Fairytales are old. And it turns out they're a lot older than originally thought.

A study released by the Royal Society Open Studies journal reveals that fairytales began earlier than once thought. A lot earlier.

Looking at common links between 275 Indo-European stories, Durham University anthropologist Dr. Jamie Tehrani and folklorist Sara Graça da Silva from the New University of Lisbon concluded fairytales pre-date commonly believed origins by thousands of years.

As The Guardian, which spoke to Tehrani and da Silva, writes:


"Analysis showed Jack and the Beanstalk was rooted in a group of stories classified as The Boy Who Stole Ogre’s Treasure, and could be traced back to when eastern and western Indo-European languages split – more than 5,000 years ago. Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin to be about 4,000 years old. A folk tale called The Smith and the Devil was estimated to date back 6,000 years to the bronze age."

The Smith and the Devil never gained the popularity of other stories, although it takes on similar themes of a trickster (the Devil, shockingly) being tricked (noo!).

By comparison, Aesop looks like a new kid to the storyteller game by being only 2,500 years old or so. And Mother Goose? Let's not speak of her amateur hour shenanigans again.