Fairytales

What was the last fairy tale you read or saw? 

An odd question, yet for all those with young children near it will be easy to answer, Beauty and the Beast, The little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White and the list goes on. 

Fairy tales often bring to mind bedtime, lavishly illustrated story books, making fairytales become but an aspect of childishness we put away later on in life, never to pick up again. They are made for the child’s world, while we have jobs to do, bills to pay….. 

But the truth is that fairytales were created, told and re-told by people very much like us - adults who led busy lives, engaged in hard physical labour. They came about as a form of entertainment, tales produced not by commercial speculation, but by the timeless act of passing a story down from generation to generation. 

Every fairytale has many different versions depending on what part of the world it comes from, also many different flourishes given to it by each unique voice that tells the story anew. Fairytales are also much more dark and frightening than their later written and redacted versions might suggest. In early versions of Cinderella, the vicious stepsisters actually cut off their toes trying to fit into the glass slipper. In more than one version of Little Red Riding Hood the scarlet cloaked maiden is simply devoured by the wolf, never to be seen again. 

Due to their fantastic nature, even when we take fairytales more seriously or encounter them in reworked forms meant for adults (like snow white, little mermaid), we still tend to think of them as escapist and not really saying anything relevant about “real life”. 

There is great beauty which can be seen in fairytales from the guiding light through dark terrain. They provide entertainment, a form of escapism if you will, but they also possess profound life-lessons. They contain little embers of wisdom that are breathed to life once again every time we utter the words “Once upon a time…..” And so, here’s a short list of some of the life-lessons I have reflected on, with the worlds that fairytales create. 

Insight One - 

Its alright to feel lost… for now! Fairytales never really begin until at least one main character and often several feel lost, disoriented, hopeless, and confused. Seeing the hero or heroine get abandoned or forsaken, listening to their words as they circle back in the wild wood one only to pass the same landmarks one more time, tells us that adventure is about to happen, that big choices are on the horizon, that instead of always looking outside for reassurance and direction it is now time to look inward and come into contact with our inner knowing. 

Feeling lost is often one sign that an initiation is about to begin and that the individuals involved will not be the same after their story has unfolded. The modern therapeutic term is dissociation and describes the cognitive event of detaching from this time and place so that one may experience “time out of mind” as C S Lewis put it - time beyond time and a world that is decidedly Other. It is in this rupture that great magic waits to be discovered. 

So when feeling lost, overwhelmed and even abandoned by life, fairytales instruct us to take a deep breath, get out bearings however we might, and begin again, one foot in front of the other. All is not lost, and many great discoveries are to come. 

Insight Two 

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving, people, animals and even objects are not what they seem to be. Beasts turn into princes, scary women living alone in chicken footed houses keep the sacred fires of all creation and sweat treats hold a truth that can lead to doom. 

On the other hand, sometimes things are exactly as they appear and the trouble is that the hero or heroine doesn’t believe what they know to be true. Yes, that witch firing up the oven really does intend to devour you. Yes, the fact that your grandmother is looking rather wolfish this morning should send alarm bells coursing through your body. So we must learn too… 

Insight Three

Try to see with more than just our eyes as appearance only gives us part of any story. We find that the key is to perceive reality with more than just our eyes. Fairytales were developed in agrarian times when most people, certainly those telling the stories, were working on the land and in the fields. They speak to an original audience that would have been more easily able to “see” with all parts of the body. 

This kind of seeing calls upon all parts of ourselves. We want to see with our hands, learn from them as they touch old wood or soft downy hair of a child. We want to see with our feet as they carry us from place to place; to see with our nose as we catch the scents carried on the breeze from so many directions. And we want to see most of all with a clear, discerning mind and an open sacred heart. 

Fairytales are not a made up story but rather the seedbed that inspired and informed all stories, all journeys and all discoveries. Modern science can describe with precision the world and glazay, religion teaches different ways to worship, to have faith; and psychology will remind us to live within as well as outside of ourselves. But stories - the stories are what takes us there.