In some cases, the reason for disposing of the teeth is so that a witch does not find them rather than to make an offering. There are legends in Europe, however, that do more closely resemble the tooth fairy legend. Others involve offering the teeth to rather different entities, such as animals instead of to a fairy. They sometimes involve just getting rid of the teeth rather than offering them to any entity. These examples show how European folklore regarding children’s teeth diverges in many ways from American folklore. Only a few scholars have considered the relevance of this practice to the tooth fairy, however.Īn 8-year-old’s gift to the tooth fairy. Some 19th century scholars found this interesting and even went as far as to suggest that this custom was evidence of vestigial paganism in the form of sun worship. In other parts of Europe, children were encouraged to offer their teeth to animals, usually mice, or to throw them in to the air. An old superstition was that if a child did not dispose of his or her baby teeth properly, the person would wander the afterlife for all of eternity in search of them. The reason for this was connected to beliefs about the afterlife. In Medieval England, it was popular to burn a child’s baby teeth. There is no direct parallel to the tooth fairy in European folklore. One fact that emerges when the tooth fairy’s origin is investigated is that the original tooth fairy, if there was one, seems to have been of a less innocent nature than the modern dental sprite. Belief in the tooth fairy has become so common in the United States that losing belief in her is considered a rite of passage showing that a child is “growing up.” Despite its popularity, little is known of the origins of the tooth fairy and few parallels are found in other cultures. She is famous for exchanging a few dollars for baby teeth that have fallen out. The tooth fairy is rivalled only by Santa Claus in popularity among American children.
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