Fairytales

I've been trying to figure out the difference between fairytales and fantasies for the last few hours, and I think I might have found the answer.

Simply put, fairytales draw from the twilight zone between outright fantasies and hard core reality.

Thus, fairytales are fundamentally psychological experiences. They might not be logical, but they draw from deeper resources that composes the fabric of society, often neglected and forgotten. In a way we can view them as cocoons where nearly dead ideas and practices go to hibernate. Of course, it might be hard to reach such conclusion using the sanitized versions of fairytales in circulation today, but anyone who look deeper should be able to figure out that fairytales all over the world are fundamentally dark, some outright scary without even trying to be.

So the 'lessons' of the fairytales in their purest forms are often not very moral, and doesn't make much sense, with deeply suspicious edge to them. Ironically, Lovecraft and his horror/mythos writing might be said to be modern incarnation of fairytales that fantasies neglected to inherit.  

This is an interesting idea. I might follow up on this soon.