A cool fairy tale I read recently was "The death of King Arthur. Your can see the URL to it here: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/arthur.html#mordred.
In the story, King Arthur was out fighting in a war, and Mordred forged papers that made it seem like he died, Making him-Arthur's next of kin- the ruler of London. He married Arthur's wife Guenivere and took over his kingdom. Arthur and his troops came back to fight Mordred. Arthur killed Mordred, but Mordred gave Arthur a mortal wound. Arthur told a knight called Bedivere to throw his sword, Excalibur, in a lake. Bedivere pretended to twice, but Arthur could tell he was lying both times, so Bedivere finally threw it in. A hand came out of the water and cought the sword, and Arthur took this as a sign and went out on a raft and was never seen again.
I found plenty of literary motifs in the story. Magic objects (the sword),apparent death (the ending), trickery, betrayal and revenge (Mordred's betrayal and Arthur's retaliation), the returning soldier (Arthur) and the corruption of power (Mordred again).
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