Dramatization of fairy tales is one of the types of theatrical games in which children have the opportunity to transform into heroes of their favorite fairy tales. In such games, children can be both spectators and heroes of the work. The content of the fairy tale prompts the children to act, and they themselves recreate the image of the hero of the fairy tale with the help of gestures, expressiveness of speech, movements, and appeal to other heroes. The child himself chooses expressive means that he adopted from adults.
Naturally, one cannot do without the participation of adults, it is the adult who must create the conditions necessary for dramatization, is both the director and director, and generally manages the game process.
The role of a fairy tale in a child's life
In such games, children learn to move in time with the spoken text, speak according to the character's voice, memorize and pronounce the words characteristic of a particular character. It is good if folk musical instruments are used in such dramatization games, they diversify the course of the game, develop the imagination and creativity of children.
It is desirable that dramatization games based on fairy tales be repeated more than once. Let you first play with your family, then show it to your guests who came to the holiday, to your aunt (uncle) who came to visit, etc. All this will help the children gain confidence in their abilities and capabilities, encourage them to further creativity and development of the initiative.
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Telling stories, fairy tales as a projective technique.
Eidemiller E.G., Dobryakov I.V., Nikolskaya I.M.
Family diagnosis and family psychotherapy.
The success of family psychotherapy largely depends on how the psychotherapist managed to understand the essence of the client's family problems. The main diagnostic methods in this case, of course, are the methods of clinical conversation and the method of participant observation. However, the functioning of the patient's psychological defenses leads to the fact that he is far from ready to speak frankly about all his problems. Moreover, the most important events are often hidden, significant relationships are covered in a distorted form.
The psychotherapist may encounter both conscious lies and unconscious repression and misleading. In order to overcome these difficulties, projective techniques and methods are successfully used, including the technique of telling fairy tales and stories.
In the 20th century the fairy tale takes on a special meaning in world culture. Never before has the fairy tale genre acquired such scope. His poetics and archetypes underlie the chronicles of fairy-tale worlds, works of fantastic literature, television series that have become widely popular (Aiinyan T.A., 2003).
3. Freud believed that in myths and fairy tales, in folk sayings and songs, in common language and poetic fantasy, the same symbolism is used, which allows the interpretation of dreams (Freud S., 1917).
K.-G. Jung believed that both German fairy tales and fairy tales of other nations, among other things, contain the mythology that develops in a child in relation to sexual processes. The charm of the poetry of fairy tales continues to act on the adult; old childhood theories remain alive in his unconscious (Jung C.
G., 1910). Thus, a myth, a fairy tale can be considered as a general impersonal dream and interpreted from the standpoint of analytical psychology, using the meanings of symbols accepted in psychoanalysis. As in the material of dreams and the associative experiment, fairy tales reflect early family patterns, ego-identity, and the collective unconscious.
Followers of K.-G. Jung, M.-L. Von Franz, B. Bettelheim, D. Hall, X. Dieckmann and others successfully developed these ideas of his in their works (Franc M.-L. von, 1970; Bettelheim V., 1977; Hall J., 1983; Dieckmann FL , 1991).
B. Bettelheim emphasized that fairy motifs are often found in the dreams of adults. For them, fairy tales play an important role not so much in consciousness as in the unconscious, since they believe that they have long forgotten those stories that they liked so much in childhood (Bettelheim V., 1977).
D. Hall noted that many dreams, like fairy tales, easily fit into the classical dramatic structure: situation, problem, complication, climax and result.
However, it is impossible to give rigid or unchanging rules for the interpretation procedure itself; it will not replace a thorough clinical interview and mental status examination, but is their complement. D. Hall's remark is important that a benign interpretation of a dream can be limited to an individual level and does not have to be done at the archetypal level at all (Hall J., 1983). The same can be said about the interpretation of the stories told.
X. Dickman discovered a number of striking coincidences between the biography data, internal circumstances and problems of his patients with the plot of their favorite fairy tale. Often the misfortunes of a fairy-tale hero are hidden punishments for his sexual relations. Therefore, a fairy tale is overflowing with symbols that arise during puberty. It indicates the way of assimilation and formation of mysterious, unknown phenomena, which at first seem dangerous and disgusting. Attempts to purify fairy tales from cruelty and present them in this form to the child have never been successful, since he looks for actions in them similar to those that occur in the process of initiation rites in primitive cultures, where maturity is achieved only through suffering, pain and torment.
The next highest stage of maturation can be achieved only after overcoming and destroying the previous one (Dieckmann H., 1991).
X. Dieckmann believed that the fragmentation and distortion of a favorite fairy tale that occurs in patients when they try to remember it hinder therapy. It seems to us that it is the amnestic and transformed passages that are the most interesting from a diagnostic point of view and suggest ways of therapy. In this regard, we did not encourage our patients to remember the fairy tale as accurately as possible, but, on the contrary, emphasized that they could deviate from the plot in their narration and introduce new characters.
It is believed that storytelling was first used in 1971 by R. Gardner to establish contact with children and their therapy. The technique developed by him and its various modifications have found wide application for solving problems of diagnostics, forming values, strengthening relationships, self-disclosure, achieving catharsis (Brems Ch.
, 2002).
R. Gardner invited children to tell stories that they had to compose impromptu. The topic was not set. It was impossible to describe what the child read or saw in the cinema, on television, as well as what actually happened to him or his acquaintances. Gardner would then come up with a story himself that included the same characters as in the patient's story. All narrations were recorded on tape. Gardner argued that stories are easier to analyze than dreams, and the principles of analysis can be applied the same. Here is some of them.
Separation of atypical narrative elements (reflecting the characteristics of the author and his experiences) from stereotypical ones, due to age, not very informative.
Assessment of the patient's emotional reactions during the story (anxiety, pleasure, hostility, empathy, suppression of feelings, etc.).
Identification of the main character representing the author of the story.
Identification of characters that reflect various, often conflicting properties of the author's personality.
Identification of characters representing significant figures in the author's real environment.
Identification of groups of characters that symbolize the components of one personality.
Establishment of symbols of repressed complexes (for example, images of insects, mice, etc.).
Study of images and actions that reflect parent-child relationships.
Evaluation of the general atmosphere of the story (pleasant, neutral, frightening).
R. Gardner attached great importance to the title that the patient gives to his story, as well as to the end of the story (“morality”). Composing a response story, the psychotherapist offered the patient in a metaphorical form various options for solving the problem symbolically stated in his story, helped to realize the variety of solutions and choose the best one (Gardner R.A., 1971).
Storytelling contributes to a deeper understanding of parent-child relationships, their strengthening, leads to a change in children's behavior (Godbole A.
Y., 1982). K. Brems notes that the roots of telling fairy tales and stories in psychotherapy should be sought in the cultural context or in the context of the development of the individual and family. In the first case, myths, legends, fairy tales, fables are most often used. In a family context, these are family legends, stories based on real events, but embellished. From the standpoint of individual personality development, fantasy stories and dreams are more often told (Brems Ch., 2002).
Variants of fairy tale therapy are varied. In both individual and group psychotherapy, it is possible to tell original or well-known stories, invent new endings for them. The authorship of fairy tales can be collective or personal. The therapist can set the topic, tell the whole story himself, or just start it, encouraging patients to continue. If necessary, the psychotherapist intervenes in the narrative in order to turn the plot in the right direction from a medical point of view. It is possible to act out a fictional story in roles using sand (Kottman T.
, Stiles K., 1990; Miller C, BoeJ., 1990; Grabenko T.M., Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T.D., 1998), toys, dolls (Brems Ch., 2002), theatrical costumes. Some psychotherapists suggest that patients accompany their stories with drawings (Gabel S., 1984; Brems Ch., 2002; Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T.D., Kudzilov D.B., 2003). The healing process can be entirely based on fairy tale therapy, or it can only include its elements. The choice of this or that technique is determined by the characteristics of patients, the nature of psychotherapeutic tasks, as well as the degree of mastery of this technique by the psychotherapist.
In recent years, fairy tale therapy has been successfully developing in our country. Psychotherapists are attracted by the opportunity to actualize the creative potential of patients (Zashchirinskaya O.V., 2001), to work with serious problems in a metaphorical form (Brems Ch., 2002).
K. Brems calls the storytelling technique unique, perfectly suited to therapeutic purposes and used almost exclusively for the treatment of children.
