fairy tale vs old saw

fairy tale

noun
  • A delightful and ideal situation of a kind attained by very few. 

  • A story presented as true that is not believable. 

  • A folktale featuring fairies or similar fantasy characters. 

old saw

noun
  • A cliché, saying, or overused expression; especially a proverb or maxim. 

How often have the words fairy tale and old saw occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )