Animals.  Very few of the child’s fairy tales contain no animals.  Southey said of a home:  “A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is in it a child rising three years old and a kitten rising six weeks; kitten is in the animal world what a rose-bud is in a garden.”  In the same way it might be said of fairy tales:  No tale is quite suited to the little child unless in it there is at least one animal.  Such animal tales are The Bremen Town Musicians, Henny Penny, Ludwig and Marleen and The Elephant’s Child.  The episode of the hero or heroine and the friendly animal, as we find it retained in Two-Eyes and her little Goat, was probably a folk-lore convention—­since dropped—­common to the beginning of many of the old tales.  It indicates how largely the friendly animal entered into the old stories.

A portrayal of human relations, especially with children.  In Cinderella the child is held by the unkind treatment inflicted upon Cinderella by her Stepmother and the two haughty Sisters.  He notes the solicitude of the Mother of the Seven Kids in guarding them from the Wolf.  In the Three Bears he observes a picture of family life.  A little child, on listening to The Three Pigs for the first time, was overwhelmed by one thought and cried out, “And didn’t the Mother come home any more?” Naturally the child would be interested especially in children, for he is like the older boy, who, when looking at a picture-book, gleefully exclaimed, “That’s me!” He likes to put himself in the place of others.  He can do it most readily if the character is a small individual like Red Riding Hood who should obey her mother; or like Goldilocks who must not wander in the wood; or like Henny Penny who went to take a walk and was accosted by, “Where are you going?” In Brother Rabbit and the Little Girl the Little Girl takes the keenest enjoyment in putting herself in the customary grown-up’s place of granting permission, while the Rabbit takes the usual child’s place of mentioning a request with much persuasion.  The child is interested, too, in the strange people he meets in the fairy tales:  the clever little elves who lived in the groves and danced on the grass; the dwarfs who inhabited the earth-rocks and the hills; the trolls who dwelt in the wild pine forest or the rocky spurs, who ate men or porridge, and who fled at the noise of bells; the fairies who pleased with their red caps, green jackets, and sprightly ways; the beautiful fairy godmother who waved her wonderful wand; or those lovely fairy spirits who appeared at the moment when most needed—­just as all best friends do—­and who could grant, in a twinkling, the wish that was most desired.

The diminutive.  This pleasure in the diminutive is found in the interest in the fairy characters, Baby Bear, Little Billy-Goat,