Fairy tales are universal. They are worldly and contain eternal truths (Gobrecht 2016). They reflect real situations from the past, present and future. They are instincts and humanity in their original form.

A fairy tale, more than almost any other literary creation, contains a powerful attraction and incomparable magic. Magic fairy tales, life fairy tales, fairy tales that reflect our life experiences: We ourselves.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the fairy tale takes hold of us (Wilkes 2016). The fairy tale makes us its own; we make it ours. We make the fairy tale our own. This is probably why fairy tales are of interest from many different perspectives and disciplines (Bluhm 2021).

In the conference Fairy tales. Yesterday and today we would like to address these questions. The conference theme is a proposal to deal with the various aspects related to fairy tales. Both a generally summarizing overview and a targeted deepening of specific aspects in relation to fairy tales will be considered here.