Studying old folk tale is a useful corrective to misconception about life in earlier centuries.
For instance, we often assume that the farmers were at the bottom of the old feudal hierarchies. However, by the time the folk tales were written down - in 19th century Germany, in my case - independent farmers were in fact at the top of their own miniature social hierarchies.
Below them: Tenant farmers who only rented the land, as well as farmhands and maids who worked for room and board and paltry wages.
It is not surprising that, between the Napolonic Wars and WWI, millions of Germans emigrated overseas - for many, many rural people suffered desperate poverty and no prospects. They had no land of their own, no prospects for building prosperity for their family. Even the rapidly-industrializing cities, who had their own working poor aplenty, were better than rural poverty.