tonight i will touch upon the world of "Faërie", as Tolkien would put it, and my intimacy with it on a personal level. Fairy tales have always been my favorite category of literature, from my very initial introduction to the imaginatory realm by my mother. Well, first it was the stories in scripture translated to a toddler's level, but right beside scripture i listened in a state of lull to her voice enlighten my mind's eye on folklore, i.e., fairytales, myths, and fables. These are my earliest and consequently my most relished memories; listening to mom read and then scrabbling my paper and crayons together to color the story that was still living in my limitedly acute mind. Although the latter was an exceedingly frustrating effort for a three year old to undertake; striving to convey to mommy on paper what i saw so vividly in my captivated imagination, it definitely had a lasting effect on my psyche. Perhaps why literature plays such an important role in my life is due to the encouragement of it in my very preliminary stages. I think that children's imaginations, although diminutive are the most dynamic and acute of human beings, it's just their limitations in expression and articulation that withhold the inner recesses of their ingenuity. Tolkien called fairytales "sub-creation", that is, creating a secondary world, of which entails the "inner consistency of reality". That being said, here's to folklore and the youth of this world who still have an ardent admiration and wonder for the ancient tales of heroism, purity, evil, adventures, tragedies, virtues, vices, etcetera etcetera...
"The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to a fairy tale); this joy, which is one of the things that fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive. In it's fairy tale or other world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to reoccur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, or sorrow and failure, the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief."
--Tolkien.
"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?" --Tolkien.
"I am half sick of shadows" --The Lady of Shallot
"My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure." --Sir Galahad
ever wonder what the more filtered Grimm fairytales were like in original form? (these are the ones i was raised on) check it out at this cute website... http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm and heads up: they're not as pretty as they're commercially depicted! there's almost no eucatastrophic element at all in these ones, its no wonder they were softened over time.
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