I fell in love with fairy tales at a young age, thanks to my grandmother, Gerda Salewski. She was from Eastern Europe and like many people, lost everything during the second world war – her family, friends, home and country.

After the war, while trying to build a new life, she met my grandfather, a Welshmen, and travelled to Wales to marry him. She filled her new home in Pontypridd with the foods, music and stories of her homeland.

I especially loved the stories.

My grandmother would most often tell me Slavic fairy tales while sat at her piano, so that she could play a dramatic soundtrack to them. Listening to her perform was a powerful, transcendent experience, filled with emotion. I would be captivated by the beautiful music and language, the enchanting and eerie atmosphere, the magic and wonder, the balance of light and dark, the larger-than-life characters and the way these tales always explored big ideas about life, love and death.

My grandmother’s stories seemed to cover everything important – danger and safety, wealth and poverty, power and oppression, friendship and romance, spirituality and belief, good and evil, kindness and cruelty, happiness and sadness, comfort and terror – all were contained in these short yet vast, magical tales.

Tolkien said:

‘The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords’.

When my grandmother told me tales, I would be whisked away to this realm. It was often in another time and place – long ago and far away (or as she was more likely to say, “beyond thrice nine lands in the thrice tenth kingdom”). But sometimes my grandmother would weave in memories from her past too, reminding me how these tales connected in a very real way to her history and homeland.

In her versions of these tales, tanks might roll through the forest alongside knights on horseback, and villains, such as Koschei the Deathless, might wear military uniforms and carry guns.

Koschei the Deathless is an archetypal antagonist in Slavic folklore and myth. He hides his soul in a truly bizarre way to make himself immortal, and he is an especially evil character who both scared and fascinated me. Elements of his story also confused me deeply, but in a wonderful way that made me ask questions, such as: What is a soul? Can you remove it? How could you hide it? Can not having a soul make you immortal? And if you remove your soul, would that make you evil? My brain surely grew many new connections while trying to answer these impossible questions.

Koschei was one of the most villainous villains in my grandmother’s tales, yet even he – on occasion – elicited my sympathy, along with a desire to understand him and work out why he did the things he did.

At the beginning of the tale of Marya Morevna, Koschei is chained in a locked room for years, desperately thirsty, and I, just like Ivan in the tale, always felt compelled to give him water, even though I knew he would go on to do evil deeds afterwards.

The villains in my grandmother’s tales were always interesting, and right and wrong were rarely explicit nor clear-cut, which to me felt true to life.

In the tale of Sadko, a young musician plays music for the Tsar of the Sea who dances so energetically in response, a storm forms above the waves, sinking ships and drowning sailors. I never felt the Tsar of the Sea meant to cause harm, but harm was most definitely caused, which made me wonder about degrees of villainy, intentions and impacts, our responsibility to notice the effects of our actions, and not dance in a way that sinks ships.

I’ve come to believe that fairy tales, in their truest form, don’t make moral judgements, but they allow us to.

My favourite villain from my grandmother’s tales – although I don’t think villain is quite the right word for her – is Baba Yaga.

Some of the tales of Baba Yaga terrified me. She is often depicted as a cannibalistic witch, swooping down in her flying mortar and pestle to steal young children to cook and eat. On one particularly scary telling of one of these tales, I remember wondering why my grandmother seemed to take such delight in frightening me. Then I remember looking around the room, which was cosy, safe and warm, and having an epiphany, that perhaps being scared was the point, because it is easier to learn to face fear when you are, in fact, safe and warm.

And, more often than not in these tales, Baba Yaga’s young victims escaped, by being kind to a cat and a dog, or by using ordinary objects like a comb and a ribbon, that would thrillingly reveal themselves to hold magic at just the right moment.

These stories showed me that even young and seemingly helpless children can escape evil intentions and terrible fates, through ingenuity and with the help of others. These stories showed me that we all have power.

My favourite Baba Yaga story, and perhaps my favourite fairy story ever, is the tale of Vasilisa the Fair.

The story begins a little like Cinderella, with a young girl being treated terribly by her stepmother and stepsisters. Eventually deciding that they want to kill Vasilisa, the stepmother and stepsisters send her to get a light from Baba Yaga, hoping that the witch will kill and eat her.

But when Vasilisa arrives at Baba Yaga’s house with chicken legs, deep in the forest, the witch offers her a deal. If Vasilisa completes three seemingly impossible tasks, she will win the light. If she fails, then Baba Yaga will eat her.

Vasilisa completes the tasks, with the help of a magic doll, and wins the light in the form of a glowing skull. This skull illuminates Vasilisa’s path home and when she offers it to her stepfamily, they look upon its light and are burned to ashes.

Thus, Baba Yaga, who had been portrayed as the archetypal antagonist at the start of the tale, becomes the archetypal helper, having given Vasilisa something that allows her to escape the real villains – her cruel stepfamily.

This story affirmed to me that things are not always what they seem. Characters can be ambiguous and shift and change from story to story. Those depicted as villains can be heroes, and those who are meant to care for us can be cruel. I realised that villainous acts and heroic acts are things we do rather than what we are, and that we all have good and bad, kindness and cruelty, within us, and a choice of how to act every day.

I began to think of fairy tales as being like the glowing skull that Baba Yaga gives to Vasilisa. They are gifts from our ancestors that can illuminate a way forwards, help us recognise harmful things and banish them from our lives.

As soon as I could read for myself, I sought out other fairy tales, beyond my grandmother’s home, in another magical place: the library.

One of the first books I fell in love with there was Joan Aiken’s The Kingdom Under the Sea, illustrated by Jan Pienkowski. On the back was a picture of Vasilisa, Baba Yaga and her house with chicken legs.

It was the first time that I had seen an illustration of these characters, and the first time that I had experienced anything from my grandmother’s stories outside of her home. To see something of her tales in an actual book made me breathless with excitement.

I borrowed the book, of course, and discovered that a few of the tales inside were similar to ones my grandmother had told me. Not exactly the same, but close enough for me to feel a connection to them. And there were new tales too, ones that I had not heard before, but were wonderful and magical and made me feel the same way that my grandmother’s stories did. These tales were fanciful, yet also touched on deep truths.

I explored all the fairy tale books in the library and discovered many other tales, from all over the world. I loved how each of these tales felt unique, yet they often contained similarities too. They showed me how people are connected, across the world and through time, in a powerful way.

Fairy tales enchant us and entertain us, while offering profound insights into the human experience, and a safe space to explore difficult or dark ideas. Often, before we feel able to articulate our thoughts and feelings around some of these ideas, we can understand or express them through story.

Maurice Sendak said that fairy tales, 'tell things about life which children know instinctively, and the pleasure and relief lie in finding these things expressed in language the children can live with'. I have certainly found this to be true, and I feel that sharing with children this powerful means of expressing our thoughts and feelings is a vital part of understanding ourselves and each other.

Fairy tales show how we all have shared hopes, dreams and fears. And they portray an overarching desire to be good, courageous and kind, to overcome evils both internal and external.

Bell Hooks wrote, 'Fairy tales were the refuge of my troubled childhood…[and] I was most obsessed with the idea of justice – the insistence in most tales that the righteous would prevail. The evocation of a just world, where right would prevail over wrong, was a balm to my wounded spirits during my childhood. It was a source of hope'.

All my writing is inspired by fairy tales, especially the Slavic ones my grandmother told me when I was young – although I started writing much later in life, when I was in my thirties, at a particularly difficult time.

I wrote to comfort myself through grief, and to express complicated thoughts and feelings that I could only face in the mythical, metaphorical realm of fairy tales. ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant’, the poet Emily Dickinson wrote, and this is what I believe fairy tales help us to do.

The book that emerged when I began writing eventually became The House with Chicken Legs, and I still get moving messages every week from readers who tell me how that book has helped them through grief, or helped them talk about life and death with the young people in their lives. A few people have even told me that they used the death journey words from the book – these are the words Baba Yaga says as she guides souls to the stars – at their loved one’s funerals.

I feel sure that one of the key reasons The House with Chicken Legs has resonated so deeply is because it is rooted in ancient tales.

Maria Tatar wrote that fairy tales are, 'never really banished from the imagination but remain powerful navigational instruments, charting paths through real-life experience and helping to find ways to cope with it.'

For many, fairy tales are pebbles in the forest, marking a path that others have walked before, and offering guidance and comfort along the way.

With their deeply symbolic archetypes and motifs, and open metaphors, fairy tales can be interpreted in seemingly endless ways, so that each individual listener or reader can usually find a meaning relevant and important to them at any given time. And if they revisit the tale further on in their lives, they will often find a different meaning.

This is part of the magic of fairy tales – how they can mean different things to different people at different times.

There are fascinating discussions of these tales by folklorists, historians, anthropologists and psychologists. The study of fairy tales is a field that is vast and enriching, and the versatility of the stories means that everyone, of every age, can engage with them both intellectually and creatively. 

Fairy tales are on the National Curriculum in Key Stages One and Two, where children are encouraged to explore the features and structures of the stories, and often interrogate them too, identifying and questioning stereotypes and antiquated ideas.

Retellings and reimaginings that challenge and subvert these ideas are usually explored too, and in this way, young people begin to grasp how stories are both shaped by the societies that they originate in, yet also hold the power to shape societies themselves.

Children studying fairy tales are usually encouraged to create their own versions of tales that are meaningful, relevant and exciting to them, and this, I think, is perhaps the most powerful magic of all – the way that fairy tales invite everyone into a playground of story.

Fairy tales give us agency in a unique and remarkable way, because although they are ancient, solid and lasting, they are also fluid, flexible and ever-changing. Sometimes Little Red Riding Hood is gobbled up by the wolf, sometimes she is saved by a woodcutter, and sometimes she saves herself…and, if none of these ever afters feel quite right, we can seek out other versions, or create our own, where Little Red and the wolf become something else entirely.

Fairy tale reimaginings have always been a huge part of our culture and they remain massively popular today. Some of our most beloved story franchises are rooted in traditional tales, and if we browse library and bookstore shelves, we find many wonderful retellings and reimaginings, for all ages, such as: Joseph Coelho and Freya Hartas’s Zombierella; Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s The Jolly Postman; and Trish Cooke and Sophie Bass’s The Magic Callaloo.

These reimaginings feel familiar and comforting, and like the tales that inspired them, they are filled with magic and wonder, and can offer deep insights to young people looking for guidance about the world and how to survive and thrive in it.

Yet each fairy tale reimagining also feels fresh and new, as it challenges older narratives and reflects more honestly the world today. This in itself carries a vital and empowering message: that we can change and shape the stories we tell, and in doing so we change and shape ourselves, society and the world.

Fairy tales are the first stories that I fell in love with, that I connected with, and it was through them that I fell in love with books, reading and writing, and it is through them that I still make sense of the world. I believe – and I am sure you all do too – that there are stories out there for every child, that they will feel a deep connection to, and that will comfort and help guide them throughout their lives.

There are stories that they will love, that will make their worlds bigger and brighter than they ever dreamed possible. And if we can help them find that magic, then that will certainly be a happily ever after.

Sophie Anderson is a renowned children’s author whose writing is most often inspired by folk and fairy tales, particularly the Slavic stories told by her Eastern European grandmother. Her novels for Usborne have won multiple prestigious awards and been translated into twenty-five languages. The House with Chicken Legs, her acclaimed reimagining of the Baba Yaga tale, has become a modern classic, taught in schools and adapted for the stage by Les Enfants Terrible. Her latest book, A Year of Fairy Tales, illustrated by Elisa Paganelli, fulfils Sophie’s long-held dream of creating a fairy-tale gift book in honour of her grandmother.