What we call fairytales rarely feature fairies, but they recount, in a rich code of metaphors and symbols, the journey of human beings from childhood to adulthood. They are simple and profound, in structure elementary and unfussy, in ideas basic and universal, in style beautiful and attractive.

Fairy tales, as the German scholar Max Luthi has pointed out, are one-dimensional, they happen on the surface, the characters are agents who perform actions and express a very limited range of emotions if any. Nonetheless, a central concern ot the tales is human emotion. Specifically they deal with adolescents growing up, finding independence and emotional maturity. But their profound meaning is expressed in images and action, not in introspection or analysis.