The Tales of Beedle the Bard translated from the original runes by J.K.Rowlings:

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
The Warlock's Hairy Heart
Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump
The Tale of the Three Brothers (Chapter 21, pages 405-423. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows USA Scholastic)

How HP's universe morality compares to other book series' morality,
based on what we've learned from the tales,
how the tales compare to other tales that exist outside of HP,
whether the tales can be taken as a commentary on contemporary society.

SPOILER ALERT: This is the Link.

Well, The Fountain of Fair Fortune seems to have allusions to Chaucer (the frame story for a party of persons on pilgrimage to a point where they hope to find help, the Pardoner's ware from the Pardoner's tale concerning the lack of "real" "intrinsic" force of some objects), H.G. Wells's "Door in the Wall" (for, well, the door in the wall), A. Dumas "Three Musketeers" (for a 4th person joining and being of quite some importance); probably there are other "intertextual nodes" in addition to those seen by me up to now.

There is another Door in a Wall in Steppenwolf.

According to secondary information (Wikipedia in this case): H.G. Wells's story is from 1906, Hesse's novel from 1928.

And I have no idea about JKR's preferences concerning these two authors ... .

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do you all know the plot of the tales? Have I missed something?

Don't worry! If you have missed anything, Amazon has posted about the tales.

Is that just a summarization of the Tales? Or are they actually the stories themselves? They certainly don't appear to be.

They're very detailed summaries/reviews.

I definitely think the tales in Beedle The Bard can definitely be a commentary on contemporary society; not just the fictional world of Rowling's Potterverse. Themes such as death, greed, love, power, etc., are seen throughout the tales, and the moral messages interwoven within each tale can surely teach us something about the everyday Muggle life.

At the beginning of the Tales, Rowling makes a very interesting distinction between Muggle fairy tales and the Tales in Beedle. In the Muggle world, magic is at the heart of the problems of many of the character in Muggle fairy tales. In Beedle, the characters themselves can perform magic, however, magic doesn't seem to solve their problems.

So, do you agree with Rowling that "magic causes enough trouble as it cures"?

Fudge reminded the Muggle Prime Minister in the 1st chapter of HBP that "the other side can do magic too". So what magic does really depends on whether it is bestowed on someone good or otherwise. Pretty much like the Elder Wand's potential - Dumbledore took it to protect the people who would have been harmed by its actions in the hands of a lesser owner.

Yeah, the magic in Muggle fairy tales is shown one-dimensionally, it is either good or bad.

Wizarding fairy tales show the limits and complexity of magic.