The most obvious have already been suggested — fairy tales, folk tales, legends, frontier humor and tall tales, classical mythology, and regional history. The Robber Bridegroom is fantasy, but not in the manner of J. R. R. Tolkien's work or C. S. Lewis's. Welty uses the real world — she does not create a never-never land — and she populates it with earthy people who sometimes behave like characters in a fairy tale.