Fairy Tales

One of the writers of the 20th century that really intrigues me is J. R. R. Tolkien.  I so appreciate his worldview, a worldview that doesn't minimize the role of fables, fairy tales, legends, myths, and traditions, but sees in them the common threads of truth and joy.

In a world that narrowly defines fact as including only scientifically verifiable knowledge, the likes of Tolkien, G. K. Chesterton, and C. S. Lewis speak against the grain with a tremendously fresh (yet aged) and hopeful voice.

Below, for example, is what Tolkien says about the universal appeal of fairy tales:

Fairytales move us in a way that realistic fiction does not (and can not). Because fairy tales speak to us of several deep human longings that we are almost afraid to admit and that we can never discard. We long to survey the depths of time and space. We long to get outside of time altogether and escape death. We long to hold communion with other living things, like angels. We long to find a love which perfectly heals and from which we can never depart. And we long to triumph over evil finally and totally. When you are in the middle of a great fairy tale, the fairy tale lets you live even briefly with the dream that love without parting, escape from death, triumph over evil are real and realizable. That’s why the stories stir us so deeply. And why we will go on reading and writing them no matter what the critics may say.

Brilliantly, Tolkien then continues, weighing in the gospel's place in the conversation about fairy tales:

... the gospel’s message is that, through Jesus Christ, every single one of these things that the fairy tales talk about is true and will come to pass. We will hang out with angels. We will have loves from which we are never parted. We will see an absolute triumph over evil. There is a beauty who will kiss you in all your beastliness and transform you. There is a prince who will save us, forever.