The Green Knight (fairy tale) The Green Knight (fairy tale) The Green Knight is a Danish fairy tale, collected by Svend Grundtvig (1824-1883) in "Danish Fairy Tales" (18??) and by Evald Tang Kristensen (1843-1929) in "Eventyr fra Jylland" (1881). Andrew Lang included a translation of Kristensen's version in "The Olive Fairy Book" (1907). This tale combines Aarne-Thompson type 510A with type 425N, the bird husband, and type 432, the prince as bird. Others of the first type include "Cinderella", The Sharp Grey Sheep, The Golden Slipper, The Story of Tam and Cam, Rushen Coatie, Fair, Brown and Trembling, and Katie Woodencloak; of the second two,
Fairy tale Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives. In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of the economy and concision of the tales. Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" stems from the old German word "Mär", which means story or tale. The word "Märchen" is the diminutive of the word "Mär", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning "once upon a time" it means