It's that time of the year when fairy godmothers, angry giants and big bad wolves are once again strutting their stuff at pantomimes all over the country. Whether you love it or hate it, pantomime is a very traditional part of our Christmas celebrations and the themes upon which they are based are even more deeply rooted in history.
Stories such as 'Cinderella', 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Jack and the Beanstalk' began centuries ago as folk tales. These were tales people told to each other around the fire, when oral storytelling was the main form of entertainment, and initially they were not meant to be for children.
However, in the 17th century, a Frenchman called Charles Perrault - most famous for his version of 'Cinderella' - collected many of these stories together and adapted them to make them suitable for the very young. They were then published in a book called Tales of Mother Goose.
The Victorians tinkered further with the stories and developed the versions with which we are most familiar today. They used them to teach children right from wrong, emphasising some of the more threatening characters in the belief that the best way to make a child behave was to put fear into him!
Of course, we have a very different attitude to children these days, and you may feel reluctant to tell stories featuring evil trolls and wicked fairies to the younger ones, in case they end up having nightmares. But it is unnecessary to be over-protective. As long as a child feels safe and is snuggled up against you while you tell the story, she can actually enjoy feeling afraid, particularly if you put on a gruff voice or do lots of wolfish snarling. There can be a real thrill in being confronted by a big bad giant or a wicked stepmother, in safe surroundings, as long as the child's own imagination can control the level of scariness.
The best way to introduce stories is through live telling, reading or listening to spoken-word tapes. There are plenty of excellent videos around, but a child may have a very different reaction when watching the same story on screen - or indeed in pantomime - because the images are much more graphic and threatening. It's important never to leave a child alone watching this kind of video and to switch it off immediately if she becomes upset.
The average child can usually cope with being frightened, as long as an adult they love and trust is close by. But everyone is different and some find fear more difficult to handle. If a child becomes excessively distressed, it might indicate she is feeling insecure in other areas of her life and needs lots of extra cuddles and reassurance.
With so many excellent storybooks for young children now available, you may find it curious that the old traditional tales are still such an entrenched part of childhood. Part of their enduring charm is that they have been passed on, usually verbally, from generation to generation. You, your parents, your grandparents and beyond will probably have heard these stories first from a parent in a warm, loving environment. They help to give some continuity to our lives, and that can't be a bad thing in our rapidly changing world.
'Fairy stories have so much value,' says Dr Dorothy Faulkner, a lecturer at the Centre for Human Development and Learning at the Open University.
'First, because they are traditional and have been around for a long time, parents can pass on their experiences from their own childhood. Cuddled up listening to a story helps a child to feel emotionally warm. Second, these stories have a lovely clear structure, a beginning and an end, and clearly defined characters. The heroes are very heroic, the villians are very villainous. Children around the ages of three and four are establishing their own identity and like to hear about people who are distinctly good or bad. There is lots of repetition in these stories, too, which children love and which is vitally important for later reading development.'
Stories also offer you the opportunity to discuss basic moral dilemmas in a very simple way, says Dr Faulkner. As you turn the pages or retell events, you can drop in questions such as, 'Was it a good idea for Red Riding Hood to go with the wolf?', or 'Why do you think the ugly sisters are so nasty to Cinderella?' You should avoid using these stories simply as a teaching tool, though, as our Victorian ancesters did!
In recent years, fairy tales have been criticised for being sexist, with too many stereotyped characters. Princesses who are weak and passive and spend all their time hanging around waiting for a handsome prince to sweep them off their feet don't make good role models, it's said. The prince, on the other hand, always has to be strong and brave - no room for wimps here - and gets to do all the exciting stuff. Several publishers have made attempts to update or change endings to make traditional tales more relevant to today's children, but the original versions persist.
It seems reasonable to suppose that children are able to accept these stories simply as fantasies and don't apply them to their everyday lives.
One minute, your charge will be draping herself in a curtain and pretending to be a fairy princess, the next she has become Bob the Builder! The secret is to make sure that she has a variety of stories on her bookshelf so that she learns about all sorts of different situations, experiences and heroes.
Given the vintage of most of our traditional stories, it is difficult to imagine that there will ever be a time when children and adults won't enjoy them together. They add to the magic of childhood, and even in our cynical, war-weary world, there's surely room for a bit of happy-ever-after optimism.