Although fairy tales are a distinct genre within the larger classification of oral narratives, the definition of what constitutes a work as a fairy tale remains a matter of considerable disagreement today.While it seems clear that fairies or other magical characters are essential elements of a fairy tale, it has been suggested that the term derives from a simple translation of the French conte de fées. The term was coined by Madame D'Aulnoy in her collections in 1697. Common usage uses the term interchangeably to refer to fairy tales, stories about strange creatures, and other oral tales. Scholars also differ on the extent to which fairies and/or similar fictional characters (eg, elves, mischievous fairies, friendly fairies, goblins) should be present to distinguish these stories. In his Morphology of Oral Tales, Vladimir Propp criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales have both fictional aspects and animalistic elements.However, to select the works for his analysis, Folk Lore Arne-Thompson used all Russian oral tales classified 300–749—using them in a bibliography that made such a distinction—in order to obtain a clear set of stories.[8] His analysis identifies fairy tales using their narrative roots, but it has come under criticism for that very reason. Stories that do not easily include a quest cannot be included in that analysis, and similar plot elements can be found in other non-fairy tales.As Stith Thompson points out, fairy tales typically feature talking animals and magic rather than fairies.[10] However, just because there are talking animals does not make a story a fairy tale. In particular, it can be said that the animal is a masked character with a human face, as in myths, which is clearly visible in the stories.[11]

J. R. R. Dawkins, in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" concedes that "fairies" can be exempted from this definition. He defines fairy tales as not only the adventures of humans, fairy tale princes and princesses, dwarves, elves and other magical characters in the world of magic, the world of gods, but also stories filled with many wonders.[12] However, the same article omits stories that are often considered fairy tales. For that, we can refer to the story called The Monkey's Heart, which was added by Andrew Long in the book called The Lilac Fairy Book.[11]

Steven Jones sees magic as a distinguishing feature of fairy tales from other forms of oral history.[13] Davidson and Chowdhury consider this type of narrative to be a key feature of "metamorphosis". Jean Chiriac has discussed from a psychological point of view that the imagination involved in the telling of this story should be considered.[15]

Some oral storytellers prefer to use the German word marchen or "wonder tale" to refer to this type of story. This practice was reinforced by Thomson's definition in his 1977 edition of The Folktale : "a story of some length with successive themes or plot points". The story is set in a fictional world. It does not find a finite space or finite creatures