Find out the age of Western fairy tales

According to research by British and Portuguese scientists, fairy tales like "Beauty and the Beast" appeared thousands of years ago.

According to the BBC, by biological engineering and connection with stories from around the world, they discovered that the fairy tales are older than those recorded, some from the Bronze Age, others from the 16th and 17th centuries.

In the 18th century, the Grimm brothers traveled around to listen to old people telling fairy tales and taking notes.They believe that fairy tales existed long before they were recorded in literary form.(Photo: PA).

Anthropology doctor Jamie Tehrani from the University of Durham in England said, "Jack and Magic Bean" originates from a group of ancient stories such as "The Bug's Stealer" , appearing in the period. The distribution of Indo-European languages ​​was more than 5,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, "Beauty and the Beast" and "Rumpelstiltskin" stories are about 4,000 years old.

The study was published in the Journal of the British Royal Open Science Association on January 20, using phylogenetic methods to find the link between population history and cultural phenomena, such as the language type, marriage practices, political, cultural and music organizations.

Researchers use "family tree" of Indo-European languages ​​to track versions of fairy tales to understand their development over time.

"We use a set of tools borrowed from bio-evolutionary industry called phylogenetic methods . This method allows to recreate the past in conditions that cannot be fully collected" , proceeding. Dr. Tehrani said.

"These stories have been admirably long-lived even though they were never written down. Only in the form of word of mouth through the Indo-European language, the language is now gone, these stories have been told. recount before English, French, and Italian were born ".

Fairy tales The Beauty and the Beast can exist from 4,000 years ago.(Photo: BBC).

Many still believe that "Hansel and Gretel" or "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" existed from the 16-17 century, when they found written records of these stories. But Dr. Tehrani and his colleagues, folk culture researcher Sara Graca Da Silva, said they have solid evidence for the theory that fairy tales are much longer.

In the fairy tale "Blacksmith and Devil" , a blacksmith decided to deal with an evil, supernatural force that could be regarded as Death. The blacksmith exchanged his soul to gain the ability to weld everything together.

This plot is quite homogeneous in the Indo-European languages, throughout from India to Scandinavia.

Researchers point out that this story has traces from Indo-European society, when metallurgical techniques came into being, at a time when archaeological and genetic evidence showed a territorial expansion. large of nomadic tribes from the north of the Black Sea, about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

However, John Lindow, a folklore researcher at the University of California, expressed doubt about this theory. He said the capital of Indo-Europeans was very limited and the word "blacksmith" may not exist.

If so, maybe the "Blacksmith and Devil" version of this study is not really ancient.