"On Fairy Stories," Part 2 ("Origins")

[cressidarambles]

* I found this section a little confusing, to be honest. Tolkien talks a lot about what the origins of fairy-stories are not, but he doesn't speculate much about what he thinks they are, aside from the fact that he believes they all have their roots in human experience. People could not imagine things if they had not seen or felt something

Comments

Here from <lj user="middleearthnews">

[fairjennet]

I loved Disney fairy tales as a child, but I absolutely hated the fairy tale books at my grandmother's house. She had a complete set of Bookhouse books, full of gory Mother Goose and Grimm, that I couldn't stop reading even though they gave me nightmares.

When I re-read them as an adult, I understood why they freaked me out so much. Hansel and Gretel were abandoned by their parents, the queens hanging up by their hair in Bluebeard's closet were dead, the king raped Sleeping Beauty as she slept in the woods, and the twelve dancing princesses drugged all those princes and sent them to their deaths. Somehow none of that stuff really registered at nine years old, though images like the bloody key, dark woods, and tattered shoes stuck horribly in my head.

Weirdly enough, I'm very glad I read them when I did. Yes, they scared me silly, but not in an unhealthy way. They helped my imagination grow, and no doubt having those images deep in my subconscious helped me through the rough adolescent years.

So yeah, agreeing with Tolkien about it being good for children to read fairy stories "beyond their measure" (and making long replies on a stranger's journal to do so :P).

Re: Here from <lj user="middleearthnews">

[cressidarambles]

My Book House! I read those too. I don't remember them being particularly gory versions of the stories, but perhaps that just goes to show how much went over my head at the age I read them. (The main thing that I remember is the illustrations, of which Tolkien disapproves in this essay!)

Actually, I think I've gotten to like real folk-tales less and less as I've gotten older. I feel like Tolkien's own writing gives me all the cool bits of fairy tales without the squick-inducing stuff.

And thanks for stopping by! I did say in my middleearthnews announcement that I welcome comments, and I do. :)