It is quite fascinating how the United-States formed their own little corpus of “classic” fairytales that is basically a mixed salad, or - just like their country - a melting pot.
Basically, Americans selected a few of each fairy tales from the “great groups” and knows these fairytales by heart, while completely ignoring the other fairy tales that came with them.
Americans know very well the Three Billy Goats Gruff, or “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, but do not have any idea of who Asbjørnsen or Moe are. Maybe if they hanged out a bit on the Internet they’ll have heard of Prince Lindworm, and if they are a diehard fan of Tolkien they’ll know of Soria Moria Castle - but that will be it. On the 150 Norwegian fairytales collected by the “Grimms of the North”.
Similarly, Americans will know by heart a trilogy of English fairytales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Three Little Pigs. But all the other stories collected by Joseph Jacobs are ignored by the general American audience - Cap O’Rushes, The Buried Moon, Kate Crackernuts…
And of course, same thing with the French stories. Every “general” fairytale book in America will have Perrault’s Cinderella or Puss in Boots, all the while ignoring his other stories (that are known by every kid in France) such as Donkeyskin or Little Thumbling.
There’s a truly “pick and choose those you’ll like best” mindset in the American perception of fairytales. Even with the fairytales Americans know the best about - like the Grimm fairytales. On the hundreds of stories, it all gets down to Snow-White, Briar Rose, Rapunzel, The Frog King (well, Prince as most people make the mistake), Hansel and Gretel, and maybe a few others.
And by selecting this handful (or sometimes less of a handful) of fairytales from each country, from each author, from each era, Americans formed together a sort of given set of “classic” fairytales they keep rehashing and repeating and reusing and re-deconstructing throughout their fictional works.
