Editing Fairy tale (section)

==Cross-cultural transmission==

Two theories of origins have attempted to explain the common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins.{{Sfn|Orenstein|2002|pp=77–78}}

Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by the spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference.{{Sfn|Zipes|2001|p=845}} Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; [[Joseph Jacobs]], comparing the [[Scottish people|Scottish]] tale ''[[The Ridere of Riddles]]'' with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, ''[[The Riddle (fairy tale)|The Riddle]]'', noted that in ''[[The Ridere of Riddles]]'' one hero ends up [[polygamy|polygamously]] married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in ''The Riddle'', the simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity.<ref>{{Cite wikisource |last=Jacobs |first=Joseph |date=1895 |title=More Celtic Fairy Tales |chapter=Notes and References}}</ref>

Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results.{{Sfn|Calvino|1980|p=xx}} Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. ''Little Briar-Rose'' appears to stem from Perrault's ''The [[Sleeping Beauty]]'', as the Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant.{{Sfn|Velten|2001|p=962}} Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of ''[[Little Red Riding Hood]]'' and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from ''[[The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids]]'').{{Sfn|Velten|2001|pp=966-967}}
<!-- Deleted because it contradicts what is in the Cinderella article (see "Chinese or Egyptian origin for Cinderella?" in talk page): "Occasionally, internal evidence points towards one source; not only is [[Duan Chengshi]]'s ''[[Ye Xian]]'' the oldest known variant of ''Cinderella'', but the value the tale places on small feet points to its being the origin of the others, reflecting the importance of tiny feet (causing the practice of [[footbinding]]) in Chinese culture.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Windling |first1=Terri |title=Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass |url=https://endicottstudio.typepad.com/articleslist/cinderella-ashes-blood-and-the-slipper-of-glass-by-terri-windling.html |website=JoMA }}</ref>"-->

Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through the choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color.{{Sfn|Calvino|1980|p=xxi}}

The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Indo-European]] peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the [[anthropologist]] Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using [[cladistics|phylogenetic analysis]], a technique developed by [[evolutionary biology|evolutionary biologists]] to trace the relatedness of living and fossil [[species]]. Among the tales analysed were ''[[Jack and the Beanstalk]]'', traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' and ''[[Rumpelstiltskin]]'' appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of ''The Smith and the Devil'' ([[Deal with the Devil]]) appears to date from the [[Bronze Age]], some 6000 years ago.<ref name="bbc"/> Various other studies converge to suggest that some fairy tales, for example the [[swan maiden]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hatt |first1=Gudmund |title=Asiatic influences in American folklore |date=1949 |location=København |publisher=I kommission hos ejnar Munksgaard |pages=94–96, 107 |oclc=21629218 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first1=Yuri |last1=Berezkin |year=2010 |title=Sky-maiden and world mythology |journal=Iris |volume=31 |issue=31 |pages=27–39 |doi=10.35562/iris.2020 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=d'Huy |first1=Julien |title=Le motif de la femme-oiseau (T111.2.) et ses origines paléolithiques |journal=Mythologie française |date=2016 |issue=265 |pages=4 |url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02280063 |access-date=21 August 2020 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607131810/https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02280063 |url-status=live }}</ref> could go back to the Upper Palaeolithic.