The Warning of Fairy Tales

About a year ago I woke up with the idea that I wanted to be a writer, propelling me into several sessions of letting my brain out of its cage, or at least part of it, and seeing where it goes. One quick and obvious place it went was fairy tales.

I’ve loved them since a child, and whatever event that triggers the end of a child’s interest that so many go through skipped me and I kept loving them. They’ve always been some of the most interesting and stimulating stories I’ve read, which is why I wanted to write them.

On the surface they may seem “easy” or “simple” because of the language or the nanny-like style in which they’re told, but they can have an impact on the imagination unlike anything in literature.

Notice I haven’t said a word about social commentary or political protests within the stories, which is what I found when I wanted to read English professors talk about them. “These stories are really about the woman’s struggle with.....” and they would go on to explain how woman are subjugated in the stories, or power passes between people in such and such way.

Is this really what these stories are about?

I would argue that they’re not about these things at all (or at least on a minor level, really only if a person has something in the craw about society and feels they need to engineer it to their liking), but are dealing with two big subjects we all deal with on a daily basis: morality and psychology.

If anything applies in fairy land, it is the moral law. As Chesterton said, even the great green dragons keep their promises there. Morals are the one conversion that is easiest between our world and theirs, as much as contemporary thinkers might want to distort the existence of good and evil.

Next, they are about psychology. They deal with human experiences with fear, deception, stealing, love, promises, God and ourselves, and whatever beautiful or horrible thing we might be capable of doing to each other. They help us deal with problems in our lives by the simple act of placing ourselves in the story and letting the plot take us to its end. Something about storytelling works this magic on us.

Fulfilling the title of this entry, though, I want to say that these stories often served as warnings to the listeners. Warnings. We hear warnings for all sorts of things, usually stuff like medicine or issues regarding civil law, but adults? Are we warned enough in our time, or are we ruled by it’s nasty sister, permissiveness?

How nice it would be if some grown-ups (I’ll group children in this, but I remember getting enough warnings as a child to last until I was twenty two) had a fairy come and warn them that if they do a certain thing, the consequences will be dire? It’d be a nice world, I think, maybe not if you’re that adult, but you’d probably be grateful later on. Just a hunch.