"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world. The protagonist is a young girl living in forsaken circumstances who is suddenly blessed by remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.
Lancelot du Lac, alternatively written as Launcelot and other variants, is a popular character in Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. He is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table, as well as a secret lover of Arthur's wife, Guinevere.
The damsel in distress is a narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. The "damsel" is often portrayed as beautiful, popular and of high social status; they are usually depicted as princesses in works with fantasy or fairy tale settings. Kinship, love, lust or a combination of those motivate the male protagonist to initiate the narrative.
"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale most notably recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Brothers Grimm's story was developed from the French literary fairy tale of Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (1698), which itself is an alternative version of the Italian fairy tale Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile (1634).
Princess and dragon is an archetypical premise common to many legends, fairy tales, and chivalric romances. Northrop Frye identified it as a central form of the quest romance.
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the chanson de geste and other kinds of epic, in which masculine military heroism predominates."
"The Frog Prince; or, Iron Henry" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimm's Fairy Tales. Traditionally, it is the first story in their folktale collection. The tale is classified as Aarne-Thompson type 440.
Princess Fiona is a fictional character in DreamWorks' Shrek franchise. One of the film series' main characters, Fiona first appears in Shrek (2001) as a beautiful princess cursed to transform into an ogre at night. She is initially determined to break the enchantment by kissing a prince, only to meet and fall in love with Shrek, an ogre, instead. The character's origins and relationships with other characters are further explored in subsequent films: she introduces her new husband, Shrek, to her parents in Shrek 2 (2004); becomes a mother by Shrek the Third (2007); and is an empowered warrior in Shrek Forever After (2010), much of which takes place in an alternate reality in which Fiona and Shrek never meet.
Snegurochka (diminutive) or Snegurka, or The Snow Maiden, is a character in Russian fairy tales.
The "swan maiden" story is a name in folkloristics used to refer to three kinds of stories: those where one of the characters is a bird-maiden, in which she can appear either as a bird or as a woman; those in which one of the elements of the narrative is the theft of the feather-robe belonging to a bird-maiden, though it is not the most important theme in the story; and finally the most commonly referred to motif, and also the most archaic in origin: those stories in which the main theme, among several mixed motifs, is that of a man who finds the bird-maiden bathing and steals her feathered robe, which leads to him becoming married to the bird-maiden. Later, the maiden recovers the robe and flies away, returning to the sky, and the man may seek her again. It is one of the most widely distributed motifs in the world, most probably being many millennia old, and the best known supernatural wife figure in narratives.
Happily N'Ever After is a 2006 animated fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Paul J. Bolger, produced by John H. Williams, and written by Rob Moreland. It is inspired by fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and loosely based on the 1999 animated German television series Simsala Grimm. The title is the opposite of a stock phrase, happily ever after; the name is contracted with an apostrophe between the N and the E. The film stars the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Andy Dick, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, George Carlin, and Sigourney Weaver. This film was one of Carlin's final works before he died.
"The Goose Girl" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and first published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1815. It is of Aarne-Thompson type 533.
"Allerleirauh" is a fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, it has been recorded as Tale no. 65. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book.
The Langs' Fairy Books are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections of fairy tales also known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. In all, the volumes feature 798 stories, besides the 153 poems in The Blue Poetry Book.
"The Water of Life" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 97.
Prince Charming is a 2001 television film. It is a comical fairy tale, relating the story of a prince who is cursed and transported to present-day New York City. The film stars Martin Short as a wizard squire of modest talents trying to keep his prince from harm, with Christina Applegate as a young woman skeptical of the prince's story, who nevertheless wins his love, and Bernadette Peters as an actress who inadvertently lifts a 500-year curse.
The Princes and the Treasure is a children's picture book and fairy tale by Jeffrey A. Miles, featuring illustrations by J. L. Phillips. The book was first published in the United States on February 9, 2014, through Handsome Prince Publishing, and has been translated into 26 languages and is available in over 137 countries. The story follows two men tasked with saving a princess, only to discover their love for one another.
Prince & Knight is a children's picture book authored by Daniel Haack and illustrated by Stevie Lewis. Prince & Knight tells the story of a young prince who falls in love with a knight after the two work together to battle a dragon threatening the kingdom. At the conclusion of the book, the two wed.
Garulfo is a six-volume fantasy graphic novel created by writer Alain Ayroles, cartoonist Bruno Maïorana and colorist Thierry Leprévost.
In fairy tales, a true love's kiss is a motif and commonly used trope whereby a kiss from a "true love" possesses magical powers and holds significant importance.
