Introduction

Abstract

We all know where we are with a fairy story. There is a cast of predictable characters (handsome prince, wicked stepmother, beautiful princess, the odd dragon, frog, or otherwise cursed beast, and so on). Our hero or heroine is submitted to terrible trials, cruelty, and injustice, but in the end the baddies get their comeuppance, good triumphs, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

—C. S. Lewis

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

—Albert Einstein

Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.

—Jack Zipes

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prisons of our mind, our one duty is to furnish it well.

—Peter Ustinov