The most comprehensive work of its kind, this massive encyclopedia gives students and general readers a broad, accessible, multicultural survey of folk and fairy tales from around the world. Edited by one of the foremost authorities on the subject, the encyclopedia draws on the work of numerous expert contributors and covers a broad range of themes and motifs, characters and character types, genres, individuals, national traditions, and other topics. Its entries include: African American Tales; Hans Christian Andersen; Cartoons and Comics; Changeling; Childhood and Children; Charles Dickens; Egyptian Tales; Elves; Fable; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Intertextuality; Pigs; Puck; Riddle; Maurice Sendak; Stamps; Virginia Woolf; and many more. Literature students will value this book as an aid to understanding and analyzing folk and fairy tales as literary forms, while social studies students will appreciate the book's examination of the foundations of world cultures. And because many of these tales continue to influence films, television, and popular culture, general readers will welcome the encyclopedia as a means of understanding the modern world.