# What time period are the fairy tales set in? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113 "2012-04-07T20:32:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/21 "2012-04-18T01:36:38Z")
Hell, as I recall, there was a theory that european folktales about Trolls and similar monsters were basically a passed-down folk memory of _Neanderthals_, when they existed alongside homo sapiens. Countering this, someone else wondered if stories about elves and the “fair folk” might be similarly passed down stories about _humans_ FROM Neanderthals (current science indicating that they had interbred with our species at least somewhat). :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/22 "2012-04-18T06:06:36Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Hell, as I recall, there was a theory that european folktales about Trolls and similar monsters were basically a passed-down folk memory of _Neanderthals_, when they existed alongside homo sapiens. > > Countering this, someone else wondered if stories about elves and the “fair folk” might be similarly passed down stories about _humans_ FROM Neanderthals (current science indicating that they had interbred with our species at least somewhat). :eek: Sigh. No. There is absolutely no evidence to support this, and plenty of comparative evidence against it in the form of similar tales with no Neanderthal substrate. Not to mention the time depth is against it. A lot of people in this thread seem to be operating on the assumption that the tales’ plots are fairly solid, but that’s not quite how they work. They’re more like legos, with component parts that naturally fit together in certain patterns but are endlessly recombinable. The set of legos is undoubtedly stone age, but tales such as “The Kind and the Unkind Girl” (Frau Holle) are pretty widespread and might be some of the earlier ones. The specific motif of shaking the bed to make it snow could be a primeval weather spirit, but it’s equally likely to be someone who has seen a bunch of feathers floating around and thought it looked like snow. It’s more fun if it’s an ancient pagan survival, but Occam’s Razor often works against that. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/23 "2012-04-18T06:36:08Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Sigh. No. There is absolutely no evidence to support this, and plenty of comparative evidence against it in the form of similar tales with no Neanderthal substrate. My friend, you have the science behind storytelling _firmly_ on your side. But you’ll sure never have a grasp on _telling a good story._ 😃 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/24 "2012-04-18T06:47:50Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > My friend, you have the science behind storytelling _firmly_ on your side. But you’ll sure never have a grasp on _telling a good story._ > > 😃 😉 Thanks: that’s actually a really nice compliment. People often hear “folklorist” and think “storyteller,” a respectable profession / avocation but an entirely different kind of animal. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/25 "2012-04-18T09:55:12Z")
My head is hurting from trying to come up with the difference between “fable”, “fairy tale” and “legend”, but all three seem to vary widely in setting. They can all go from being very specific in time and place to being “a long, long time ago in a kingdom far, far away”, and the setting chosen will vary with when and by whom is the story being told (as in the Disney vs. “original folklorist/writer” cases already mentioned); in some cases, no setting is mentioned (The Three Pigs, The Green Grapes). Aladdin is often set in Arabia, but my grandmother had a book where it was set in China: does that change the nature of the tale? Not really, at least to a Spanish kid; it will change it for a kid who’s from Arabia or from China. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/26 "2012-04-18T10:43:28Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > It apparently didn’t “totally kill the fairy-tale mood” tho - that film is running at a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and even when released the critics were pretty happy with it. Actually, while I love the movie, I think it \*did \*“totally kill the fairy-tale mood”. The movie is great, but it’s no longer a fairy tale without the supernatural elements of the tree/fairy godmother/magic dress stuff. The movie had a lot of great things (although Barrymore’s accent was not one of them) and a great mood, but it was not a “fairy-tale mood”. It was trying pretty hard to not have a fairy-tale mood, because the whole premise was “What would it have looked like if the Cinderella story was based on a real girl? (who just happened to know DaVinci and have oddly 20th century American ideas for a 16th century French girl, but whatevs.)” I’m quite a fan of this particular genre in books, although I can’t really come up with a name for it. Perhaps a librarian or bookseller would know one. I tend to refer to it as “historical fiction meets fairy tale,” but I know there’s got to be a better tag. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/27 "2012-04-18T18:33:38Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Hell, as I recall, there was a theory that european folktales about Trolls and similar monsters were basically a passed-down folk memory of _Neanderthals_, when they existed alongside homo sapiens. > > Countering this, someone else wondered if stories about elves and the “fair folk” might be similarly passed down stories about _humans_ FROM Neanderthals (current science indicating that they had interbred with our species at least somewhat). :eek: This is only tangentially related to what you wrote, but I was reminded of my favorite children’s novel, _The Perilous Gard_ – the book involves a band of “fair folk” in rural 16th century England who live in caves, and one of the characters in the story postulates that these are mere mortal humans whose ancestors have lived in caves for hundreds of years, the originals being pagans who fled the Christianization of their land. Over time, local rumors and legends transform these secretive people into mystical fairies. Is this a real theory in the field of folklore? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/28 "2012-04-18T19:59:02Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > This is only tangentially related to what you wrote, but I was reminded of my favorite children’s novel, _The Perilous Gard_ – the book involves a band of “fair folk” in rural 16th century England who live in caves, and one of the characters in the story postulates that these are mere mortal humans whose ancestors have lived in caves for hundreds of years, the originals being pagans who fled the Christianization of their land. Over time, local rumors and legends transform these secretive people into mystical fairies. > > Is this a real theory in the field of folklore? It was, a hundred years ago. It’s been discredited for a long, long time. That doesn’t keep me from loving _The Perilous Gard_ though—I have an extra copy on the shelves because I’m worried that I’ll eventually wear out the first one from re-reading. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/29 "2012-04-18T21:13:03Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Thanks: that’s actually a really nice compliment. People often hear “folklorist” and think “storyteller,” a respectable profession / avocation but an entirely different kind of animal. Then it was taken in exactly the way it was intended. You’re welcome. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/30 "2012-04-18T22:23:00Z")
> [@SDMBKL](#): > > And what do you call those poofy things on top of women’s petticoats? > [@Cub\_Mistress](#): > > The foofy things on the sides are [panniers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannier_(clothing)). foofy things on the back are [bustles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bustle) > [@Sandra Battye](#): > > Farthingales. Panniers and farthingales are structures worn under the skirt to make the skirt itself look fuller. If you’re talking about poofs of fabric draped on **top** of the skirt to create a hip-bubble look as in the classic [Cinderella gown](http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Cinderella+gown+peplum&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1325&bih=855&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=6OBQ3XyowjoHrM:&imgrefurl=http://costumessell.blogspot.com/2011/04/adult-super-deluxe-enchanting-princess.html&docid=XWWq1XMBlYsQOM&imgurl=http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41s9CXArT9L.jpg&w=356&h=500&ei=7T2PT-rpJ4fn0gG_4PyNDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=349&vpy=478&dur=2662&hovh=266&hovw=189&tx=109&ty=259&sig=113952068349139102976&page=2&tbnh=154&tbnw=110&start=30&ndsp=35&ved=1t:429,r:29,s:30,i:200), that’s a type of peplum. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/31 "2012-04-19T06:24:52Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > The specific motif of shaking the bed to make it snow could be a primeval weather spirit, but it’s equally likely to be someone who has seen a bunch of feathers floating around and thought it looked like snow. It’s more fun if it’s an ancient pagan survival, but Occam’s Razor often works against that. Perhaps suggesting that the troll legends were inspired by Neanderthals is a bit much; I take that as an entertaining idea but don’t give it much credence, much like some Native American legends supposedly about extinct megafauna. On the other hand, the fading away of German paganism is incomparably less remote. Openly practiced paganism there ended somewhere between the early sixth and early ninth centuries, depending on when Charlemagne’s army came and burned down the local temple or sacred tree. Undoubtedly it must have gone on privately for some time after that, and figured into then-contemporary folklore --what one might have called the urban legends of that time. But it doesn’t make sense to suggest that the _Märchen_, which had already been told for some centuries at the time when they were compiled, are devoid of any and all references, however disguised, to Germanic polytheism. On the other hand, I don’t think that the tales should be taken as referring to any actual story or even a consistent mythology. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/32 "2012-04-19T12:17:58Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Perhaps suggesting that the troll legends were inspired by Neanderthals is a bit much; I take that as an entertaining idea but don’t give it much credence, much like some Native American legends supposedly about extinct megafauna. On the other hand, the fading away of German paganism is incomparably less remote. Openly practiced paganism there ended somewhere between the early sixth and early ninth centuries, depending on when Charlemagne’s army came and burned down the local temple or sacred tree. Undoubtedly it must have gone on privately for some time after that, and figured into then-contemporary folklore --what one might have called the urban legends of that time. But it doesn’t make sense to suggest that the _Märchen_, which had already been told for some centuries at the time when they were compiled, are devoid of any and all references, however disguised, to Germanic polytheism. On the other hand, I don’t think that the tales should be taken as referring to any actual story or even a consistent mythology. This is an entirely different statement than those above, and quite sensible. In fact, such an idea was part of the Grimms’ motivation for collecting them in the first place, and occasionally connections can in fact be made. My point was that pure speculation isn’t a solid methodology. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/33 "2012-04-20T18:19:04Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I would imagine that especially the fairy tales that are devoid of any trappings of hierarchical social organization could, conceivably, go back to the Stone Age. As part of an ongoing effort to improve my listening comprehension in German, I recently listened to the Frau Holle story (Mother Hulda in English, I think). The story is essentially about two sisters, one beautiful and hardworking, the other ugly and lazy, who, one after the other, agree to spend time working for the titular figure. They get rewarded according to their performance as you might expect. Meanwhile, Frau Holle herself seems to be some sort of primeval weather spirit, because one of the assigned tasks is to shake the feather bed to make it snow on Earth. The girls get into Frau Holle’s world by falling down a well, but paradoxically that world seems to be in the sky somewhere. IIRC the word for “well”, “fountain”, and “spring” are all the same in German, so I can’t be sure. In the context it might suggest a stage in technological development when we didn’t know how to dig wells or build fountains. If I heard aright, the first sister loses a spindle in this spring and has to dive in to look for it, but I don’t recall her actually _falling_ the way it would happen in a well. > > After listening to the story it struck me that there are no kings, queens, princes, or princesses, nor any elaborate balls, castles, palaces, or clothing, possibly suggesting a time before such stratification of human society existed. First, there are different words in German: well = Brunnen. In illustrations this is commonly the old [Ziehbrunnen](http://www.google.de/search?tbm=isch&hl=de&source=hp&biw=1680&bih=891&q=ziehbrunnen&gbv=2&oq=ziehbrunnen&aq=0&aqi=g4g-sS1g-S3g-sS2&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=img.3.0.0l4j0i10i24j0i24l3j0i10i24l2.1079.3332.0.4715.13.13.1.0.0.0.211.1350.5j6j1.12.0.6zO7rr0ikpU) - a small brick wall, with a bar across to let down the bucket and pull up, sometimes with a covering on top. Fountain = Quelle. This is what naturally springs from the earth. Spring = Quelle. Here I don’t know the difference between the two English words well enough. Or maybe it’s another case of one word coming from Anglo-Saxon, and the other from French/ Latin, but both meaning the same? Frau Holle, or Goldmarie, Pechmarie is not only one of the still better known (including the rhyme with which the girls are greeted when returning: Kikeriki, unsere goldene/schmutzige Jungfrau ist wieder hie! ), but also well interpreted. Frau Holle is linked to the pre-Christian goddes Hulda who was a wise-woman, powerful (weather is important!), and got hidden into a fairy tale. That you fall down into a well to come out into a country somewhere in the clouds / far away is a very common motif in many fairy-tales. The usual interpretation is that a well resembles or symbolizes the womb, so you are being re-born. Couple that with time spent learning woman’s duties and skills at a wise woman, and a studious girl would indeed come back richer = wiser woman. (The spindle is already a reference to the woman skills. Blood being spilt, which is the official reason to go the well and wash the spindle also points toward some kind of initiation ceremony or transition, where the girl first has to sacrifice some blood and than overcome her fear by jumping / falling down a well. More background in the [German wiki article](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frau_Holle). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/34 "2012-04-20T18:22:06Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Hell, as I recall, there was a theory that european folktales about Trolls and similar monsters were basically a passed-down folk memory of _Neanderthals_, when they existed alongside homo sapiens. The only place I recall mentioning this was “Eaters of the Dead” from Micheal Chricton, a retelling of Beowulf (and made into the movie The 13th warrior). And even there, it’s only speculation that the cannibalistic creatures are left-over neanderthals or just an enemy tribe looking differently than the Vikings. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/35 "2012-04-20T18:30:49Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > They’re more like legos, with component parts that naturally fit together in certain patterns but are endlessly recombinable. The set of legos is undoubtedly stone age, but tales such as “The Kind and the Unkind Girl” (Frau Holle) are pretty widespread and might be some of the earlier ones. That’s why fairy-tales could be classified by Arne-Thompson - because so many elements recur in so many different combinations. The motifs of the elements: that good people get rewarded, and bad people punished (and that good people are good-looking, but bad people ugly), that if you are pious and help animals and old people, you will be rewarded, that sometimes you need courage, but also smarts - those motifs go back to the first time humans sat around a fire, and are the reason why so different cultures like Medieval Europe, Japan, or Mexico have similar elements. (Of course there are also influences, like Cinderella tracing back to China and therefore, the tiny feet, and fairy tales unique to a specific culture). That’s the mythical part that speaks to us. The Grimm brothers noted this, how they compiled a dozen or more variations of one fairy tale and edited it to what they considered the best version (they also changed a lot of mothers into step mothers because they thought it too cruel to have real mothers hate their children.) Just looking now at the [different editions](http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Frau_Holle)of the Frau Holle Märchen from the Grimm brothers themselves there are many changes between 1st and later editions. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/36 "2012-04-20T18:38:30Z")
\*\*Constanze \*\*- a fountain is a man-made object like [this](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3217/2672879821_ecbba3673f.jpg) , a [spring is](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(hydrology))a natural welling up of water from the earth. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/37 "2012-04-20T18:42:41Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > \*\*Constanze \*\*- a fountain is a man-made object like [this](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3217/2672879821_ecbba3673f.jpg) , a [spring is](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(hydrology))a natural welling up of water from the earth. Ah. I thought fountain also refers to a spring. In that case, fountain = Springbrunnen in German Spring = Quelle ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/38 "2012-04-20T18:45:17Z")
The private TV station Pro 7 did a new take on traditional fairy tales with comedians and aimed at adults - rather funny. One of them was [Frau Holle](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844450/)(with famous Hella von Sinnen\* playing the title role). You can see an [extract here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAtBJ_eYyGE). They changed the good-looking/ dark-ugly position around: the “bad” sister is the blond ditz named “Chantal” who works hard to look good; the dark-haired is the sensible one who knows how much work can be done at Frau Holle’s house to not cause bad counter-effects on earth, and who generally tries to keep her dumb sister out of trouble, which the blonde resents because she knows what’s best! - Hella von sinnen means literally “Hella out of her mind”. She’s a comedian and has been out as lesbian for some time. She made [a famous TV spot](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1EtCcb2NOI)for condoms in the 1990s - she plays the cashier shouting across the whole shop “Rita, how much do the condoms cost?” Which was an intentional rib on Minister for Health Rita Süssmuth, who quite agreed with the Aids-campaign. Nevertheless they changed it to Tina later. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/39 "2012-04-20T18:58:39Z")
Oh - [another clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HNI7_i7uWE&feature=related)with Hoecker who as a running gag tries to get a part in the tale told by the narrator. And [with Bernd das Brot](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2_gpZgKnk&feature=related)- he’s part of the children’s programme on public television. Spiegel magazine called him typically German because he’s depressive (or melancholy, or realistic.) The stories are chock-full of cultural references… [Chantal singing in English](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__N8GI94e5g&feature=relmfu)… Meeting the [apple](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA0oRrGWOVM&feature=relmfu) [tree](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz7Fvp6-m1A&feature=relmfu) (both the apple tree and the bread don’t want to be helped in this version, but she ignores them, like the original bad sister did). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113/40 "2012-04-20T20:09:37Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Ah. I thought fountain also refers to a spring. In that case, fountain = Springbrunnen in German > Spring = Quelle No, you were right, but that use of “fountain” is unusual in English. It is the sort of usage you might find in the more old-fashioned English translations of fairy tales, for instance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-time-period-are-the-fairy-tales-set-in/618113.md?page=3)