Tales from a Time Past

I came across a line in a book I'm reading which said that all fairy tales are tales of mourning. That line is now ricocheting in my head and as I sip my first cup of tea, I want to ask you to take a walk with me into the cauldron of my thoughts.

The existence of the faerie folk comes with its own brand of mythology. Do not trust a goblin's words, beware a dragon's greed. The gnome is your ally if you feed it. Watch out for the wicked witch. Forsake the forbidden fruit. One could even argue that the Genesis of Man is a fairytale. A woman is tricked (and blamed later for having fallen for the trick) into consuming fruit which grants Mankind knowledge. Surely you see the tragedy? As a firm believer of the adage "Seek and ye shall find", the start of this particular story had me thinking a few things. But then I realised that the will to seek is always in Mankind and the will to find is there as well, irrespective of if Mankind likes what they find. 

Thus, the fairytale. The fairytale is a place where Mankind runs from the horrors of what they have found. As a child grows older, leaving premolars behind for the more permanent molars and puberty changes their body, influences their mind, they forget the realm of the faerie folk. They want a deadlier setting. A Nosferatu. A Lycanthrope. Maybe they want to know of the failures of fallen Gods and the wrath of scorned demigods. 

In this intricate web of fascination, I've found myself grow up and grow addicted to the written word and I have dared to find ways to express using a pen myself. 

However, I am of a dying breed. I recall the most overplayed Oasis song now, specifically the lyrics 

"There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how"

And that brings me to what fairytales ask us to mourn. In the time of the smartphone and the internet, very few actually use these bastions of power to read. In a world founded on the power of words and letters sent from one county to another, perhaps one city to another or one country to another; humans now communicate in fragmented sentences and half words. In this barbaric world of "less is more", where can we find the faeries? 

So yes, I am in agreement that fairytales are a way of mourning for a world now dying. As we advance into a future where the screens rule over us all with an iron fist, it brings me sadness to finally bite the bitter bullet that perhaps listening to grandmothers telling stories or running into a library and spending hours in that world of worlds is something that has been consigned to memory, to the places where nobody knows if it's night or day.

But maybe it is those spaces that will save us in the end? Maybe it is those spaces where our children will look into and find joy? Maybe children will hear the stars laughing and clap their hands to save Tinkerbell? Maybe there's hope that The Little Prince has come back?

"I said maybe...you're gonna be the one that saves me"

The Bilge Master