The article attempts to clarify the role of fairy tales in the development of ethnic and cultural identity not only at the stage of childhood, but also at the subsequent stages of personality development. In childhood, fairy tales create an optimistic basis for such an identity, and in more adult periods, fairy-tale and fantasy plots give a person the opportunity to strengthen his optimism and confidence in himself and in his people, against the backdrop of an increasingly complex life. A model of imaginary plots is proposed, based on the readiness or unwillingness of a person to understand and accept a fairy tale in order to identify with its hero, as well as on taking into account how far the fairy tale is detached from reality or close to it, so that identification with the hero is more or less embodied in life.