The Folk Tale

"The Feathered Ogre" was originally published in Calvino's book, Italian Folktales, in which he transcribed stories from the oral tradition in Italian culture. However, even read out of this context, this story clearly resembles the familiar folk or fairy tales children are often told. Because they originate in an oral tradition, folk tales are generally not attributable to any particular author but have been passed down through generations of storytellers. Because of this, there are often several versions of any one folk tale, and the writer who chooses to transcribe them must decide which elements of the various versions of the story to include in the written text. Thus, although Calvino gathered this story from other sources, it is also in part his own creation and bears the mark of his own personal writing style in re-telling these traditional tales.

Magic and Fantasy

Fairy tales often...