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Fairy Tales: Per Your Request

7.15.2008

The beautiful Dee requested that I list some suggestions for readings concerning faeries. What a fantastic idea! Something I am more than happy to do. So here's a list, off the top of my head.
Brothers Grimm. It's a must. If you haven't read these they're delightfully fantastic, gruesome, and rooted in tradition. So, so good.
I love Celtic folklore and fairy tales. Many stories have such lovely wit as well as some morbidities. I like this short little one by Joseph Jacobs.
This encyclopedia is great for when you only have ten minutes to spare. You can quickly flip through it and find out all sorts of interesting things. I picked this up last fall in NYC at the Museum of Natural History...they were having a Mythical Creatures exhibit. Best exhibit EVER.
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. I've mentioned it before, and will probably mention it again. It's that good. It's mythical. There is Psyche, gods, the Fox, human sacrifice, ilusions, etc. Probably the most beautiful book ever written. You'll cry for sure at the end. Here's a couple excerpts:
"It was when I was happiest that I longed most...the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from."

"The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, "Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words." A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years..."


If I was still in SLC I would start a Fairy Tale/Myth/Folklore club for sure. I think if I started it here I would be the only member.

4 comments:

Natalie said...

I loved this post. I will have to look into reading some of those books. I love CS Lewis but have never read that one.

Anonymous said...

This blog is both beautiful and inspiring. My blog is about fairy tales and their studies (also about college essay writing). I am going to link to your site to show my students what the creative urge can produce.

Dee said...

OH, thank you thank you! I am so excited to get a hold of these books! You are soooo kind!

Anonymous said...

alee s.

I have had the pleasure of purchasing the Brother's Grimm fairy tales. Their books are groteque, however, they bring some morality from the fantasy world. Take into perspective the era in which the Grimm bothers lived. It seemed to me as if they enlighted their lives with these childhood fantasies by putting it in writing. to some degree I do think thatdid experience some tramic experiences that they drew from in writing these books.