I do wildlife art. While I copyright my WORK, I do not, nor can I, copyright the animal in each picture.
I wrote a high school composition called The Littlest Christmas Tree in 1956; got an A and had to read it to the class.
The Higginbotham family, quite poor, bought the worst tree of all time- the entire story was narrated by the tree.
I was quite surprised years later to see the same thing on T.V.