One well-established pattern found in the fairy tale throughout Europe and beyond is that of various characters offering help to the hero or heroine, while others seek to destroy them. The helpers may be either animal or human, dolls or inanimate objects, the dead or supernatural beings, although deities and recognised supernatural powers, such as are found in myths and legends, do not normally appear in the fairy tale. The intervention of the helper is essential to the plot, since this is what usually ensures that the final outcome is a happy one - marriage, reunion with brothers or sisters, husband or wife, or the winning of a treasure or a kingdom - while the destroyers are finally exposed and punished. For all their importance, few attempts have been made to analyse helpers or adversaries in any detail, and it seems worthwhile to pursue the subject further, since the conflict between these opposing forces for the destiny of hero or heroine is clearly of primary importance for our understanding of the tales.

Helpers in animal form include birds, fishes and insects, and these have no obvious parallels in heroicliterature, myths or legends. In many cases the help is given in response to generosity on the part of the central character, who then achieves success against apparently insuperable odds (AT 534). In the Grimms’ tale of ‘The Queen Bee’ (1944: 317), a very simple story, this forms the basicplot. When three brothers set out to seek their fortunes, the two elder are going to destroy an ant-hill, thinking it would be amusing to see the ants scurrying about in terror. But the youngest, Simpleton, prevents them, insisting: ‘Leave the creatures in peace. I will not allow you to disturb them.’ He similarly stops them from killing two ducks on a pond, and breaking into a bee's nest for honey. To deliver a castle from enchantment, they have to find a thousand pearls scattered in the moss, recover a key from a lake, and declare which of three sleeping princesses has eaten honey. The two elder brothers fail, but the ants, the ducks and the queen bee solve the problems for the youngest son when his turn comes.