liking fairy tales is an easy way to not be taken seriously
I think I’ve been thinking about fairy tales a lot this month, more than I usually do. And I usually think about fairy tales a lot. I guess it’s rereading Tam Lin as well as being in a Dark Is Rising Sequence reread. Not to mention lots of tumblr posts, and twitter hashtags that will take over my timeline once a week, giving the mutants of Krakoa a rest.
Recently I’ve had to write a short introduction about my introduction to fairy tales. At first I thought I started reading fairy tales proper (as in, in books) only when I was a bit older, because of the lack of children’s fiction in my childhood. But then I remembered that my sister and I shared two big illustrated volumes - they used to belong to our mother’s best friend’s daughters, who gave them to us when they deemed themselves “too old” for fairy stories.
One of the volumes contained popular fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin and The Goose Girl. The other volume contained stories about William Tell, Rip Van Winkle, and the like. And then, of course, I did read many other legends and myths scattered in the children’s encyclopedia I shared with my siblings. (We all had our favourite entries, and mine were all the ones on gods/goddesses, fairy tales, and real people.) My sister had a thin volume of Brer Rabbit tales that I read over and over. And our father told us Badang stories before bed, which sadly I can hardly recall now. But thinking back, I definitely was exposed to fairy tales at a younger age than I thought I was.
I was reading this debate on whether fairy tales were meant for children or for adults, and wondered if it mattered. I’m highly suspicious of anyone who thinks that fairy tales (and children’s books, come to think of it) are only for kids. There was this one time in high school when I was rereading Peter Pan because an ex-teacher gave me a gorgeous Everyman Children’s Library edition. A classmate asked to see what I was reading, and when I showed her, she scrunched her nose and said, “isn’t that for kids?” I had similar reactions with The Hobbit and The Phantom Tollbooth and - well, nearly everything I brought to school at 16/17 - and when I told one of my MA lecturers that I did my BA final thesis on Cinderella archetypes/stories, he was pretty derisive. So it was something I was used to it, but somehow this one time with Peter Pan stuck in my memory more than the others.*
I think this was part of why I was incredibly irritated by the publication and popularity of the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series - not because I didn’t think there’s a place in children’s literature for collection of stories about real women who are awesome, but because the creators of this series were so dismissive of fairy tales in interviews, stating that to be their inspiration to create their books. As if picture book biographies weren’t already a thing. As if fairy tales were things to be eradicated. The stories that I reread over and over in those old encyclopaedias were included Robin Hood and King Arthur and the girl whose brothers turned to swans, sure, but also stories about the Bronte siblings and Amelia Earhart and Marie Curie.
I loved them all, but guess which stories made me feel hopeful as an incredibly anxious kid, and gave me whatever emotional resilience I have now.
They taught me a lot, too, but I’m not going to get into that because that would mean a long story about masking and Harriet the Spy and other things. And I spent the day in a very crowded mall, and will spend tomorrow doing the same (except being Saturday it’ll be even more crowded!), which means that I am exhausted! I am barely awake as I write this entire newsletter. I’m sure I will be horrified when I read it tomorrow, if I’ve the time to, but right now I don’t care,
*I say that this moment stuck with me, but it (and all the other similar moments) never once made me feel bad for liking fairy tales. I think it’s because of something Thomas Lynn said in Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock which I apply to those that look down not just on fairy tales, but also children’s books -
“Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”
- For those in the book club, we will be discussing The Dark Is Rising at 8:30pm today! (Saturday, 21st August.)
- I just can’t anymore with this country. #NotMyPM
- I just can’t anymore with this whole world, come to think of it.
- Stay safe!