Introduction to “Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know”
The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an interpretation by
the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to reconcile the spirit which
loves freedom and goodness and beauty with its harsh, bare, and disappointing
conditions. It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavour to
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shape the facts of the world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of
the heart. It involves a free poet dealing with realities in accordance with the law
of mental growth; it is the naïve activity of the young imagination of the race,
untrammeled by the necessity of rigid adherance to fact.
Myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world; fairy
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tales record the free and joyful play of the imagination, opening doors through
hard conditions to the spirit that craves power, freedom, and happiness; righting
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wrongs and redressing injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and
virtue; crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under
the control of man and making their ministers his servants. In the fairy story,
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men are not set entirely free from their limitations, but by the aid of fairies,
genies, giants, and demons, they are put in command of unusual powers and
make themselves masters of the forces of nature.
The oldest fairy stories constitute a fascinating introduction to the book of
modern science, curiously predicting its discoveries, its uncovering of the
resources of the earth and air, and its growing control of the tremendous forces
that work in earth and air. And it is significant that the recent progress of science
is steadily toward what our ancestors would have considered fairyland; for in all
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the imaginings of the childhood of the race, there was nothing more marvelous
or more audaciously improbable than the transmission of accents and
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modulations of familiar voices through long distances and the power of
communications across leagues of sea without mechanical connections of any
kind.
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The faculty that created the fairy tale is the same faculty that,
supplemented by a broader observation and based on more accurate knowledge,
has broadened the range and activities of modern man, made the world
accessible to him, enabled him to live in one place but to speak and act in places
thousands of miles distant, given him command of colossal forces, and is fast
making him rich on a scale that would have seemed incredible to men of a halfcentury ago. There is nothing in any fairy tale more marvelous and inherent of
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scientific observation and invention, and we are only at the beginning of the
wonders that lie within the reach of the human spirit!
No one can understand the modern world without the aid of the
imagination, and as the frontiers of knowledge are pushed still further away
from the obvious and familiar, there will be an increasing tax on the imagination.
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