Believe the Fairytale
Once upon a time, some family friends took my family to visit the Story Land amusement park in New Hampshire. I was about five, so I don’t remember much of the park, but I do remember meeting Cinderella. Mostly I remember being confused as to why she wore what I would eventually come to recognize as Birkenstocks instead of glass slippers. At the end of a magical day filled with characters from all my favorite stories, we went to McDonalds and that, of all things, was the most magical memory of all. Cinderella was there! She sat at a table in jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt but it was most definitely Cinderella! I tugged at Mom’s sleeve and breathlessly pointed at the girl. As Mom tells the story, she didn’t recognize the girl without her costume, hair, and makeup, but went with me over to her anyway, saying “Cinderella! We visited you in Story Land earlier today and Amelia recognized you!” The girl didn’t miss a beat, and welcomed and hugged me just as she had hours earlier in the park. She explained that not a lot of people recognized her in the real world, so I must be a very special girl who could recognize magic. That moment in McDonalds was far more magical than the hours in Story Land had been, because it made the fairytale real and the magic true.
Fairytales have always been more than just captivating words on a page. They existed in the real world as much as in the pages of the books because they were real to me. They came alive in my life. When I say they came alive in my life, I mean something far deeper than that I had (and still have) an impressive amount of fairy themed items and novels or that I was most myself in a flowery, ruffled princess dress. Rather, I mean that the themes of these stories rooted in my soul and shaped the very way I lived. The strange, otherworldly beauty of fairytales blended into my appreciation and understanding of the world around me.
Pinning down a definition of a ‘fairytale’ seems simple enough, but when I actually try, it’s impossible. It’s like trying to carve out a hole in the sand at the beach, just when you think you’ve got it, it fills back up again. There are an infinite amount of things they can be and a few, distinct things which they are not. As impossible as it is to define in words, when you stumble across a fairytale, there is no mistaking it. Fairytales have a very distinctive feeling about them. As JRR Tolkien, the master of fairytales and father of modern fantasy himself, says of the worlds which fairytales inhabit, “Faerie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible.” As difficult as it is to define a fairytale, or fairy stories as Tolkien calls them, from the nameless land in Andrew Lang’s telling of Snow White and Rose Red to Neil Gaimon’s land of Faerie in Stardust to Tolkien’s own Middle Earth, there are certain things that hold true.
“It was in fairy stories that I first derived the potency of the words, the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine. ”
Such tales help form and shape us, because these stories are, at their core, deeply true. In these stories the weary and broken - from souls to kingdoms - find healing, something that Tolkien explains as the themes of recovery and consolation. These stories remind us - or me at any rate - that there are all kinds of heroes, and that those of a gentle heart possess a unique kind of strength. You need not be a warrior or a fighter; the gentle, from Hobbits to fair maidens, are just as powerful through the strength of their hearts. In these tales, we find truths about the beauty of the world, and while there is evil, it will always be overcome by goodness. Afterall, as Tolkien’s heroic companion in the Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee, puts so simply and so well “There’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and that’s worth fighting for.” The wonder and beauty of the fairy story does not negate the existence of sorrow and failure, but they also give a glimpse of, as Tolkien puts it, “joy beyond the walls of this world, poignant as grief.” Intrinsic to this powerful joy is my favorite truth, and that is about love. Love, true love, the kind of mysterious, powerful love that breaks curses and transforms lives, is absolutely 100% real.
So what do I mean when I say that for me these stories are more than words on a page? It doesn’t just mean that I still can’t get enough fairytale retellings and adaptations in my life - though that is true! I mean they taught me the power and importance of imagination, a force so much more profound than daydreaming — through imagination we create life. Everything that exists was born first from imagination. I mean these stories helped teach me to seek out the beauty around me, to revel in the extraordinary wonder of such common things as wildflowers and sunrises. The gentled hearted hero taught me not to be ashamed of my own gentleness, sensitivity, and conscientiousness but to recognize them for what they are - strengths. This world is full of precious things, and I am one of them. There’s a lot of beauty in the everyday, if you look for it.
We might just write off fairytales as stories for children, but these ancient tales remember something we all too often forget: above all, love is the strongest force in this world. It is through love that I have come to uniquely see the beauty around me. When I say that the love my husband and I share is like a fairytale, I cannot emphasize enough that this is not a trite statement. I say it with all seriousness. Love heals and makes us whole. It is the greatest gift of all. Powerful enough to dispel all evil and banish all sorrows, love is also sweet and gentle. It's what makes us simply stare into each other’s eyes, with a blissful happiness we can't put into words or spontaneously find ourselves dancing around the kitchen or what makes sitting reading together absolutely exhilarating. In and through love, fairytales come alive in our own lives. While I may not have been poisoned by an apple or a spindle, true love has awakened me in a very, very real way.
Fairytales are stories, yes, but they’re so much more; they reflect profound truths about life and they’ve taken root at the very heart of who I am. Recently some long time friends came to visit and we shared a socially distant evening outside. They presented my husband and me with a wedding present, wrapped in sparkling paper and ribbons, and topped with a card featuring Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage. “Why not believe the fairytale?” reads the script on the inside. “Why not indeed!” our friend had written below the print. She’s right. Why not believe the fairytale? Why not indeed!
