Retelling Fairy Tales

Don't know where else to put this, but hopefully someone here will have a more definitive answer than I found on Google.

What are the legalities of retelling fairy tales?

I was always under the impression that you can use the generic fairy tale as a basis, so long as the story itself is completely in your own words. Am I wrong?

Also, when you submit the short story/novel for consideration, do you need to tell the editor that it was inspired by such-and-such tales by whichever author, or is that something which should go in the beginning of the story as an author's note?

Or does it go without saying if it's fairly obvious which fairy tale the story was derived from?

I'm just curious how other writers have handled this, since I'm certainly not the first person to retell a fairy tale and want to get it published.

Thanks for the replies.

My story is based on the original version of a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Since I'm certain that's public domain (I checked), I was worried more about the protocol for submitting it for publication.

Do I need to attribute the original author and story somewhere in the submission? I've been putting that info in my cover letters. Is that my safest bet?

Thanks again for the help!