《兒童文學(xué)與英語教學(xué)》：
　　Most fairy tales have origins deeply rooted in adult story- telling. Alan Dundes, author of Little Red Riding Hood : A Casebook, says that fairy tales are first and foremost an oral form and views any written version as suspect, including those of Charles Perrault and the Grimms, but in any case, storytel- ling was especially popular with the irreverent peasant culture
　　that fought against the poverty, oppression, and unfairness which were often imposed upon them by the ruling class of the time. By exaggerating and adding the details to the stories, the storytellers were able to temporarily relieve some of the boredom that marked the daily life of their audience, since the audience could indulge in fantasies of wealth, success, and em- powerment. For the peasants who sat around the fire on long winter evenings repairing tools, mending clothes, and spinning yarn, the stories provided much needed amusement, which of- ten included "bawdy humor, bloodcurdling melodrama, and table-turning pranks." John Updike, internationally known American novelist, short story writer, and poet, refers to fairy tales as the "... television and pornography of their day, the 'Life_lightening' trash of preliterate people. " On the other hand, Princeton historian, Robert Darnton refers to them as historical documents. T'hey serve as catalogs of human experi- ence, including the particular details of the day and the age, often exposing our collective truths.
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