conte

Short story, particularly a tale of adventure or a fairy tale.

The word conte was used in France as early as the 13th century to describe an anecdote told in an artistic way. Various collections, such as the Gesta Romanorum, made such anecdotes popular in the Middle Ages. As in the later Contes drôlatiques 1833 by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, their subjects are love (treated in a playful manner), the cunning of wives, the deception of husbands, and the breaking of their vows by clerics.