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To answer your question about the Grimm brothers, it would (and in fact does) take a whole book - in brief, as fairy tales became more for children (they started out as adult entertainment), the fairy tales were seen as ways to socialize children, to civilize them into the kind of adults that the tellers wanted them to be. There is a great difference in the way stories are told in the original 1812(I think) edition than how they're told in the 1850s edition.
In general, my stories do have messages, but they're more things like "don't be afraid of the dark" or "don't make too many assumptions." one story even has the message that you should be careful doing your research <g>. Other stories are just for fun, and it's interesting to me to see which reviewers do and don't pick up on my intentions. I have a very strong humanist outlook, and that can't help but creep into even my lighter-weight stories.
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