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 birds; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions. A fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale. Although the fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's "Conte de fées", first used in her collection in 1697.) Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which the presence of fairies and/or similarly