"Blue Hair Fairy" Art credit Desktop Nexus, 2022
I grew up with fairy stories which, to this day, still play a significant role in my life. There were two kinds of fairy tales, as I remember. One kind drew from bodies of lore connected to traditions regarding fairies, still in use and surviving through generations. Those had the inebriating flavor of history. Those stories were glowing, like powdered with golden dust that awaited to be blown off to reveal treasures of hidden meanings and deeds impossible for the modern folks to fathom. Yeah, that kind of lore.The other kind had nothing to do with the first. It was made up mainly through depicting objects caricaturized as fairies. Those stories, modern fairytales for children, or fairytales for modern children, were populated with stereotypes that had very little in common with the “a long, long time ago…” kind of tales.
About the stories in the second category… well, oftentimes those involved turning objects into fairies to suggest that imagination can make a fairy out of everything. They were not connected to the belief that consciousness could found in many forms, other that human, often encountered in Romanian and German fairy lore, where trees and wells give protagonists advise or warnings. In the type of stories that I bring under scrutiny here, fakelore[1] and other similarly developed ones intended to replace children’s folklore, authors plainly turn objects of common use into fairies in a sort of personification taken to an extreme.
Is this a problem? Let’s see.
I have a vivid memory of such story where aniline, the substance used in preparing oil painting colors, turns into Aniline, a fairy in charge of colors all around. It was not enough to personify aniline as a magical spirit that oversees colors: it hadto be a fairy.
When I red it, some fifty years ago, I found the story to be a pretty one, yet it left me with a feel of disappointment about the fairy character. That kind of fairy felt alien, and I could not connect with it, not even remotely. It felt like a kitsch plastic replica of some valuable antique.
In retrospect, there are few things that I find quite annoying in this and other similar approach to fairy characters in children’s stories. The stereotypical fairy, always good, is invariably clashing against a dragon or a witch, always villains. It isn’t the roles per sé that bother me: it is the always aspect. This doesn’t match what I know from older stories based in authentic lore, where fairies aren’t always that good, nor witches are always that bad.
Fairy tales and stories in the second category didn’t and still don’t sit well with me. The cause of disconcert may not be obvious, so I shall explain: it is due precisely to this innocuous appearance that the effects of many modern fairy tales are insidiously destructive. I am not criticizing the use of fantasy in creating stories to teach children values and important life lessons. Far from it. But I am concerned about the muddling of fairies’ character, personality, deeds, legends as preserved into bodies of lore of native cultures. Fairy lore acts as an intergenerational compass: if we just mess up with carelessly, it will stop pointing north altogether.
Why is flipping objects of common use into fairies as bad as objectifying and/or infantilizing fairies? Because it trivializes something that it was not supposed to be treated as trivial. Denizens of Fairy were and still are in some cultures treated with reverence. Some have connections with aspects of nature, abundance or fertility, such as Áine in Irish lore, Ileana Sânziana in Romanian lore, and Fro Ing in Germanic/Norse traditions are still honored as sacred beings. Trivialization destroys the sacredness, and turns something that once was treated with reverence into some sort of a toy. Infusing fairies with childishness has been done purposefully by various bodies of authority to strip them of power and make those who believed in them look awkward and ‘primitive’. Then once the mystique is gone, what’s left is mockery. Paradoxically, turning everything around into fairy- the aniline that turns fairy- doesn’t bring more magic into our life; if anything, it strips off the enchantment, de-spiritualizes the world, and reduces all that surrounds us to a joke.
Fakelore may teach that things turn into fairies, fairies becomes things, and children “learn” that with a little bit of imagination all things can be fairies: or that fairies are only a product of one’s imagination. Since they are an entirely made up thing, fairies have no real power or agency. This goes against the massive body of anecdotal evidence and corpus of material showing the exact opposite.
There are of course great stories that incorporate fairies in order to educate young audiences and entertain readers of all ages. Carlo Collodi brings Fata Turchina (the exact meaning is The Girl with Dark-blue Hair) in his story “Pinochio”. Fata Turchina is Collodi’s creation. He doesn’t turn a pencil or an inkbottle into a fairy, he brings a fairy character that is very carefully developed. Fata Turchina, while fictitious, it is developed based on the lore of the Bambinin Aquatici (Aquatic Children), where fairy beings, oftentimes depicted as blue or having blue hair, take care of young children. The association with the aquatic fairy-beings, known for both their blue color and nurturing of children, lend strength and credibility to Fata Turchina in her role of care taker, almost a maternal figure, for Pinocchio.
Anthropomorphizing animals, plants and objects did and will always be efficient in teaching children. In a cartoons or books, seeing animals and plants speaking and acting like humans, help empathizing with the natural world. Empathy is the foundation for acting with consideration.
Bringing fairy protagonists into modern children’s lore is a wonderful thing from all perspectives. However, such fairy protagonists must be developed carefully. Authors should draw inspiration from traditional ancient lore, not destroy it. What is the danger? Gradual substitution leads to annihilation and complete loss of original characters. This means cutting off bridges with spiritual roots.
The solution? Whether you are writer or a parent telling your kids fairy tales, find creative ways to make up stories where innovation and preservation go hand in hand. Children, parents, and fairies, everyone wins.
Bright fairy blessings,
Daniela
Resources:
The Right and Wrong of Fictional Fairies, by Morgan Daimler https://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/2019/03/irish-american-witchcraft-the-right-and-wrong-of-fictional-fairies/
Le Sfumature della Fata Turchina, di Angelo Serfilippi https://heroica.it/le-sfumature-della-fata-turchina/
[1] “Fakelore or pseudo-folklore is inauthentic, manufactured folklore presented as if it were genuinely traditional. The term can refer to new stories or songs made up, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes. The element of misrepresentation is central; artists who draw on traditional stories in their work are not producing fakelore unless they claim that their creations are real folklore.” (https://www.definitions.net/definition/fakelore)
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