An Alaskan Fairy Tale

"Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is - what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is - what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tale the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos." -G.K. Chesterton, "The Dragon's Grandmother"

I love G.K. Chesterton's thoughts on fairy tales. I have been (slowly) making my way through Tremendous Trifles, a collection of his essays, and today I read two that discussed the importance of fairy tales to our everyday lives. I love the way he sums up the main premise of writing a fairy tale: "Then, having assumed this centre of sanity [in the hero], the writer entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went mad all round it..."

In the other essay, he argues the necessity of fairy tales for children by saying that children would make up dragons and monsters themselves, but the fairy tales give them a hero to defeat those monsters.


It's funny, because my mind has been on fairy tales lately. Some of the places we have hiked have this almost magical quality about them; moss hangs down from trees and strangely-shaped roots form nature's staircase while dandelion tufts float through the air like little fairies. Open fields bring out a girlish desire in me to put on a long dress and skip around with flowers in my hair. There's something to be said for being removed from one's every day - from the scenery, the people, the schedule - and being transplanted into a new world. It gives you insight into who you really are, since you are no longer held down by expectations to be a certain way but instead are forming relationships with people who have no idea what to expect.

I feel like I am on this grand adventure in continually discovering who God is forming me to become. I often have to fight the dragons and monsters of my selfishness and my pride, and being in unfamiliar circumstances can sometimes seem like the whole world around me has gone mad (for example, you can't order sweet tea and people comment on phrases I use such as "y'all" and "I am fixin' to"), but it's exciting nonetheless to be moving forward completely in faith that God is the author of this fairy tale, and He will continually bring my character closer to maturity, carrying it on "until the day of completion."