The Wisdom of Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales often disclose through their themes, characters and challenges, the mystery of the Soul. Their scope tends to be more limited than the great myths; but like myths and sagas, they have sustained profound truths through the ages and have almost universal appeal. Even modern films often draw on fairy-tale motifs, with quests and injunctions, challenges and fair maidens to be saved from peril.

Modern texts on the nature of fairy-tales may analyse the structure of the tales and the way different versions of the same story appear almost world-wide. They may stress the part that such tales have possibly played in sustaining aspects of the social order, or their ability to present various aspects of human psychology. These conjectures may well be valid, but their truth is perhaps a testimony to the deeper truths embodied in the tales, that are often overlooked.

Myths generally relate to a character or characters that are presented as historical, as if from an earlier era. This is not true of most fairy-tales where the central character, usually a boy or a girl, is often unnamed. Even when there is a name it is often indicative of the nature of the protagonist in the story: they are “Snow-White” or “Rose-Red” or a “Little Tailor” or an “Old Fisherman”. Hansel and Gretel and Little Hans stand out as exceptions rather than the rule. No-one actually called their child ‘Rapunzel’, for it is the name of a radish or a type of lettuce. These unnamed heroes and heroines generally represent the human individuality or soul and are universal, in the sense that they tell the story of everyman and everywoman.

Many elements of fairy-tales are familiar, with princesses and castles, giants and angry dwarves, helpful animals and unhelpful stepmothers. Yet, unless the stories are essentially the same but with minor modifications, the way the elements are woven together are unique to each tale. They are therefore both familiar and strange. Very few contain fairies but all tend to be “once upon a time” or “in a country far, far away” for they indicate by such a formula that they are telling of a reality beyond that of the present and the mundane.

Until relatively recently (the past 100 years or so) fairy-tales were not necessarily for children. There are versions of Sleeping Beauty and also of Cinderella, that have explicit sexuality and in the latter case, incestuous desire. The ending of some of the Grimm collection are, well, grim. Ugly sisters run across the world with their feet in red-hot iron.

Aschenputtel, a German form of the Cinderella story, ends like this:

When the wedding with the King’s son had to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favour with Cinderella and share her good fortune. When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye of each of them. Afterwards as they came back, the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye of each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness as long as they lived.

This just seems cruel, until we realise that the ugly sisters may be seen to represent the dualistic instinctive desire nature of the individual, which if used entirely to guide behaviour will lead to disaster; blindness here, as in many myths, indicates the possibility of wisdom or inner vision.