Jay is basically correct. Here, "come to life" is a past participle. It's a verb phrase that is working as an adjective. It's much more common to see *passive* past participles, like in these examples:
"That was the story told by our ancestors."
"These are the products received by our company."
"This is the book written by my teacher."
Active past participles are more rare, so it's hard to think of many good examples, but the basic idea is the same. "Come to life" means "having come to life" or "that has come to life," and describes the fairy tale. You could also say: "He's like a man returned from the dead." (He's like a man [who has] returned from the dead.)