"The Philosophers' Stone," despite its seeming to have been a mixture of several folk tales, can be considered a fairy tale by our standards. It involves magic, though not completely outright since King Mark/ Sylvester dreams about how to fix himself, and several morals. This tale provides a sort of didacticism for its readers in making it rather obvious that greed, no matter what kind, will always lead to one's downfall. Hard work and generosity, however, will always ensure that one has a fulfilled and happy life. The Grimms would be proud.
It isn't until King Mark only wishes to achieve his needs, eating the lily when he's a hungry donkey, that he truly understands what it is to be a good man: "The food and drink had never tasted so good to him when he had been king, for he had never been hungry or thirsty. He had never slept so well, for he had never worked until he was tired... Indeed, now he was a real human being." This mindset seems to go hand-in-hand with the traditional folktale.
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It's interesting that you noted the didactic nature of the tale, with it's final parabolic lesson, because it's very similar to the later Grimm versions of Red Riding Hood, when the mother goes on and on about not straying from the path. Here the didacticism focuses on greed, however, and does so at each "scene" of the tale: the initial trickery, the donkey with the robbers, the donkey's dream sequence, etc. But does didacticism really have a place in the fairy tale, or does it convert a fairy tale into another related form (like a parable)?
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