Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy is a fictional figure in children’s folklore who exchanges a child’s lost tooth, often left under a pillow, for money or a small gift.

Tooth traditions: Customs and beliefs surrounding the loss, disposal, or preservation of human teeth. The Tooth Fairy belongs to a wider history of rituals for children’s lost teeth.
Childhood: The period of human development between infancy and adolescence. The Tooth Fairy tradition is usually part of children’s experience of growing up.
Ritual: A patterned action performed according to shared or personally meaningful conventions. The repeated tooth-and-gift exchange functions as a small family ritual.
Tooth disposal customs: Cultural practices for disposing of children’s shed teeth, sometimes intended to influence future teeth. Many traditions focus on where to throw or bury a tooth, rather than exchanging it for a gift.
Tand-fé: A Scandinavian custom in which a child receives a coin or gift for a lost tooth. This tooth-for-reward custom is a close regional parallel to the Tooth Fairy tradition.
Parenting: The practices and responsibilities involved in raising and caring for a child. Parents commonly stage the tooth exchange and shape what it means for a child.
Make-believe: Imaginative play in which people act as though invented situations or characters are real. The Tooth Fairy invites children and adults to sustain a shared imaginative story.
Tooth worm: A folkloric creature associated with toothache and beliefs that worms caused dental pain. Unlike the kindly exchanger, this figure belongs to older explanations of tooth disease.
Tooth mouse: A folkloric mouse that exchanges money or gifts for children’s lost teeth in several cultures. In many countries, a mouse rather than a fairy performs the same exchange.
Primary tooth: A tooth in the first set of teeth, which normally falls out during childhood. The figure’s visits are tied to the loss of these teeth.

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ToothRelated: The tradition gives the loss of primary teeth a cultural meaning.