Joy following the end of Winter's Tale (8)
I believe the answer is:
relation
'tale' is the definition.
(relation is a kind of tale)
'joy following the end of winter's' is the wordplay.
'joy' becomes 'elation' (elation is a kind of joy).
'following' says to put letters next to each other.
'the end of winter's' becomes 'r' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'elation' put after 'r' is 'RELATION'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for relation that I've seen before include "Respect" , "Person connected by blood or marriage" , "Grandchild, perhaps" , "Eg, father" , "Person related by blood or marriage" .)