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Tropes

• Abduction Is Love: In all tales of the type "The Golden Bird"
• An Aesop
• An Arm and a Leg: All variants of the Girl Without Hands have her mutiliated.
• Androcles Lion
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When a talking animal advises you to take the dull object, not the shiny one — listen.
• Back from the Dead: common (though not invariable) for heroes, but rare for other characters
• Bad Boss: Kings, queens, ogres, and witches don't need you to work for them to assign you the Impossible Task, but it seems to encourage them.
• Baleful Polymorph / Animorphism: Frequently a curse cast by a Wicked Witch, Wicked Stepmother, or so on.
• Bears Are Bad News: Invariably dangerous, though frequently good
• Be Careful What You Wish For
• Beast Fable: The original Funny Animals.
• Big Badass Wolf: In the Big Bad Wolves form and the merely Badass variety.
• Big Fancy Castle: Whether the prince's or the monster's
• Blue Blood: Rare but not unknown. Characters of noble blood can act as the Love Interest of a peasant, like a prince or princess; or be the ones who marry up into royalty.
• Bride and Switch: It can be the whole plot, when the heroine is replaced en route to her wedding, or a final complication.
• Cain and Abel: Older brothers often turn violently on the youngest, successful brother.
• Changeling Tale
• Cinderella Circumstances: Cinderella and a fair number of its variants — not all.
• Child Marriage Veto: One way a youngest child wins is by not rejecting the bridegroom that all her sisters have.
• Clingy MacGuffin
• Curse
• Damsel in Distress: though not as common as you may believe
• Dances and Balls: But be back before 12 o' clock!
• David Versus Goliath: The youngest or smallest one will turn out to be smarter than his big enemies.
• Deader Than Dead: common in disposing of the villains
• Deceased Parents Are The Best: The Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad will have been a saint; the living dad and his Wicked Stepmother will be indifferent or actively hostile to the young protagonist.
• Distressed Dude: Men often need rescuing, too, when there's a heroine.
• Don't Go in the Woods: Going into the wood triggers the tale. This is Not A Good Thing.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!
• Dragons Prefer Princesses
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Kings often treat any success as proof that more should be demanded.
• Due to the Dead
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Some fairy tales require enormous effort for this.
• Engagement Challenge
• Evil Matriarch
• Evil Sorcerer: Particularly dangerous when you're apprenticed to him.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Talking Animals have a marvelous tendency to talk where the hero can overhear them.
• The Fair Folk: Rarely, even in Western Europe. But not non-existent.
• Fairest of Them All
• Fairy Godmother: Although a Newer Than They Think trope.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: a form of the false hero
• Fallen on Hard Times Job: Run away from the father who wants to marry you? You still have to eat, don't you? Princess or not?
• Family Unfriendly Aesop
• Family Unfriendly Death
• Family Unfriendly Violence
• Faux Death
• Feminine Women Can Cook: How to prove your worth as a bride — for frogs.
• Fetch Quest
• The Fool
• Forbidden Fruit: This trope is not omnipresent. But it comes very close.
• Frogs and Toads: Odious creatures, usually. Marrying one is your best chance.
• Gender Flip: usually played straight
• Giant Food
• Gingerbread House
• Girl in the Tower: One tale type is usually named this.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: In two forms — this is how Prince Charming finds his bride, and this is why the heroine's father wants to marry her.
• Goldilocks And The Mines Of Moria
• Greed
• Green-Eyed Monster
• Grimmification
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: More in the illustrations than in the text, though it's not unknown there.
• Happily Ever After: The source of the phrase
• Haunted Castle
• Hedge of Thorns
• Heir Club for Men: Tends to be hard on the daughter
• Hitchhiker Heroes
• Honorary Uncle — in The Three Spinners and its variants, the heroine's helpers want to be her Honorary Aunts.
• If I Can't Have You: The prince may be shapeshifted because of his refusal to marry a terrible bride. Conversely, the ogre/witch/what have you that was raising the heroine may curse the prince to forget her after they run away.
• Impossible Task
• Impossible Thief
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Though not as common as the Baleful Polymorph transformations mentioned above.
• Knight In Shining Armour
• Knights and Knaves
• Last Request: A frequent cause of the parent form of the Girl Who Fits this slipper.
• Law of Inverse Fertility — in the "want but can't get" form only
• Leaf Boat
• Little Red Fighting Hood- common in Fractured Fairytales
• Lord Country: The likely ruler of the good kingdom.
• The Lost Woods : A common setting
• Love at First Sight
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Or ogre's, or witch's, or even the Devil's.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: If there aren't three, or only one, it's this, usually.
• Malicious Slander
• Meaningful Name: Characters will be named after their visual appearance or characteristics.
• Merciful Minion: Take the character to woods and bring back — a hand, a heart, eyes, as evidence. (Never the head for obvious reasons.)
• Mock Millionaire: Puss-in-Boots and its variants
• Moving the Goalposts: Often done on top of Impossible Tasks.
• Nameless Narrative: Sometimes one or two characters (hero, heroine, villain) get names, but frequently none do.
• Noble Fugitive
• Offing the Offspring
• Once Upon a Time: The source of the phrase
• One For Sorrow Two For Joy
• Overprotective Dad
• Parental Incest: A common motive for the heroine to flee home is that her father has decided to marry her.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: sometimes a brother substitutes for the father. Same plot, though.
• Pinocchio Syndrome
• Please Shoot the Messenger
• Princess for a Day — prior to being princess for life
• The Promise
• The Quest
• Rags to Royalty (often after a decline from royalty, or at least wealth, to rags)
• Rapunzel Hair: though only in certain types of fairy tales.
• Ravens and Crows
• Red-Headed Stepchild
• Rescue Romance
• Rip Van Winkle
• Royal Brat: Usually the king objecting to his daughter's marriage.
• Royal Blood
• Rule of Three: Three siblings of the same sex is the commonest.
• Rule of Seven: Seven children, seven brothers, seven dwarfs, seven goats
• The Runt at the End
• Save the Princess
• Scullery Maid: Running away from your father's attempt to marry you often leads to this.
• Secret Identity: In Iron Hans and many (not all) of its variants, the hero is a servant at the court, and disguises himself in armor before fighting in the tourney or battle.
• Secret Test of Character
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Shape Shifter Showdown
• Shapeshifting Lover
• She Cleans Up Nicely
• Sibling Triangle: The hero's brothers or the heroine's sisters/stepsisters are often the final obstacle, and can be quite serious.
• Soul Jar
• Standard Hero Reward
• Swans a-Swimming
• Sweet and Sour Grapes
• Talking Animal: one of the commonest, found virtually everywhere in fairy tales
• Threshold Guardians
• Trail of Bread Crumbs
• The Trickster
• True Love's Kiss
• Walking the Earth
• Wealthy Ever After
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Characters who served their function often vanish.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve
• Wicked Stepmother
• Wicked Witch
• Wonder Child
• Year Outside, Hour Inside
• You Have Waited Long Enough
• Youngest Child Wins