250 Fun Facts About Fairy Tales

In the Grimms' 1812 Rapunzel, what gives away the prince's secret visits?

Her tight clothes: she innocently asks why they no longer fit. Later editions hid the pregnancy and had her blurt out instead that the old woman is harder to pull up than the prince.

Which massive scholarly project did the Grimms begin in 1838 and leave unfinished at their deaths?

The Grimms began the Deutsches Wörterbuch, a German dictionary, in 1838; other scholars completed it only in 1961. Jacob also gave his name to Grimm's law.

Charles Perrault's 1697 collection of Cinderella, Puss in Boots and Sleeping Beauty carried what subtitle?

Tales of Mother Goose, Contes de ma mère l'Oye, was the name on the frontispiece; Perrault would not sign the book himself, and it appeared as the work of 'P. Darmancour', his young son Pierre.

Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805 in which Danish city?

Odense was his birthplace; still a boy, he left for Copenhagen hoping to become an actor, and it was a director of the Royal Theatre there who raised the money to send him to school instead.

Which French writer, a contemporary of Charles Perrault, coined the term 'fairy tale' with her 1697 collection Les Contes des fées?

Madame d'Aulnoy gave the genre its name with that title; years earlier she is said to have fled arrest after a failed plot to have her husband condemned for treason.

A popular theory holds that Cinderella's glass slipper was a mistake for 'vair', a French word for what?

Squirrel fur, vair, sounds just like verre, glass; Balzac asserted the mix-up in a novel, but Perrault's own title says 'pantoufle de verre' and no earlier fur-slipper version has ever been identified.

In Strabo's tale of Rhodopis, often called the earliest Cinderella story, what steals her sandal?

An eagle snatches the sandal while Rhodopis bathes and drops it in the lap of the Egyptian king at Memphis, who sends men across the country to find its owner.

Which detail did Charles Perrault add to the Cinderella story in his 1697 version?

The pumpkin coach was Perrault's own touch, like the glass of the slippers; the stepmother, the feast and a lost shoe were already in an Italian version printed in 1634.

In the Grimms' 1812 first edition of Snow White, who was the villain who wanted the girl dead?

Her own mother orders the killing in the 1812 text, telling the huntsman to bring back the girl's lungs and liver as proof; the 1819 edition recast her as a stepmother.

How is the wicked queen punished at the end of the Grimms' Snow White?

Dancing in red-hot iron shoes till death is her sentence at Snow White's wedding, the shoes carried in with tongs from the coals; Disney's 1937 film has her fall from a cliff instead.

A 1912 play named the seven dwarfs Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick and Quee; where did it open?

On Broadway, at Winthrop Ames's Little Theatre; its star Marguerite Clark repeated the role in a 1916 silent film, which a teenage Walt Disney saw and later cited as a reason he chose Snow White.

In Perrault's original Little Red Riding Hood, what happens after the wolf eats the girl?

Nothing; the story ends there, with the girl eaten and no rescue; the Grimm version brings in a huntsman who cuts the sleeping wolf open and lets her and her grandmother out alive.

In the Grimm tale, Red Riding Hood's grandmother lures a second wolf off the roof into a trough of what?

Sausage water did it: the grandmother had the girl fill a stone trough with the water from boiling sausages, and the wolf, craning after the smell, slid off the roof and drowned.

The witch's house in Hansel and Gretel is described in the Grimm tale as made of what?

Bread, cake and sugar: the walls were bread, the roof cake and the windows clear sugar; the famous gingerbread came from later adaptations, not from the Grimms' text.

Before the apple, the Grimms' wicked queen tries to kill Snow White with tight bodice laces and what else?

A poisoned comb is her second weapon: the dwarfs get home in time to cut the laces and then to pull out the comb, but the apple leaves nothing for them to find.

In the Grimms' final 1857 edition, how does Rumpelstiltskin meet his end after his name is guessed?

He tears himself in two: stamping his right foot deep into the ground in rage, he grabs the left with both hands and rips himself up the middle; in the 1812 edition he simply ran away angrily.

The English cousin of Rumpelstiltskin, published by Joseph Jacobs in 1890, is called what?

Tom Tit Tot, a Suffolk tale, opens Jacobs's English Fairy Tales; the imp gives himself away by singing 'Nimmy nimmy not, my name's Tom Tit Tot' as he spins.

In the Grimms' Rapunzel, which plant does the pregnant wife crave from the witch's garden?

Rampion, a bellflower once grown for its salad leaves and roots, is one plant the German word Rapunzel names; the French Persinette and Italian Petrosinella are named for parsley instead.

Instead of a kiss, how does the princess break the spell in the Grimms' Frog King?

Hurls him against a wall: disgusted that the frog wants to share her bed, she throws him with all her might and he lands a prince; the kiss seems to have arrived later, in English retellings.

In Puss in Boots, the cat claims his master, a miller's youngest son, is a nobleman with what title?

Puss tells the king his master is the Marquis of Carabas, an invented title; the eldest brother got the mill, the middle one the donkey and the youngest only the cat.

Perrault's Bluebeard is a wealthy man with what habit?

Murdering his wives is Bluebeard's secret: behind a forbidden door his new bride finds the bodies, and her brothers ride up to kill him just as her sister Anne spots them from the tower.

Which French novelist first wrote down Beauty and the Beast in 1740?

Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve published it anonymously and at novel length, inside La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins; the short tale most people know is a later abridgement.

The ogre's cry 'Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman' comes from which tale?

Jack and the Beanstalk made the cry famous, but the rhyme is older than the printed tale: in King Lear, Edgar says 'Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.'

Before Goldilocks, who broke into the bears' house in Robert Southey's 1837 'Story of the Three Bears'?

A rude old woman was Southey's intruder, and his three bears were bachelors, not a family; a publisher turned her into a pretty little girl about a dozen years later, and the name Goldilocks came later still.

In a version of The Three Little Pigs printed in 1853, who lives in the houses?

Pixies own the houses, of wood, stone and iron, and a fox takes the wolf's part: he pulls down the first two and eats the owners, but the iron house beats him.

What is forbidden on the Hamelin street the Pied Piper's children are said to have left by?

Music and dancing are banned on Bungelosenstrasse, the 'drumless street'; the Grimms recorded that even a bridal procession's musicians had to stop playing as they crossed it, in memory of 130 lost children.

Which Arabian Nights tale did Antoine Galland add after hearing it from a Syrian storyteller in Paris?

Aladdin came from Hanna Diyab, a young Maronite from Aleppo who met Galland in Paris in 1709; no Arabic text of the tale older than Galland's French version has been found.

In Andersen's original mermaid tale, what does the sea witch take in exchange for giving her legs?

Her tongue is the price: the sea witch cuts it out, leaving her mute, and warns that every step on her new legs will feel like treading on sharp knives.

At the end of Andersen's The Little Mermaid, the heroine's body dissolves into what?

Sea foam is all a mermaid leaves behind after her 300 years, having no immortal soul; Andersen lets his heroine rise from it as a daughter of the air, with a chance to earn one.

The Ugly Duckling turns out to be what kind of bird?

A swan: after a winter alone, the outcast swims up to the royal birds expecting them to kill him, bows his head, and sees his own reflection in the water.

In The Emperor's New Clothes, who finally says out loud that the emperor is wearing nothing?

A small child cries out that the emperor has nothing on; Andersen adapted a medieval Spanish tale in which the invisible cloth exposed men who were not their fathers' true sons.

In Andersen's The Princess and the Pea, who slips the pea under the bedding?

The old queen says nothing, strips the bed and lays one pea beneath twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdowns; the guest's complaint of a sleepless night proves her a real princess.

In Andersen's The Snow Queen, what does the troll's magic mirror do?

Magnifies the bad and ugly in everything, and shrinks whatever is good: when the mirror shatters, splinters lodge in Kai's eye and heart, and he starts to see the world the same way.

Which English novelist did Hans Christian Andersen visit in 1857, stretching a short stay into five weeks?

Charles Dickens hosted him at Gads Hill in Kent; after the visit Dickens stopped answering his letters, and Andersen never learned why.

In the Grimms' Cinderella, what grows on her mother's grave and grants her wishes?

A hazel tree grows from a twig Cinderella plants on the grave and waters with her tears; she asks it for her gowns with 'Shake and quiver, little tree, throw gold and silver down to me.'

In the Chinese Cinderella tale Ye Xian, the bones of which pet grant the heroine's wishes?

A fish is Ye Xian's only friend; after her stepmother kills it, the girl hides its bones, which give her the golden shoes she wears to the festival, one of which she loses.

In 1837 the Brothers Grimm lost their Göttingen professorships for protesting when Hanover's new king scrapped what?

The constitution was annulled by King Ernest Augustus; the Grimms and five colleagues, the 'Göttingen Seven', refused to swear his oath and were dismissed, and Jacob was among three ordered out of the kingdom.

Jacob Grimm gave his name to a famous 'law' in which field of study?

Linguistics: Grimm's law sets out the regular consonant shifts that mark off the Germanic languages, proof that sounds change by rule; the Dane Rasmus Rask had recognised the pattern before him.

In the Grimms' The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, where does the youngest kid hide?

The wolf swallows six kids but misses the youngest, hidden in the clock case; the kid leads the mother goat to the sleeping wolf, whose belly is filled with stones.

In the Grimms' Cinderella, which birds peck out the stepsisters' eyes at the wedding?

Doves that had helped her sort lentils from the ashes take one eye from each sister on the way into church and the other on the way out; the sisters had already cut off a toe and a heel.

Perrault's Sleeping Beauty was later retold by the Grimms under what German title?

Dornröschen means little briar rose; a thorn hedge swallows the sleeping castle, and princes who try to force a way through stick fast in the thorns and die.

At the end of Andersen's The Steadfast Tin Soldier, the maid finds the soldier melted into what shape?

A heart: the soldier is thrown into the stove and a draught carries his ballerina in after him; next morning the maid finds a little tin heart among the ashes.

The word 'fairy' ultimately derives from a Latin word meaning what?

Fate: Latin fata, 'the Fates', became Old French fae, and 'faerie' at first meant the enchanted land itself; only later did English use 'fairy' for one of its people.

In folklore, which metal is traditionally a charm against fairies?

Cold iron was held to repel fairies, witches and ghosts alike, so people nailed iron horseshoes over their doors and left open iron scissors where a baby slept.

In fairy lore, what name is given to a fairy creature left in place of a stolen human child?

A changeling was how folk belief explained a child who sickened or altered; in 1895 Bridget Cleary's husband killed her and her body was burned, on his claim that the fairies had taken his real wife.

In Peter Pan, what must children who believe in fairies do to save the dying Tinker Bell?

Clap their hands, Peter begs, after Tinker Bell drinks the poison Captain Hook left for him; in the play he turns to the audience itself to ask.

The Cottingley Fairies photographs of 1917 were taken beside a stream in which English county?

Yorkshire's Cottingley Beck ran behind the Wright family's garden near Bradford; cousins Elsie, 16, and Frances, 9, admitted the fakes only in 1983, though Frances still insisted the fifth photograph was real.

Which author used the Cottingley photographs in a 1920 Strand Magazine article on fairies?

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and a committed spiritualist, wrote the December 1920 Strand article and believed the pictures were genuine.

How did the Cottingley girls create their fairies?

Cardboard cut-outs held up with hatpins did it: Elsie, who had worked in a photographer's studio, copied the dancing figures from Princess Mary's Gift Book, and the props went into the beck afterwards.

Why is Tinker Bell called 'Tinker'?

She mends pots and kettles, Peter explains, calling her 'quite a common fairy'; the Bell half of her name is her voice, a tinkle like golden bells that is the fairy language.

In the original stage productions of Peter Pan, how was Tinker Bell represented?

A darting light from a hand mirror, held off-stage to catch a strong lamp, was all audiences saw of Tinker Bell; Barrie's script calls her a ball of light no bigger than a fist, and bells gave her a voice.

In Spain and Hispanic America, the tooth fairy's job is done by what kind of animal?

A mouse, Ratoncito Pérez, trades teeth for gifts; the Jesuit writer Luis Coloma made him a tooth collector in a tale written for Spain's boy king Alfonso XIII, who had lost a tooth at eight.

Delta Dental's 2023 poll put the average US tooth-fairy payout for one lost tooth at about how much?

About $6: the poll's $6.23 was a record, nearly five times the $1.30 it found in 1998; Delta Dental says the payout usually tracks the wider economy.

The Sugar Plum Fairy rules the Land of Sweets in which 1892 ballet?

The Nutcracker owes her sound to the celesta: Tchaikovsky came across the new bell-toned instrument in Paris, heard his fairy's voice in it and asked his publisher to obtain one.

The aos sí, a supernatural race comparable to fairies, belong to the folklore of which country?

Ireland's aos sí are, in one tradition, its old gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, dwindled into fairy folk once no longer worshipped; another makes them fallen angels, not bad enough for hell.

In the Grimms' The Juniper Tree, what does the murdered boy come back as?

The stepmother kills the boy and cooks him in a stew; his sister buries his bones under the juniper tree, and he rises as a singing bird that drops a millstone on the stepmother.

In the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade tells her stories to which king?

King Shahryar had been executing each new bride after one night; Scheherazade's unfinished stories keep her alive for 1,001 nights. Shahzaman is his brother.

Which lyricist pitched the idea of Disney's Aladdin to Jeffrey Katzenberg?

Howard Ashman, lyricist of The Little Mermaid, proposed Aladdin to Katzenberg in 1988 with a treatment and songs; he died in 1991, before the film's 1992 release.

Who directed the 2019 live-action Aladdin?

Guy Ritchie's remake raises the stakes for Jasmine: the 1992 princess wins the right to marry whom she chooses, while his sets out to succeed her father and rule as sultan.

In a tale Afanasyev collected, Prince Ivan and a grey wolf pursue which bird?

The Firebird steals a golden apple from the tsar's garden each night; Ivan stays awake to seize it and is left holding a single shining tail feather, which starts the hunt.

What is the name of Ali Baba's greedy brother?

Cassim, Ali Baba's greedy brother, forgets the password 'Open Sesame' inside the cave and is killed by the thieves; the slave-girl Morgiana later foils their plots.

Andrew Lang's twelve 'Coloured' Fairy Books began in 1889 with a volume of which colour?

Blue came first; Andrew Lang's name is on every cover, yet he admitted in the last book's preface that the series was 'almost wholly the work of Mrs. Lang', his wife Leonora.

Baba Yaga is famous for flying around in what?

Baba Yaga rides in a wooden mortar, steering with a pestle and sweeping her tracks with a broom; she lives in a hut on chicken legs.

The Irish banshee heralds what event?

A family member's death is what her cry foretells; it echoes the keening of the women who wailed laments at Irish funerals, and lore held that she warned only families of old Irish stock.

Whose abridgement of 'La Belle et la Bête' became the standard retelling?

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, a French governess working in London, cut a novel-length original of 1740 down to a short moral tale for her pupils' reader, the Magasin des enfants.

Who wrote the screenplay for Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast?

Linda Woolverton, the first woman to write an animated feature for Disney, delivered a finished screenplay before storyboarding began, reversing the studio's habit of building its films on storyboards.

Who played the Beast opposite Emma Watson's Belle in 2017?

Dan Stevens played the Beast in a forty-pound grey suit on stilts for motion capture, with his face recorded separately; Luke Evans was Gaston and Josh Gad LeFou.

In Andersen's The Wild Swans, what must Elisa weave the shirts from to free her brothers?

Stinging nettles, picked from churchyard graves and trodden barefoot into fibre, blister her hands as she works; seen gathering them by night, she is condemned as a witch and is still at work on the last shirt on the cart to the stake.

The Brothers Grimm were born in which German town?

Hanau was home until 1791, when their father became district magistrate in Steinau; his death five years later left the family poor, and the boys went on to school in Kassel.

The Scottish brownie is a household spirit that expects what offering by the hearth?

A bowl of milk or cream left by the hearth is all a brownie asks for its night's work, but it is quick to take offence: feel slighted and it leaves the house for good.

In the Grimms' The Girl Without Hands, who demands the miller's daughter in exchange for riches?

The miller unknowingly promises the Devil what stands behind his mill, his daughter; when her purity foils the Devil, her father chops off her hands, and a king later gives her silver ones.

Charles Perrault led which faction in the 17th-century French literary quarrel?

Perrault championed the Moderns, arguing in Le Siècle de Louis le Grand (1687) and the Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes that his own age surpassed antiquity; Boileau led the Ancients.

In Perrault's Cinderella, what does the fairy godmother turn into the coachman?

The godmother picks the rat with the finest whiskers from the trap and turns him into a coachman; six mice become horses and six lizards become footmen.

Disney's 1950 Cinderella followed which pair of commercial failures?

Pinocchio and Fantasia both lost money on first release in 1940, after World War II closed the European markets; a decade on, Cinderella's success pulled the studio back from the edge of bankruptcy.

Who played Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh's 2015 film?

Lily James, then known from Downton Abbey, won the part after talks with Emma Watson fell through; Watson played Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast two years later.

The Slavic household spirit Domovoy has been compared to which Roman deities?

The Penates guarded the Roman storeroom, and legend had Aeneas carry them out of fallen Troy to Italy; the Domovoy is likewise the guardian spirit of a Slavic home and family.

Storyteller Dorothea Viehmann, a key Grimm source, learned many tales where?

Viehmann grew up at her father's tavern, the Knallhütte near Kassel, where travellers told stories; her Pierson ancestors were Huguenots who had fled France.

'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' was collected by which Norwegian pair?

Asbjørnsen and Moe, inspired by the Grimms, pieced the tale together from versions told in Ringerike and Telemark; their plain storytelling style went on to shape written Norwegian and writers such as Ibsen.

In Ella Enchanted, what 'gift' curses Ella at birth?

The fairy Lucinda's gift of obedience forces Ella to obey any order she is given; Gail Carson Levine's 1997 novel won a Newbery Honor.

In Enchanted (2007), Giselle falls in love with a man of what profession?

Divorce lawyer Robert Philip, played by Patrick Dempsey, is a cynic who doesn't believe in true love until Amy Adams's Giselle, exiled from animated Andalasia, lands in New York.

Ever After (1998) sets Cinderella in which era?

Renaissance France is the setting, and the film drops the magic: Leonardo da Vinci, a guest of the king, steps in to free Drew Barrymore's Danielle and get her to the ball.

Bill Willingham's comic about exiled fairy-tale characters hides them in which New York neighbourhood?

Fabletown is the hidden Manhattan enclave of the comic Fables, with Bigby Wolf as sheriff and Snow White as deputy mayor; Fables who can't pass for human are kept upstate at the Farm.

The 'fairy forts' that folklore warns people never to disturb are really the remains of what?

Ancient ringed farmsteads, or ringforts, were ordinary family homes behind circular earth banks; tales of fairy revenge on anyone who levelled one helped tens of thousands survive.

In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, what are fairies born from?

A baby's first laugh broke into a thousand pieces that went skipping about, Peter tells Wendy, and that was the beginning of fairies; each 'I don't believe in fairies' makes one fall down dead.

Fairy rings on lawns, once blamed on dancing fairies, are really made by what?

A fungus spreading underground fruits at its outer edge, so the ring widens year by year; one ring-making lawn mushroom is still called the fairy ring champignon.

'Fractured Fairy Tales' was a segment of which cartoon show?

Rocky and Bullwinkle carried the segment, narrated by Edward Everett Horton, which gave old tales modern twists: its Sleeping Beauty has a Walt Disney-like prince build a theme park around her instead of waking her.

Disney's Frozen was loosely inspired by which Andersen tale?

Frozen (2013) grew out of Disney's long-stalled attempts to adapt The Snow Queen; Elsa's icy powers echo the queen, and her kingdom of Arendelle is trapped in eternal winter.

Which Victorian fantasy pioneer mentored the author of Alice in Wonderland?

George MacDonald, a Congregational minister and author of Phantastes, urged Carroll to publish Alice after the manuscript was read to his delighted children.

Straparola's collection with some of Europe's first printed fairy tales is called what?

The Facetious Nights (Le piacevoli notti), modelled on Boccaccio's Decameron, has guests at a party on Murano swap tales and riddles; by 1624 the Church had put it on its Index of banned books.

In Perrault's Les Fées, what comes out of the rude sister's mouth whenever she speaks?

In Les Fées (1697), often called Diamonds and Toads, a fairy rewards the kind sister with flowers and jewels at every word and curses the rude one with toads and snakes.

In the TV series Grimm, what are the mythological creatures called?

The creatures are Wesen, German for 'beings', seen in their true form only by Grimms like Portland detective Nick Burkhardt; the show ran on NBC from 2011 to 2017.

In Perrault's Donkeyskin, what did the king's prized donkey produce?

The king's donkey dropped gold coins instead of dung; the princess demands its skin as an impossible price before fleeing her father's proposal of marriage.

Grimms' Fairy Tales joined which UNESCO register of documentary heritage in 2005?

Memory of the World lists the brothers' own copies of the tales, kept in Kassel and filled with their handwritten notes.

Which composer's opera Hänsel und Gretel premiered in 1893?

Engelbert Humperdinck, once Wagner's assistant at Bayreuth, grew the opera out of songs he wrote for a home puppet show put on by his sister's children; Richard Strauss conducted the 1893 premiere in Weimar.

Who played Hansel in the 2013 film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters?

Jeremy Renner played Hansel and Gemma Arterton Gretel in Tommy Wirkola's 2013 action film, which turned the siblings into adult bounty hunters.

In the usual telling, what falls on Henny Penny's head, convincing her the sky is falling?

An acorn is what hits her in most tellings, and she sets off to tell the king the sky is falling; Americans know the tale as Chicken Little.

Hoodwinked! (2005) retells Little Red Riding Hood in what style?

Hoodwinked! plays the tale as a police procedural, each witness retelling events Rashomon-style to frog detective Nicky Flippers; Anne Hathaway voiced Red.

The seductive Scandinavian huldra hides which tell-tale feature?

An animal's tail, usually a cow's, is what the huldra hides under her long skirt; Norwegian lore says she can lure people away and hold them captive.

Which musical, opened on Broadway in 1987, weaves together several Grimm tales?

Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, reaches happily ever after at the interval; Act Two shows the aftermath, as a giant's widow arrives seeking revenge on Jack.

Robert Bly's 1990s book Iron John, based on the Grimm tale, inspired what?

The mythopoetic men's movement made Iron John: A Book About Men a key text; Bly read the tale's wild man, who helps a boy grow into adulthood, as a lesson for modern men, and it spent 62 weeks as a best-seller.

Which novelist compiled 200 regional folktales, published in 1956?

Italo Calvino built Italian Folktales from books, not storytellers: over two years he sifted the collections folklorists had printed across Italy and turned the best from dialect into standard Italian.

After the bag of gold and the hen that lays golden eggs, what is the last treasure Jack steals from the giant?

A magic harp that sings on command is Jack's third theft in Joseph Jacobs's 1890 telling; it cries 'Master! Master!' as he runs off with it, waking the ogre for the final chase.

Which X-Men director made the 2013 fantasy Jack the Giant Slayer?

Bryan Singer's film, first titled Jack the Giant Killer, cost close to $200 million and earned only about that much worldwide, a costly failure for Warner Bros.

In Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales, how does the pig in the brick house finish off the wolf?

Boils and eats him: the wolf drops down the chimney into the pot, and the pig has him for supper in the version collected by Joseph Jacobs, a folklorist born in Sydney.

The Scottish kelpie is a shape-shifting spirit that usually appears as what?

The kelpie usually takes the form of a horse that lures riders onto its back and drags them into the water; almost every Scottish loch and river was said to have one.

In King Thrushbeard, why does the princess mock the young king?

His crooked chin reminds her of a thrush's beak, so she nicknames him Thrushbeard; her father then marries her to the first beggar at the door, a minstrel who is the king in disguise.

Which Monty Python member wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth (1986)?

Terry Jones wrote the first script for Jim Henson's Labyrinth, though other writers reworked it heavily before filming; David Bowie played Jareth the Goblin King opposite Jennifer Connelly.

In later Irish folklore, leprechauns took up what trade?

Shoemaking keeps the leprechaun busy and, by old accounts, rich; catch one and he must show you his treasure, but glance away and he is gone.

Perrault attached a verse moral to his 1697 Little Red Riding Hood, warning young women against whom?

Smooth-talking strangers are the real wolves, Perrault says: the gentle, obliging kind who follow young ladies home are the most dangerous of all.

Before birds eat his trail of breadcrumbs, what does Hansel drop that does lead the children home?

White pebbles, gathered by moonlight the night before, shine along the path and guide the pair home; the next time the door is locked, so Hansel has only his bread to crumble.

In the Arabian Nights, what does Prince Husain buy to win his cousin's hand?

Flying carpet, bought in the Indian city of Bisnagar, gets the three princes home in time to save their cousin: one brother's spying tube had shown her dying, and the other's healing apple cures her.

Who was originally attached to direct Maleficent before Robert Stromberg?

Tim Burton was attached to direct but left for other projects; Robert Stromberg, who had won Oscars as production designer on Avatar and on Burton's Alice in Wonderland, made his directing debut instead.

Melusine, the water spirit, is usually a serpent or fish from where down?

Melusine is a woman from the waist up and a serpent or fish below, a secret she hides on Saturdays; the House of Lusignan and the counts of Luxembourg claimed descent from her.

Morgan le Fay is an enchantress from which legendary cycle?

King Arthur's legend first gave Morgan le Fay a kinder part: in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini she is the healer who tends the wounded king on Avalon, and only later romances made her his enemy.

In the Grimms' Frau Holle, what happens on earth when Mother Holle shakes her featherbed?

Mother Holle tells the girl to shake the bed until the feathers fly, for then it snows on earth; the diligent girl goes home showered in gold, the lazy one in pitch.

The Nordic nisse or tomte expects which favourite food each yuletide?

The nisse expects a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on Christmas Eve; it wears a red cap, does house and stable chores, and takes revenge if forgotten.

A dwarfish fairy king who helps the hero of the French epic Huon de Bordeaux became which Shakespeare character?

Oberon first appears in the 13th-century Huon de Bordeaux, helping the knight on a deadly errand to Babylon; a Tudor translation by Lord Berners carried the name to Shakespeare.

Which author gave the 1939 lecture 'On Fairy-Stories'?

J. R. R. Tolkien gave it as the Andrew Lang Lecture at St Andrews, soon after The Hobbit; the essay he made of it coined 'eucatastrophe' for the sudden happy turn of a good fairy tale.

In the TV series Once Upon a Time, the fairy-tale characters live in which fictional seaside town in Maine?

Storybrooke holds them under the Evil Queen's curse, which wiped their memories and froze their lives for 28 years until Snow White's grown daughter came to town.

Which formula traditionally ends German fairy tales?

'And if they haven't died, they're living still' renders und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute, a shrug where the French formula promises happiness and many children.

The Arabian Nights' frame story probably comes from which Persian book, whose title means 'A Thousand Tales'?

Hezār Afsān is described in a tenth-century Baghdad book catalogue: a king kills each new wife until a storytelling bride stops him, the frame the Arabic Nights kept.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is set in the aftermath of which war?

The Spanish Civil War was five years over in the film's summer of 1944, yet Ofelia's stepfather, Captain Vidal, is still hunting the Maquis guerrillas who fight on against Franco.

The Panchatantra's title means what in Sanskrit?

Five Treatises is the literal meaning: five books of animal fables, framed as the lessons in statecraft that a wise Brahmin gives a king's three dull sons.

In the Norwegian tale De tre bukkene Bruse, what lives under the goats' bridge?

A troll under the bridge threatens each of the three goats in turn; the two smaller ones send him on to the biggest, who butts him into the river.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin appears in the writings of which poet, besides Goethe and the Grimms?

Robert Browning's 1842 poem made the tale famous in English; it lingers on one lame boy, too slow to keep up, who is shut out when the mountain door closes behind his friends.

The name Pinocchio may derive from a Tuscan word for what?

Pine nut is the meaning of pinocchio, a rare Tuscan word and one possible origin of the puppet's name; his creator, Carlo Lorenzini, took his own pen-name, Collodi, from his mother's home town.

In Disney's Pinocchio, what three qualities must Pinocchio prove to become a real boy?

Brave, truthful and unselfish is the test the fairy sets, with Jiminy Cricket as his conscience; Collodi's book is harsher, since there Pinocchio kills the talking cricket with a thrown hammer.

Pixies are thought to be concentrated in the moorlands of which two English counties?

Cornwall and Devon share the pixies, said to wrestle through the night on the moors and to mislead travellers heading home from market, who were then called 'pixy-led'.

In Shrek 2, Fiona's parents rule which kingdom?

Far Far Away is ruled by King Harold and Queen Lillian; the Fairy Godmother wants her own son, Prince Charming, to marry Fiona so that she can run the kingdom through him.

Puck's most famous prank in A Midsummer Night's Dream gives Nick Bottom the head of what?

Puck gives Nick Bottom the head of an ass, and the enchanted Titania falls in love with him; Puck is also called Robin Goodfellow.

In Straparola's version of Puss in Boots, the cat is secretly what?

A disguised fairy, the cat wins a poor boy named Costantino a princess by duping a king; Straparola printed the tale in Venice in the 1550s, well over a century before Perrault's version.

The Grimms' Rapunzel developed from Persinette, a 1698 tale by whom?

Charlotte-Rose de La Force published Persinette in 1698, a year after Louis XIV packed her off to an abbey over scandalous rumours; the Grimms met the story through a German translation.

Who directed the 2011 film Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfried?

Catherine Hardwicke, fresh from Twilight, turned the tale into a whodunnit: the wolf is a werewolf who lives among the villagers by day, and Valerie comes to suspect someone she loves.

The rusalka of Slavic folklore is usually associated with what?

Water is the rusalka's home: in most tellings she is the restless spirit of a drowned young woman, who lures men into the river with her looks or her voice.

Selkies shapeshift between human form and what animal?

Seal skins are the selkie's secret: she sheds hers to walk on land as a woman, and a man who steals and hides it can keep her as his wife until she finds it again.

Shrek was loosely based on a 1990 picture book by whom?

William Steig was a New Yorker cartoonist who only began writing children's books at 61; Steven Spielberg bought the film rights to Shrek! in 1991, a year after it came out.

How many voyages does Sinbad the Sailor make?

He hails from Baghdad in the early Abbasid era.

A precursor to Sleeping Beauty appears in which 14th-century French romance?

Perceforest, a vast 14th-century prose romance, includes the story of Troylus and Zellandine, a princess who sleeps through her own pregnancy; it is some 300 years older than the first Italian version of the tale.

In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which good fairy softens Maleficent's curse from death to a deep sleep?

Merryweather had not yet given her gift when Maleficent struck, so she used it to turn death into a sleep that true love's kiss could break.

Snow-White and Rose-Red derives from an older tale called what?

The Ungrateful Dwarf, which Caroline Stahl published in 1818, was reworked by Wilhelm Grimm and joined the collection in 1837; Stahl's bear simply eats the dwarf, and it was Grimm who made him an enchanted prince.

The 1823 first English translation of the Grimms' Sneewittchen used what title?

Snow-Drop was Edgar Taylor's title in German Popular Stories (1823), illustrated by George Cruikshank; in it no kiss wakes her: the coffin is lifted and the piece of apple falls from her lips.

Who plays the Evil Queen in Disney's 2025 Snow White?

Gal Gadot plays the Evil Queen, who orders the Huntsman to kill Snow White, played by Rachel Zegler, and bring back her heart in a box.

What is the name of the evil queen in Snow White & the Huntsman?

Ravenna, played by Charlize Theron, takes the throne by marrying and killing the king, then drains the life force of young women to keep her beauty.

Where did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiere in December 1937?

Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles hosted the premiere on 21 December 1937; the building was demolished in 1969, but Disney California Adventure rebuilt its look as a restaurant in 2012.

Stardust (2007) is based on a novel by which author?

Neil Gaiman's 1999 novel Stardust was filmed by Matthew Vaughn in 2007; Tristan crosses the wall into the realm of Stormhold to catch a fallen star.

What record did Tangled reportedly set on its 2010 release?

Tangled's cost was reported at more than $260 million, swollen by six years of development, which made it the most expensive animated film ever at the time.

The Bloody Chamber, a 1979 collection of reworked fairy tales, opens by retelling which tale?

Bluebeard lies behind the title story; here the young bride is saved not by a male hero but by her mother, who arrives with a pistol and shoots the husband.

Which four animals set out to become the Town Musicians of Bremen?

Donkey, dog, cat and rooster, all too old for their masters, head for Bremen but settle in a robbers' house they frighten empty; they never reach the city.

Which director made 2005's The Brothers Grimm with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger?

Terry Gilliam directed The Brothers Grimm (2005), which reimagines Jacob and Wilhelm, played by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, as travelling con artists staging fake hauntings.

The Company of Wolves (1984) was adapted from a story by which writer?

Angela Carter adapted her own werewolf retelling of Red Riding Hood with director Neil Jordan for The Company of Wolves (1984).

In The Elves and the Shoemaker, what gift makes the elves leave for good?

Clothes end the visits: the grateful shoemaker and his wife sew them for the naked elves, who dress, dance out of the door and never come back.

In The Emperor's New Clothes, the swindlers say their cloth is invisible to whom?

Anyone stupid or unfit for office supposedly cannot see the cloth, so the emperor, his ministers and the whole town praise clothes that are not there.

To which monarch did Edmund Spenser dedicate The Faerie Queene?

Spenser dedicated The Faerie Queene (1590–96) to Elizabeth I, who appears in it as Gloriana, the Faerie Queene herself; she granted him a pension of £50 a year.

What are the names of Timmy Turner's fairy godparents?

Cosmo and Wanda grant the wishes of Timmy Turner, a boy tormented by his cruel babysitter Vicky, but the wishes keep going wrong and he usually has to undo them.

In The Fisherman and His Wife, which wish costs the wife everything?

To be like God, making the sun and moon rise, is the wish too far: she had already been made king, emperor and pope, and this one sends the couple back to their filthy shack.

Which tale of a lost golden ball comes first in the Grimm collection?

The Frog Prince, in full The Frog King, or Iron Henry, opens the collection; Iron Henry is the prince's servant, who bound his heart in iron bands so it would not break with grief.

In The Gingerbread Man, first printed in an American magazine in 1875, who finally catches and eats him?

A fox ends the chase in the St. Nicholas Magazine original, after the runaway has outrun an old couple, threshers, mowers, a cow and a pig; he cries 'I'm all gone!' as he is eaten.

In The Golden Goose, what is the youngest son called?

Dummling, the despised youngest son, shares his ash-baked cake and sour beer with a little grey man, who rewards him with the golden goose.

What is the name of the talking horse in The Goose Girl?

Falada, the princess's talking horse, is beheaded, and its head, nailed up in the dark town gateway, still speaks to her; the tale came to the Grimms from Dorothea Viehmann.

Which Oscar Wilde story collection contains The Selfish Giant?

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) includes The Selfish Giant, whose walled garden stays locked in winter until the children creep back in and he knocks the wall down.

In Beauty and the Beast, what does Beauty ask her father to bring back from his journey?

A rose is all Beauty asks for while her sisters want fine clothes and jewels; when her father picks one in the Beast's garden, the Beast demands his life or one of his daughters.

On what night is The Little Match Girl set?

New Year's Eve, the last evening of the year, is when she freezes; in the match flames she sees a warm stove, a roast goose and a Christmas tree before her grandmother comes for her.

Who voiced Ursula in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid?

Pat Carroll voiced the sea witch Ursula, whose look was modelled on the drag performer Divine; Jodi Benson voiced Ariel and Buddy Hackett the seagull Scuttle.

Who plays Ariel in the 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid?

Halle Bailey plays Ariel in Rob Marshall's 2023 remake, striking a deal with the sea witch Ursula, played by Melissa McCarthy, that puts her own life and her father's crown at risk.

Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue was a gift to the city from the heir to which brewery?

Carlsberg heir Carl Jacobsen ordered the statue after seeing a ballet of the tale; its star, Ellen Price, would not pose nude, so sculptor Edvard Eriksen's wife Eline modelled the body.

Andersen's The Nightingale is set in which country?

China's imperial court is the setting of Andersen's The Nightingale; a jewelled mechanical bird nearly replaces the real one, which returns to sing Death away from the emperor's bed.

In The Princess Bride, what is the villainous prince's name?

Prince Humperdinck of Florin, played by Chris Sarandon, forces the grieving Buttercup into an engagement after her true love Westley is believed dead.

The Princess and the Frog is set in which city?

New Orleans in the 1920s is the setting: waitress Tiana kisses a prince who has been turned into a frog and, instead of curing him, becomes a frog herself.

Where does the pea end up in Andersen's The Princess and the Pea?

A museum is where they put it, and Andersen adds that it can still be seen there unless somebody has taken it; he ends by insisting that the story is true.

What is the name of the vain girl in Andersen's The Red Shoes?

Karen, vain about her red shoes, is cursed to dance without stopping until an executioner cuts off her feet; the shoes dance away with them.

In the Grimms' The Six Swans, what is the youngest brother left with when his shirt is unfinished?

A swan's wing for an arm is his for life: the last shirt still lacked its left sleeve when his sister, about to be burned at the stake, threw all six over the swans.

Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty premiered in 1890 at which theatre?

The Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg staged the premiere in January 1890; at the dress rehearsal the Tsar's only verdict was 'very nice', which stung Tchaikovsky.

In The Snow Queen, who gives Gerda the reindeer that carries her north to Lapland?

The little robber girl, who had seized Gerda with her bandit band, frees her and lends her own reindeer; the prince and princess had earlier given Gerda a golden coach.

In the Grimms' The Star Money, what does the orphan girl do before the stars fall as coins?

She gives away all she owns, from her last piece of bread to her shift, to people needier than herself; the stars then fall as shining coins and she finds herself in a new linen shift.

Why does the soldier who loves a paper ballerina have only one leg?

The tin ran out when he was cast: he was the last of twenty-five soldiers made from one old spoon, yet he stands as steady on one leg as his brothers do on two.

In The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Princess Kaguya comes from where?

The Moon is Kaguya-hime's home: at the end of the tale she returns there, leaving the emperor an elixir of immortality.

In The Tinderbox, what does the soldier do to the witch?

He beheads her when she won't say why she wants the tinderbox, then keeps it for himself; striking it summons three dogs, the largest with eyes as big as Copenhagen's Round Tower.

In The Twelve Dancing Princesses, what daily clue tells the king his daughters slip away at night?

Worn-out shoes greet the king every morning although he locks the bedroom door at night; a soldier in a cloak of invisibility follows the princesses down a hidden stair and solves the riddle.

What does the Brave Little Tailor squeeze to seem to wring water from a stone?

The tailor squeezes whey out of a soft cheese as if it were a stone; he then tosses a bird into the air to outdo the giant's stone-throw.

In Andersen's The Wild Swans, what must Elisa give up until the shirts are finished?

Speech is the price: the fairy warns that her first word will pierce her brothers' hearts like a knife, so Elisa stays silent even on the cart to the stake, and all eleven are saved.

How do the Grimms' seven little kids know their real mother from the wolf?

White feet and a sweet voice are the test, so the wolf eats chalk to soften his voice and bullies a miller into whitening his paw with flour.

The Norwegian goats' name 'Bruse' was rendered into English as what?

Gruff is the name George Webbe Dasent gave all three goats in Popular Tales from the Norse, where they set off up the hillside to make themselves fat.

In Thumbelina, what does the witch give the woman to plant?

A barleycorn from the witch grows into a tulip-like flower; when the woman kisses the bud it pops open to reveal tiny Thumbelina, who sleeps in a walnut-shell cradle.

The History of Tom Thumb, published in 1621, was notable for what?

Richard Johnson's 1621 chapbook The History of Tom Thumb is regarded as the first fairy tale printed in English; Tattershall in Lincolnshire claims his grave.

In Scandinavian folklore, some trolls are said to turn to stone when exposed to what?

Sunlight turns trolls to stone in Scandinavian lore, as it does in Tolkien's The Hobbit; odd rock formations are sometimes explained as petrified trolls.

What secret helper does Vasilisa the Beautiful receive from her dying mother?

Feed the doll and it does Vasilisa's chores.

In the Grimms' Hansel and Gretel, what does Hansel hold out to make the witch think he is still thin?

A little bone fools the witch, whose eyes are too weak to tell it from Hansel's finger; after four weeks she loses patience and decides to cook him, fat or thin.

What is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp?

Ignis fatuus, 'foolish fire', is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghostly marsh light blamed on fairies leading travellers astray.

In Disney's Wish (2023), what is the name of the kingdom's sorcerer-ruler?

King Magnifico, voiced by Chris Pine, rules Rosas and hoards its people's wishes in Disney's Wish (2023); Amaya is his queen and Valentino is Asha's goat.

Momotarō, the Japanese folk hero, was born from what?

In the telling known today, a giant peach comes bobbing down the river to an old woman washing clothes; when she and her husband go to eat it, a boy steps out, and they name him Momotarō, 'Peach Boy'.

Urashima Tarō is carried to the Dragon Palace on the back of what?

A sea turtle he rescued from children carries Urashima to the Dragon Palace in the familiar modern telling; when he returns, generations have passed, and opening the box the princess gave him turns him old in an instant.

Which 1976 book on fairy tales is Bruno Bettelheim's?

The Uses of Enchantment read tales such as Cinderella through Freud, arguing that they help children master their inner conflicts; it won a US National Book Award in 1977.

Which fairy tale is the source of the idiom 'to spin straw into gold'?

Rumpelstiltskin spins the straw into gold for the miller's daughter after her father's boast, taking her necklace, then her ring, then the promise of her first child.

The trickster Anansi's name is the word for 'spider' in which language of Ghana?

Akan gives him his name: ananse means 'spider'. Enslaved West Africans carried the tales to the Americas, where the name was reshaped into Anancy, Nanzi and even 'Aunt Nancy'.

Where does Br'er Rabbit beg Br'er Fox not to throw him?

Briar patch is just where he wants to go: caught by Br'er Fox, the rabbit pleads to be roasted, hanged or drowned instead, and once flung into the thorns he skips away, 'bred and born' there.

Which author invented the narrator Uncle Remus to retell the Br'er Rabbit folktales?

Joel Chandler Harris published Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings in 1880, framing the Br'er Rabbit tales he had heard from enslaved people on a Georgia plantation.

Herodotus wrote that the fabulist Aesop was the slave of a man from which Greek island?

Samos was home to Aesop's master Iadmon, Herodotus says; when Delphi later offered compensation for the storyteller's killing, only Iadmon's grandson came forward to claim it.

Plutarch claimed the fabulist Aesop was adviser to which proverbially rich king?

Croesus of Lydia employed Aesop, Plutarch wrote some 600 years later, sending him on a mission to Delphi; the scholar Ben Edwin Perry dismissed the whole link as 'literary fiction'.

Which Chinese folktale of lovers parted by the Milky Way is celebrated each year at the Qixi Festival?

The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the stars Altair and Vega, are kept apart by the Milky Way and meet once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh month, on a bridge of magpies.

The Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from folk songs, is the national epic of which country?

Finland's Kalevala was pieced together by Elias Lönnrot from ballads and songs of the oral tradition; its metre and style later shaped Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha.

How does the wolf in The Three Little Pigs try to enter the brick house once his huffing fails?

Down the chimney is his last resort, and it ends badly: the pig has a big pot boiling on the fire below. Disney's 1933 cartoon added turpentine to the pot.

In The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, what is the wolf trying to borrow for his granny's cake?

Sugar is all the wolf says he wanted from his pig neighbours, to bake a cake for his grandmother. The third pig refuses and insults the old lady, which is when the wolf loses his temper.

In The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, what does the wolf say really flattened the straw house?

A huge sneeze did it, by the wolf's own account, and wrecked the stick house too. He says news reports blew the story up and made him the Big Bad Wolf.

Which novelist's name did Edward Albee use to pun on the hit song from Disney's Three Little Pigs?

Virginia Woolf replaced the Big Bad Wolf in the title of Albee's 1962 play about a feuding couple. He said he first saw the joke scrawled in soap on a mirror in a New York saloon.

Tex Avery's 1942 cartoon take on The Three Little Pigs casts the wolf as which dictator?

Adolf Hitler appears as Adolf Wolf, who sets out to invade the pigs' nation of Pigmania in Blitz Wolf. The short lost its Oscar race to Der Fuehrer's Face, a Donald Duck cartoon that also mocked the Nazis.

In Joseph Jacobs's Three Little Pigs, what does the surviving pig finally do with the wolf?

Eats him for supper: the pig boils the wolf, dines on him and lives happily ever after. Softer retellings, including Disney's, let a scalded wolf run away instead.

In Joseph Jacobs's Three Little Pigs, the poor old sow sends her piglets out to seek what?

Their fortune is what the pigs set out to find, because the sow had not enough to keep them. Each begins by begging building materials from a man on the road.

In Disney's Three Little Pigs, which brother of Fifer and Fiddler builds the house of bricks?

Practical Pig is the earnest one, who works while his brothers play and laugh at his warnings. The names are Disney's own: Joseph Jacobs's printed tale leaves all three pigs nameless.

James Marshall, who retold The Three Little Pigs, also created which pair of picture-book hippos?

George and Martha starred in a run of picture books between 1972 and 1988, each holding five very short stories. Marshall turned to retelling classic fairy tales late in his career.

Which author made his debut with The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, told from the wolf's side?

Jon Scieszka published the parody in 1989 and went on to become the first US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His wolf insists the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

In The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, which building material finally wins the pig over?

Flowers do what bricks, concrete and steel could not: the pig breathes in their scent and gives up his bullying. He had wrecked the stronger houses with a sledgehammer, a pneumatic drill and dynamite.

In Joseph Jacobs's Three Little Pigs, the wolf first tries to lure the third pig outdoors with a field of what?

Turnips are the bait, but the pig gets up an hour early, gathers them and is home before the wolf arrives. He rises earlier still when the wolf suggests picking apples, and only just gets away.

In Joseph Jacobs's Three Little Pigs, the pig escapes the wolf by rolling downhill from the fair inside what?

A butter churn he had just bought at Shanklin fair became his hiding place, and it rolled down the hill with him inside. The sight frightened the wolf so much that he ran straight home.

Disney's Oscar-winning 1933 cartoon Three Little Pigs belongs to which series of musical shorts?

Silly Symphonies ran to 75 shorts between 1929 and 1939, and Three Little Pigs became a box-office sensation among them. Its theme song turned into an anthem of the Great Depression.

In The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, narrator A. Wolf's first initial stands for which name?

Alexander T. Wolf is his full name, and he tells the story to clear it. Paul Giamatti voiced him in a 2008 animated short based on the book.

Which award did David Wiesner win for The Three Pigs, whose heroes step out of their own story?

Caldecott Medal judges honoured the 2001 book for its pictures, which change style as the pigs wander into other tales. It was the second of Wiesner's three wins.

In the jazz cartoon Three Little Bops, the pigs throw the wolf out for badly playing which instrument?

Trumpet is his downfall: the pigs' band brands the wolf a square and ejects him. Jazz trumpeter Shorty Rogers supplied the music for the 1957 Warner Bros. short.

Which illustrator of The Stinky Cheese Man drew the pictures for The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!?

Lane Smith was introduced to the book's author by their wives in the late 1980s. The two went on making picture books together until 2007.

In Joseph Jacobs's Three Little Pigs, the second pig builds with which prickly shrub rather than sticks?

Furze, also called gorse, is what the second pig begs from a passing man in the 1890 text. Most modern retellings, Disney's cartoon included, swap it for sticks.

The 1943 Warner Bros. cartoon Pigs in a Polka sets The Three Little Pigs to which composer's Hungarian Dances?

Brahms supplies the whole soundtrack: four of his Hungarian Dances carry the story from straw house to brick. Director Friz Freleng was parodying Disney's Fantasia, and earned an Oscar nomination.

Which of Disney's seven dwarfs never speaks, communicating through sounds and pantomime instead?

Dopey was first written as a chatterbox, but the studio could not find a voice that suited him, and even Mel Blanc was tried. Making him mute produced the most successful dwarf of the seven.

In Disney's The Little Mermaid, who serves King Triton as adviser and court composer?

Sebastian was first written as a stuffy English butler named Clarence, until a rewrite made him a Jamaican crab and reshaped the film's music to match.

Which name, borrowed from Tchaikovsky's ballet, did Disney give the princess in its 1959 film Sleeping Beauty?

Aurora is the ballet's name for her, while the Brothers Grimm call the same princess Briar Rose. On screen she speaks less than any other talking lead in a Disney animated feature.

Which Disney sidekick began as a nameless creature killed with a mallet by the puppet hero of Collodi's novel?

Jiminy Cricket is Disney's name for the Talking Cricket, which the puppet kills with a thrown mallet early in the book. It returns as a ghost, and the 1940 film promoted it to official conscience.

In Disney's 1950 film Cinderella, what is the name of the wicked stepmother voiced by Eleanor Audley?

Lady Tremaine and the wicked fairy of Disney's Sleeping Beauty share a voice, because Eleanor Audley played both villainesses. Cate Blanchett took the stepmother's role in the 2015 remake.

Which giant bird of the Arabian Nights carries Sinbad the Sailor to a valley carpeted with diamonds?

The Roc is big enough to hunt snakes that swallow elephants, so Sinbad ties himself to it with his turban. Merchants harvest the valley's gems by throwing down meat for the birds to carry up.

Which real Lord Mayor of London became a folk-tale hero who grows rich by selling his cat?

Dick Whittington, in the legend, sells his cat to a land overrun by rats and hears Bow bells promise he will be mayor. The real Richard Whittington was a wealthy merchant who died in 1423.

Which Grimm hero happily trades a lump of gold for a horse, then a cow, a pig, a goose and a grindstone?

Hans in Luck loses even the grindstone, which tumbles into the water when he stops to drink, and walks home delighted to be rid of the weight. Every swap leaves him poorer and more cheerful.

Which trickster of medieval beast tales was so popular that his name became the French word for fox?

Reynard starred in so many tales that renard pushed out goupil, the Old French name for the animal. His usual victim is his own uncle, the wolf Isengrim.

Which villain of Russian fairy tales is said to hide his death in a needle inside an egg?

Koschei, called the Deathless, can only be killed by whoever finds it; in one telling the egg sits inside a duck, a hare and a chest on the mythical island of Buyan.

In the Grimms' tale The Frog Prince, which treasured toy does the princess drop into the well?

A golden ball starts it all: the frog fetches it from the bottom in return for her promise of friendship. She takes the ball and runs back to the castle without him.

Which spell-breaking gesture in modern versions of The Frog Prince is missing from the Grimms' text?

A kiss seems to have entered the story through English translations. In other early versions the frog only had to sleep on the princess's pillow for three nights.

In Disney's The Princess and the Frog, what goes wrong when waitress Tiana tries to break the frog's spell?

She is transformed too, because the frog mistook Tiana for a real princess when she was only wearing a borrowed costume. The pair spend much of the film hopping through the bayou.

In The Frog Prince, who insists that the princess keep her promise and let the frog dine with her?

Her father, the king, scolds her for loathing someone who helped her in a time of need, and makes her open the door. The frog then eats from her own plate.

Which prince of Maldonia is turned into a frog in Disney's The Princess and the Frog?

Naveen arrives in town broke, cut off from the family money by his parents and planning to marry rich. Bruno Campos provides his voice.

In the Grimms' The Frog Prince, who does the restored prince say put the curse on him?

A wicked witch cast it, he explains, and only the princess could undo it. The Grimms prized the story as one of the oldest and most beautiful in German-speaking lands.

Which voodoo villain, nicknamed the Shadow Man, turns the prince into a frog in Disney's The Princess and the Frog?

Dr. Facilier uses a talisman holding the prince's blood to make the valet Lawrence look like his master. His plan is to marry the impostor into money and seize the city.

In The Frog Prince, loyal servant Iron Henry wears three iron bands around which part of his body?

His heart was bound to stop it breaking with sadness when his master was cursed. Once the prince is human again, Henry's happiness bursts the bands apart.

In Jim Henson's 1971 TV special The Frog Prince, which future Muppet regular plays the enchanted prince?

Robin made his debut in the special as Sir Robin the Brave, with Kermit narrating. He was later recast as Kermit's small nephew, and the shaggy monster Sweetums first appeared here too.

In the Russian tale The Frog Princess, how do Prince Ivan and his brothers find their brides?

By shooting an arrow each: the king rules that every prince must marry wherever his lands. Ivan's comes down in a swamp, in the mouth of a frog who turns into a princess at night.

Which Aesop fable about an overconfident runner do the emoji 🐢🐇🏁😴 spell out?

The Tortoise and the Hare turns on a nap: the hare is so sure of winning that he dozes off midway through the race. Disney's 1935 cartoon of the fable won an Academy Award.

Which British fairy tale about an uninvited house guest do the emoji 👧🥣🪑🛌🐻🐻🐻 spell out?

Goldilocks and the Three Bears has its intruder sample the breakfast, break a chair and fall asleep in a bed. Her knack for finding the third choice just right gave science the Goldilocks principle.

Which Aesop fable about a shepherd's repeated prank do the emoji 👦🐑📢🐺 spell out?

The Boy Who Cried Wolf fools the villagers so often that nobody comes when a real wolf attacks the flock. The fable gave English the idiom for raising a false alarm.

Which fairy tale about two swindlers posing as weavers do the emoji 👑🆕👕 spell out?

The Emperor's New Clothes are said to be invisible to anyone stupid or incompetent, so nobody dares admit that the looms are empty. Hans Christian Andersen published the tale in 1837.

Which European folk tale about hungry travellers and stingy villagers do the emoji 🪨🍲🥕🧅 spell out?

Stone Soup starts as a pot holding only a stone, until curious villagers each add a little food of their own. Other traditions tell the same story with an axe, a button or a nail.

Which legend from a medieval German town do the emoji 🎶🐀🐀🐀🧒🧒 spell out?

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is hired as a rat-catcher, and pied describes his multicoloured clothes. His German name, Rattenfänger, simply states the job.

Which Arabian Nights tale about a cave opened by a magic phrase do the emoji 40🦹💰🏺 spell out?

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves joined the collection late: its French translator Antoine Galland added the story in the 18th century. A quick-witted slave girl, Morgiana, foils the robbers.

Which Andersen fairy tale about a tiny girl courted by toads and moles do the emoji 🌷🤏👧🐸🐦 spell out?

Thumbelina dodges every unwanted suitor and falls in love with a flower-fairy prince exactly her own size. In the original Danish she is called Tommelise.

Which Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale set on a freezing street do the emoji 👧🔥⛄🌠 spell out?

The Little Match Girl lights her unsold matches one by one to keep warm, and each flame shows her a vision: a hot stove, a roast goose, a Christmas tree. Andersen published the tale in 1845.

Which Brothers Grimm fairy tale about mysteriously worn-out shoes do the emoji 12👸💃👞🌙 spell out?

The Twelve Dancing Princesses wear their shoes through every night, and the king cannot work out how. An old soldier solves the puzzle by following them in a cloak that makes him invisible.