Evidence status: WELL SUPPORTED — the fairy is surprisingly modern
Lose a tooth.
Put it beneath the pillow.
Go to sleep.
By morning, the tooth has disappeared and money has somehow taken its place.
For something that feels like ancient folklore, the Tooth Fairy is remarkably young.
The Short Answer
Humans have practised rituals involving children's lost baby teeth for centuries, but the familiar Tooth Fairy appears to be largely a twentieth-century North American creation.
The earliest known printed reference currently identified appears in the Chicago Sunday Tribune in 1908. A household advice column suggested telling a reluctant child that if the tooth was placed beneath the pillow, a “tooth fairy” would remove it during the night and leave a small gift.
The fairy drew upon much older traditions surrounding children's teeth. Around the world, teeth have been buried, burned, thrown onto roofs or offered to animals — particularly mice and rats — in hopes that strong adult teeth would grow in their place.
The ritual is old.
The winged visitor is not.
What We Know
Losing baby teeth is an unusual childhood event.
A physical piece of the body falls out.
There is often blood.
The child may be frightened.
And yet everyone knows another tooth is supposed to replace it.
It is almost designed for ritual.
Anthropologists and folklorists have documented lost-tooth customs across many cultures.
One particularly widespread pattern involves rodents.
The child gives the tooth to a mouse or rat and hopes the replacement tooth will become as strong as the rodent's famously durable teeth.
Smithsonian describes mouse-related tooth rituals as widespread across countries from Russia and Mexico to New Zealand.
How It Became a Habit
The modern Tooth Fairy solves several parental problems rather elegantly.
A loose tooth can frighten a child.
Removing it can become a battle.
Losing it may feel unsettling.
Turn the event into a magical transaction and suddenly the child has an incentive.
The 1908 newspaper reference is wonderfully practical.
It recommends the Tooth Fairy specifically as a way of persuading a reluctant child to allow a loose tooth to be removed.
The parent is even advised to keep inexpensive little gifts ready for the fairy's visits.
That sounds less like ancient mythology and more like creative parenting.
The Story Everyone Tells
Because fairies belong to old European folklore, it is often assumed the Tooth Fairy must be ancient too.
You may encounter attempts to trace her directly to medieval fairies, Vikings or ancient burial customs.
Those older traditions certainly form part of the cultural background.
But the actual character called the Tooth Fairy, arriving at night and exchanging a tooth beneath a pillow for a gift, appears in print only in the early twentieth century.
By 1927, Esther Watkins Arnold had published a children's play titled The Tooth Fairy.
From there, the character spread rapidly through children's culture.
What the Evidence Actually Says
The modern fairy looks like a cultural mixture.
One ingredient is the enormous body of older tooth folklore.
Another is the widespread European idea of magical fairies.
Another is the tradition of leaving money or gifts for children during the night.
And another is the older tooth mouse.
Smithsonian therefore describes the Tooth Fairy as a comparatively recent American creation built from much older traditions.
So:
DOCUMENTED: Cultures around the world developed rituals for disposing of children's milk teeth.
DOCUMENTED: Mouse and rat traditions are particularly widespread.
DOCUMENTED: “Tooth Fairy” appears in American print by 1908.
DOCUMENTED: A children's play called The Tooth Fairy appeared in 1927.
WELL SUPPORTED: The modern fairy combined older tooth customs with familiar fairy imagery.
FOLKLORE: The modern Tooth Fairy is not an unchanged ancient European character.
Different Elsewhere
In much of the Spanish-speaking world, the visitor may not be a fairy at all.
It is a mouse.
Spain's Ratoncito Pérez belongs to the much wider international family of tooth-collecting rodents.
France has La Petite Souris — the little mouse.
Other cultures ask children to throw the tooth onto a roof, hide it, bury it or give it symbolically to an animal.
Same biological event.
Completely different supernatural postal service.
Why It Stuck
Because it turns losing part of your body into receiving a reward.
That is excellent childhood economics.
The tooth disappears.
Money appears.
Pain becomes evidence that something magical happened.
And parents gain one final advantage:
few children complain when the next tooth starts wobbling.
Related Curiosities
Why Do We Say “Bless You” When Someone Sneezes?
Why Do Children Leave Shoes Out for St Nicholas?
Why Do We Hang Stockings at Christmas?
Why Do We Put Candles on Birthday Cakes?
Sources & Further Reading
Smithsonian Magazine — “The Tooth Fairy Is a Very Recent, Very American Creation” — overview of the modern fairy and older international tooth rituals.
Word Histories — early instances of “tooth fairy” — documents the 1908 Chicago Sunday Tribune reference.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History — “The Tooth Fairy goes scientific” — twentieth-century cultural evidence for the Tooth Fairy tradition.
Google Books — Esther Watkins Arnold, The Tooth Fairy (1927).
Last checked: 19 September 2026