FAIRY TALES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2051, 30 November 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

FAIRY TALES.

Of what use are fairy tales? asks a writer in the London “Tribune.” Why tell children about fairies and ogres and giants and other strange beings which do not exist? Why fill little minds with false ideas of life? The writer and other writers who agree with him would like to substitute for fairy tales, stories where the wonders of nature form the main interest. It as also urged against fairy tales that they are full of deeds of violence and bloodshed.

Plenty of stories designed to inculcate a love of nature are now on the market, and they are very well in their way; but they really have little in common with fairy tales. The marvels of the supernatural world and the phenomena of the natural world, however interesting, afford a dfferent kind of enjoyment to children. For one deals with feats, and the other stimulates the imagination. Children revel in stories of the “Blueboard” and “Little Red Riding Hood” type; they are not frightened by them, because they do not sufficiently understand the gruesomeness of certain details.

Fairy stories based upon nature would possibly be more gruesome. Mill described Nature as a vast slaughter-house, and Tennyson expressed the same idea when he said that shoe was “red in tooth and claw.”

Children, of course, know that the world of fairyland is quite imaginary. They do not go home and hit their baby brothers and pet dogs because Punch thrashes Judy and everybody else in the play. They know that is all make-believe, got up for fun.

If children were kept from fairy tales they would probably make them up for themselves. All children understand the art of make-believe. A specimen of this is drawn by Dickens in the little marchioness who makes believe to be a fine lady, and to be drinking wine when it is only orange peel and water. Children will always make-believe, and fairy tales are but the outcome of make-believe.