This tale, like many other folktales, offers children a magic carpet ride to enchanted lands filled with kings and queens, dragons and fairies, and timeless battles of good and evil.
Many adults believe that such fanciful stories have little relevance today.
DeVos asserts that those references to folktale characters and themes can be found throughout popular culture. To test this, I flipped through the Yellow Pages of the Tallahassee telephone book. Sure enough, I found references such as The Silver Slipper Restaurant, Twice Upon a Time and Midas Muffler. Besides influencing our popular culture, folktales help us to identify who we are. They can illuminate our subconscious fears and desires and help us understand our family's cultural heritage.