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It All Began with Fairy Tales
I can’t imagine a world without fairy tales. They have always been for me a source of warmth and light. They bring me back to a time when life was simple, when the wind howled outside but it was warm by the fire, and a great old aunt sat in the rocking chair, knitting and spinning a tale that had the whole room spellbound, transported out of the winter night into a place east of the sun and west of the moon. I am attracted to the people who can go into other worlds; they seem to be so much more able to live in this one. Every time I have ventured into the fairy world, I have come back with a new perspective. The tales seem to hide the treasure of all that we know in our hearts.
During the winter of 1999, I spent hours reading fairy tales. I had been unwell for a few years and I had looked to the tales as a source of wisdom and comfort. I wandered through enchanted forests and sat by magic springs, explored castles and met the figures that inhabited them. In particular, I became interested in the princess. To my surprise, she wasn’t at all the character I had imagined. She was not a two-dimensional figure locked in a tower, waiting to be rescued by some prince on a white horse. I read story after story, and I rarely found a princess who was weak, passive and fainting.
Take Cinderella, for instance. Cinderella had always seemed to me to be a rather superficial character, who wanted to be seen at the ball in a pretty party dress, marry a handsome prince, and live happily ever after. But when I read the Grimm’s version of her story, I found a great deal more going on.
The story opens when her beloved mother has just died and Cinderella is grief-stricken and bereft. Her father goes off and marries another woman even before the snow on his wife’s grave has melted, and he installs a step-family. This artificial mother and sisters deny Cinderella a place in her own home. They make her into their servant and abuse her at every given opportunity. But it is Cinderella’s response that is interesting. She doesn’t become an artificial person to win approval and regain her status in the family. Nor does she rage against her step-mother and father who have most certainly wronged her. She
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