Who Believes In Fairy Tales Anyway

Once upon a long time ago, our ancient ancestors told their offspring the stories of the time. It was a form of the “news� and bonding. These stories included tales of war, the history of their culture, and religious views and practices. The stories also included romantic tales of great warriors and the fair maidens that they protected from evil while also upholding the crown. They included fanciful tales woven on the gossamer wings of fairies, dwarves, leprechauns, and trolls. These tales, passed down by verbal recount only, carried fact, faith, hope, and love through the generations that followed. Now no one knows which is fact and which is fiction. It has been proven that some of the tales were not true while archeological and historical studies have shown that some of the stories were in fact, true.
In the Case of the Cottington Fairies, 1917, two English schoolgirls, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths, produced photographs that, at the time, were endorsed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) as authentic proof that fairies existed. Sixty years later however, the two girls confessed that the photos were a hoax (http://www.randi.org/library/cottingley). Caitlin Matth

“It is a pity, but there are people who say fairy tales are not true. These are people, if you take notice, who were children so long ago that they have forgotten how honest the looks of daisies are when, sitting on the ground, one’s face is no higher than theirs, and how sweet is the chime of Canterbury bells with the little ringer who stands below.” (Bates, 2000).

So, who believes in Fairy Tales? Adventure a spring day with a seven-year-old or witness the wonder of a harvest moon kissing a silent pond at midnight. Take in the soft breeze that refreshes your soul and makes the daisy’s dance or watch the bumblebee whizzing between the honeysuckle bushes and the tulips. The next time you are sad, walk three circles around a fairy ring (any natural formation that resembles a circle, usually depicted with mushrooms). When your mood improves, perhaps you will believe as I do. Fairies and Fairy Tales, whether in the “flesh”, spirit or faith, are real and true for all those who choose to see.

Stories about a small, witty person who can outsmart a “giant” encompass stories like “David and Goliath” from the Bible, the “Parrot Tales”, the Norse “Troll” stories, Grimm’s “Brave Little Tailor,” and in the folklore of Albaina, South America, India, and England (Jefferies, 1998, pg. 72).

How is it that these stories collaborated so closely? Are they religious parables from ancient times or simply the detailed imagination of the people who did not live in an age of television and Internet?

Matthews (Van Gelder, 1977, 1999) discusses two instances of fairy encounters, which involved clergymen, one Catholic, and one Protestant. Today, the search for the “Lost City of Atlantis” continues based in part, on Zeus’s account that the Grand Island existed. (The Learning Channel, episode: Atlantis – The Lost City)

Originating in West Africa, and making it’s way to the US by route of African slaves, there is the tale of “Anansi”. In Anansi, there is an invisible fairy named Aboatia, who is captured by Anansi, and made to stick to a honey-covered plant. Aboatia reappears in America as the “tar baby” or “Uncle Remus”