Editing On Fairy-Stories (section)

== Synopsis ==

[[File:The Ring (2) by John Bauer 1914.jpg|thumb|In the essay, Tolkien distinguished [[fairy tale]]s from what he considered separate genres like [[Animal tale|beast fables]] and dream stories. Illustration for [[Helena Nyblom]]'s fairy tale "The Ring" by [[John Bauer (illustrator)|John Bauer]], 1914]]

The essay "On Fairy-Stories" is an attempt to explain and defend the genre of [[fairy tales]], under the following headings.

=== Fairy-story ===

Tolkien distinguishes fairy tales from "traveller's tales" (such as ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]''), science fiction (such as H. G. Wells's ''[[The Time Machine]]''), beast fables (such as [[Aesop's Fables]] and ''[[The Tale of Peter Rabbit]]''), and dream stories (such as ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'').
 
Tolkien claims that one touchstone of the authentic fairy tale is that it is presented as wholly credible: "It is at any rate essential to a genuine fairy-story, as distinct from the employment of this form for lesser or debased purposes, that it should be presented as 'true'. ... But since the fairy-story deals with 'marvels', it cannot tolerate any frame or machinery suggesting that the whole framework in which they occur is a figment or illusion."<ref group=T>{{cite book |last=Tolkien |first=J. R. R. |author-link=J. R. R. Tolkien |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JW-cQ-cypwwC&pg=PA14 |title=Tree and Leaf, Mythopoeia, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son |date=2001 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-007-10504-5 |location=London |page=14}}</ref>

=== Origins ===

Tolkien comments that fairy stories are ancient, and that it was once thought that they had derived from powerful, elemental "nature-myths", with gods personifying the sun, night, and other elements of nature. These myths were humanised to legends by telling them with human heroes as protagonists. Finally, the legends dwindled to folktales and fairy stories. But in Tolkien's view, this is "almost upside down". A tale of the Norse god [[Thor]] in the [[Elder Edda]], the ''[[Thrymskvitha]]'', is "certainly just a fairy-story"; it is just as old as the Norse myths. The historical [[King Arthur]], perhaps a minor figure, went into the "Cauldron of Story", and "was boiled for a long time", eventually becoming a "King of Faërie". Tolkien notes that these old stories produce an effect of "distance and a great abyss of time", and suggests that they were selected precisely because they created this literary effect.

=== Children ===

[[File:The Green Fairy Book (1902), p. 119.jpg|thumb|upright|An illustration in [[Andrew Lang]]'s  ''[[The Green Fairy Book]]'']]

Tolkien argues that there is no essential connection between fairy stories and children, but that this "is an accident of our domestic history", meaning that they have been relegated "to the nursery" because adults no longer wanted them. Only some children, he writes, "have any special taste for them", and he suggests that the taste "increases with age, if it is innate". He criticises [[Andrew Lang]]'s suggestion that children have an "unblunted edge of belief" as trading on their credulity and inexperience. As an infant, when the ''[[Lang's Fairy Books|Green Fairy Book]]'' was published, Tolkien says he had "no special 'wish to believe'. I wanted to know." On the other hand, fairy stories did awaken desire, such as for dragons. He had no time for Lang's talking down to children, or for "covertly sniggering". He notes that [[G. K. Chesterton]] remarked that children are not uncritically tender: "For children are innocent and love justice; while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy."

=== Fantasy ===

Tolkien emphasises that through the use of fantasy, which he equates with imagination, the author can bring the reader to experience a world that is consistent and rational, under rules other than those of the normal world. He calls this "a rare achievement of Art", and notes that it was important to him as a reader: "It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine."

=== Recovery, Escape, Consolation ===

Tolkien suggests that fairy stories allow the reader to review his own world from the "perspective" of a different world. Tolkien calls this "recovery", in the sense that one's unquestioned assumptions might be recovered and changed by an outside perspective. Second, he defends fairy stories as offering escapist pleasure to the reader, justifying this analogy: a prisoner is not obliged to think of nothing but cells and wardens. And third, Tolkien suggests that fairy stories can provide moral or emotional consolation, through their happy ending, which he terms a "[[eucatastrophe]]".

=== Epilogue ===

In conclusion, Tolkien asserts that a truly good fairy story is marked by joy: "Far more powerful and poignant is the effect [of joy] in a serious tale of Faërie. In such stories, when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through." [[Christianity in Middle-earth|Tolkien sees Christianity]] as partaking in and fulfilling the overarching mythological nature of the cosmos:

{{blockquote|I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. [[Gospel|The Gospels]] contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels ... and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. The [[Birth of Christ]] is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The [[Resurrection of Jesus|Resurrection]] is the eucatastrophe of the story of the [[Incarnation (Christianity)|Incarnation]].}}