Prehistoric Fairy Tales

January 21, 2016 | 1 book mentioned

Discovery of the Week: Fairy tales are older than previously thought. Researchers have traced stories back to prehistoric and bronze age times. For example, Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin “can be securely traced back to the emergence of the major western Indo-European subfamilies as distinct lineages between 2,500 and 6,000 years ago.” Kirsty Logan writes about the problem with fairy tales.

is an intern for The Millions. She is the managing editor of Concrete Literary Magazine at Emerson College, where she is pursuing a BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. She tweets at @Cara_DuBois.