Why fairy tales?

On Saturday 14th May I will be talking fairy tales with the Children’s Literature Hub at South Library. As I’ve been preparing some discussion points and materials, I’ve been inspired to re-examine a question I am often asked – why fairy tales? why do I like to read and write them?
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​​I’ve said before that retelling fairy tales appeals to me because fairy tales give me a loose structure to work with when I’m shaping a story. Whether I choose to replicate the key elements of a fairy tale or adapt them, those key elements of a story are signposts for both me and my readers along the story route, and this means that as an author  I’m less likely to wander off the path to grandmother’s house and end up with my story being devoured by wolves.

This description might make it seem like rewriting a fairy tale is purely perfunctory, a predictable plodding along, but quite to the contrary, the rewriting of a fairy tale can be a rollicking adventure. It’s like playing a game of dress ups with old friends. You all know each other by sight but it’s amusing to see how cleverly you can disguise yourself. In reading fairy tales, we’re used to finding a wolf in sheep’s or grandma’s clothing, a girl whose rags become a chiffon gown, or a kind old woman who is really a beautiful but evil queen. We like masks and concealment and moments of radical transformation. We like both predictability and unpredictability. It is this harmonious opposition that inspires me. I like playing the ‘guess me’ game and winning.

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The great thing is that every reader can be a winner. We all know the original stories (in one form or another) so we can all follow the bread crumbs to find the gingerbread cottage. We have a shared language, a shared memory, a shared expectation and understanding. We are connected as readers of fairy tales in ways we often aren’t as readers of other texts. Differences and alterations in what we are expecting from the story are simply window dressing (of the candy kind), regardless of whether the differences are conventional or radical.

A conventional fairy tale retelling gives us the chance to experience the familiar again but in new and sometimes more intense or detailed ways – to savour the taste of the apple in that moment before the choking betrayal of its poison, to shiver in the shadows of the huntsman’s great black boots, to bask in the buttercup  warmth of the chandeliers at the prince’s ball.

​A radical retelling gives us the opportunity to plumb the well for the golden ball that has been lost and wait breathless to see what else might be dredged out, to hear the little characters (dwarves or no) speak their piece and the villainess speak of peace, to hold the shiny surface of a glass slipper up to the light and see what rainbows form.

By observing the multiple kaleidoscopic shapes a familiar story's elements can produce, we get to experience the familiar made strange. We can be surprised and challenged in pleasant, unexpected and interesting ways. We can find meanings and messages we never anticipated. And we can ask ourselves how different a story can be and still remain the same story – and how many stories a single story can tell.

It seems that individual fairy tales are infinitely versatile and transformative, as if the fairy tale is the philosopher’s stone of Story. And perhaps part of our joy of fairy tales is that by exploring them we get to dip into a little immortality of our own – connecting with timeless tales and the other readers who have enjoyed them.

Suggested reading:
​Numerous other people have explored why fairy tales matter to society and matter personally to them. In ​The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre​ (2012), Jack Zipes explores why fairy tales evolved and why they remain important to us.