violation of endogamy—marrying within tt^e tribe), offended in the tribe and the family. These iiriplicitly social motives generally frame the more ancient core of the plot going back to initiation trials; marriage for such an offended hero proved to be the main means of raising his social status. Before the well-developed fairy-tale was shaped there had appeared a fairytale about .animals as transformation of myths about zoo-anthropomorphous totem ancestors. The prototype of the .hero of such a fairy-tale is a mythological trickster, a comic counterpart of the culture hero. According to this genesis the heroes of fairy-tales about animals are also tricksters-swindlers who try to outwit other creatures and satisfy hunger, and less frequently carnality, at their expense. The genetic link with a myth is indicated by rudimentary etymological ends which are gradually replaced by 'morale'. Fairy-tales about animals with accent on allegory and the moralizing element gradually turned into fables. On the other hand, it was not without the influence of fairy-tales about animals with their'naturalism' that along with a fairy-tale there appeared one portraying everyday life and gravitating towards a funny story and* vile' humour. When losing the magic element, particularly the key figure of the magical assistant, the fairy-tale also assumes everyday features. But the introduction of everyday elements does not always result in a funny story or the rough comic side, in the coming to the fore of a smart, crafty or witty hero, etc. Everyday elements may assume a'sentimental' nature—the sad or happy fate of the hero may come to the fore, the latter sometimes in the form of an award for virtuous behaviour. A fairy-tale of everyday life (a novelistic one) can also develop from a demythologized local legend, moralizing 'examples' and fragments of ancient historical compositions with a strong plot The archaic magic-heroic fairy-tale, partly developed from a heroical myth before generating the classical fairy-tale, becomes a source for the development of heroic epos, especially when it assumes the form of a song, or, to be more exact, a mixed form (only the recitatives and certain stereotype descriptions are sung). The magic and heroic fairy-tales differently reflect the process of the decay of the tribal system, of social differentiation and of the shaping of a personality. When the process of the decay of tribal society in the epoch of barbarism and 'military democracy" resulted in the establishment of tribal unions and early forms of statehood, tribal epos about culture heroes interacting with the heroic fairy-tale developed into heroic epos or, to be more exact, its early archaic forms. Heroic epQS is created in the course ofethno-political formation and development, and, hence, is hardly permeable to international influences. As long as state consolidation was not completed epos used the language of Journal of Arts A Ideas 99