1835 · DENMARK
The pea is young
Hans Christian Andersen's The Princess on the Pea was first published on 8 May 1835, in his first booklet of fairy tales told for children. A queen tests a stranger's claim with one hidden pea.
Date a taleSome princess tales are newer than you think. Others are far older.
The pea under the mattresses was printed in 1835. A slipper carried off by an eagle was written down two thousand years ago. Here is what the old books and the folklore researchers say about when each story starts.
Updated
Date a taleTHE SHORT ANSWER
Three princesses,
three very different ages.
Each tale has a first known written version.
Some were told long before that.
1ST CENTURY BC
The slipper is ancient
The Greek writer Strabo recorded Rhodopis, whose sandal an eagle drops into a king's lap. A Chinese version, Ye Xian, was written down in the 9th century, long before Perrault's 1697 Cinderella.
See the numbers
1634 · NAPLES
The sleeper is changed
In Giambattista Basile's Sun, Moon, and Talia, published in 1634, the princess falls not from a spindle prick but from a splinter of flax under her nail. Perrault and the Grimms retold it later.
How to trace oneA QUICK TALE CHECK
How far back
does the paper go?
Pick a tale to see its earliest written version that the sources here record. The bar shows how far back that written trail reaches.
Dates from the Hans Christian Andersen Centre, D. L. Ashliman's folktale texts (University of Pittsburgh) and the University of Illinois. A first written date is not the date a tale was first told.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Written down late,
told for much longer.
One figure from a study of folktale ages,
one from the most famous tale collection.
2,500–6,000 years
Possible age of Beauty and the Beast
A 2016 study of 275 magic tales across Indo-European languages found that Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin, first written down in the 17th and 18th centuries, can be traced back to between 2,500 and 6,000 years ago.
FOLKTALE AGES · ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
86 → 200 tales
Tales in the first and final editions
The Grimms' first volume of 1812 held 86 numbered tales. A second volume added 70, and the final edition held 200 numbered stories plus 10 children's legends.
GRIMMS' TALES · D. L. ASHLIMAN
The same study warns that only a tiny minority of tales can be traced back before the literary fairy tale of the 16th and 17th centuries. It found one tale, The Smith and the Devil, as far back as the Bronze Age.
FOUR STEPS TO TRACE A TALE
Read it like
a folklorist.
You do not need a library card to start. Free online collections put the old versions side by side, so you can see what each teller kept and what they changed.
Find its tale type
Folklorists group stories by type in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index: Cinderella is 510A and Sleeping Beauty is 410.
Read the oldest version first
Start with Basile or Strabo before Perrault and the Grimms, so later details stand out.
Spot what changed
Note the shoe, the spindle or the test. In Basile the sleeper is felled by flax, not a needle.
Check the first edition
The Grimms revised their tales across seven editions, so the 1812 text can differ from the one you know.
ONE TALE, MANY TELLERS
A story with
500 versions.
The University of Illinois notes that some estimate there are over 500 versions of the Cinderella story around the world, from Ireland's Fair, Brown, and Trembling to Vietnam's Tam and Cam.
Each telling keeps a recognisable core, such as a mistreated heroine, a lost shoe or a proof of identity, and changes the rest to suit its listeners. That is why dating a tale by its first printed copy only tells part of the story.
Questions
Questions people ask
When was The Princess and the Pea written?
Hans Christian Andersen first published it on 8 May 1835, as part of his first booklet of fairy tales told for children. Andersen's own title is The Princess on the Pea.
What is the oldest Cinderella story?
The Greco-Egyptian tale of Rhodopis, recorded by Strabo in the first century BC, is often cited as the earliest. It has an eagle and a sandal but no cruel stepfamily. A Chinese version, Ye Xian, was written down in the 9th century.
Who wrote Sleeping Beauty first?
The earliest of the versions here is Giambattista Basile's Sun, Moon, and Talia, published in Naples in 1634. Charles Perrault's version followed in 1697 and the Brothers Grimm's Little Brier-Rose in 1812.
How many tales did the Brothers Grimm collect?
Their first volume in 1812 had 86 numbered tales. A second volume added 70 more, and the final edition contained 200 numbered stories plus 10 children's legends.
Are fairy tales really thousands of years old?
Some may be. A 2016 study traced Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin back 2,500 to 6,000 years, and one tale to the Bronze Age, but it also found that only a tiny minority can be traced back before the 16th and 17th centuries.
Sources
Where the facts come from
- Hans Christian Andersen Centre: The Princess on the Pea, register of works
- University of Illinois CSAMES: Cinderella background information
- D. L. Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh: Cinderella, tale type 510A
- D. L. Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh: Sleeping Beauty, tale type 410
- D. L. Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh: Grimm Brothers' home page
- da Silva and Tehrani (2016), Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales, Royal Society Open Science
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