Comprehensively covering the entire field of children's literature and its extension in several directions, especially with an emphasis on the children's story and its subtypes, the following thesis aims, among other things, to point out the complexity of this special type of literature. In connection with this, the center of the research is the fairy tale, as a simple type of prose whose true complexity and meaning is revealed only when sapareted from its characteristic od simplicity, in the sense in which the fairy tale is often limited. The paper traces the development of the fairy tale, from oral to modern, with reference to this development in the context of European and Croatian children's literature. Also, the definition of the fairy tale itself is treated, as well as its essential determinants, meaning and significance. The first part of the paper aims to warn against the unjustified general presence of a stigma about the reduced value of the fairy tale and to focus on its artistic, but also wider value, highlighting the peculiarities that set it apart from other literary genres. Furthermore, by treating the concept of motifs and sapareted motifs in selected European and Croatian fairy tales in the context of European literature, their presentation and comparison, the aim of the graduation thesis is to point out the permeation of the same or similar motifs in equally similar or in different contexts of a particular theme that the fairy tale deals with, as well as in the sense of the Croatian fairy tale compared to the European one, and highlight the significance of the isolated motif and how it performs its function in fairy tales.