Fariy Tale

What is a fairy tale?

Surely, as the title suggests, it is merely a tale in which fairies, or faerie like creatures play a part. Yet, there are a great many fairy tales in which there are no faeries in it all. In fact, most people will agree, when asked, that a fairy tale does not necessarily need a single fairy in it or even to take place in Faeryland(i.e. the Gingerbread Man, the Ant and the Grasshopper, and Bluebeard to name a few).

So what distinguishes this particular genre from folk lore, or epics, or even legends? Scholars everywhere have yet to agree on a single defining factor, so allow me to give the following conjecture (at least for the sake of this post): A fairy tale is a story with amazing places, events, and/or beings that allows the reader to learn more about the real world and the people in it through means of embarking (willingly or not) on a journey ‘once upon a time’.

‘Once upon a time’ is relevant in a fairy tale because it is the defining factor that separates it from a legend, or folk tale that may have roots in historical truth. A fairy tale doesn’t have to, and generally doesn’t beyond the nature of people and danger in general, have a connection to a real event in the past. And the journey doesn’t necessarily have to lead the characters into or through Faeryland. Nor do the characters have to come from Faeryland and the journey doesn't even need to take place on a grand scale. The discovery of a secret room, or dark forest, or even the downward spiral into the characters psyche can represent the journey.

All in all, a fairy tale is a chance to run away in order to find ourselves. That may very well be why fairy tales are so popular. Why, time after time, we create the same stories in new ways and new stories in the same ways.

But what of the Fae themselves? What is it about them that lure us into that darkened wood in the first place? Why are we so fascinated by the blinding brightness, or the frightening darkness they represent? Why, in the day and age of science and technology, are we enchanted by the Fae and the realm from which they call to us?

Perhaps it is because fairy tales are just mirrors in which we can see our own reflections, or the reflections of the people we most want to be (or don’t want to be).

Maybe this is why I continually step through the looking glass. For that small chance that after I have fallen down the rabbit hole and climbed back up I will have learned one more thing about me, or those elusively enchanting beings around me called people.