I have always loved the language of fairy tales and the way they command attention from the very first word: once. It might be ‘Once long ago on a night as dark as thunder.’ Or ‘Once there was a queen who was as cruel as winter.’ Or, most familiar of all, ‘Once upon a time...’ From the moment the sentence is spoken, a soft magic descends and everyone knows to suspend their disbelief and listen instead with their childhood heart, as something quite special is about to unfold.

 

Fairy tales are said to have begun as early as the 16th century and were short snippets of folklore, spoken out loud, depicting stories of great hardship, or wickedness that were resolved with an enchantment. They were distinguished from legends – stories which implied a notion of truth and were predominantly aimed at children, holding a poetic beauty and timelessness. In these legends, evil deeds or bleak circumstances were entwined with sentences that sang with hope. 

 

In the fairy tale, no matter how terrible the situation faced by our protagonist, it is lightened by brief sprinkles of magic, heroic acts and often love. The glory of the fairy-tale villain is never long lived, their all-consuming darkness being balanced with the light of a kind deed or fairy godmother. 

 

Fairy tales exist in every culture and language. They embolden our childhoods with a shared experience of storytelling, a brightening of our imaginations and an emotional response to literature. They are warnings learned from a safe distance. The action is always happening in a different time to our own, so the danger isn’t threatening.

·      to command attention - to make people listen to you or look at you

·      to suspend v - to delay something

·      to unfold v - to gradually make something known to other people

·      snippets n - small pieces of information or news

·      predominantly adv - mostly; mainly

·      bleak adj - not giving any reason to have hope or expect anything good

·      entwined adj - very closely involved or connected with something

·      to embolden v - to make somebody feel braver or more confident

 

These much-loved stories are part of our cultural heritage and are often the root from which classical children’s books have blossomed. They are a global phenomenon, having whispered their way around the world, incorporating multiple changes along the way.

 

For instance, Cinderella has its origins in Chinese culture, yet there are 500 different versions of Cinderella that have been found in Europe alone. In earlier translations, the fairy godmother takes the role of a fish, who grants Cinders her wishes. In another telling, there is no actual fairy godmother but a tree that has grown upon the grave of Cinders' mother. Cinders cries at the root, ‘watering the tree with her tears’, and the tree produces everything she needs: the dress, the coach, the shoes... Amazing! In an early French version, Cinderella is not a poorly treated parlour maid, but a highly gifted witch who is very pragmatic and has the ability to appear invisible and tame birds.

 

The version of the Cinderella tale that we know best also comes from France, where the description of the glass slippers was originally ‘pantoffles en vair’, which means ‘slippers of white squirrel fur.’ It's believed this was mistranslated or misheard as ‘pantoufle en verre’: slippers of glass. Hence, in our beloved version, Cinders goes to the ball in magnificent but highly unwearable glass high heels.

 

But this hardly matters. If anything, it adds to the wonder. Cinderella is going to the ball in a pumpkin coach. Nothing about that night is supposed to be real. In contrast to the cruelty she’s suffered, this is a night of extraordinary happenings and the glass slippers are simply a dazzling part of it.

 

And it’s that which I love best: the commitment to creating something gloriously spellbinding. The way the shoes appear, with the help of a magic wand, is startling, exquisite and joyously unbelievable. It almost doesn’t matter what the slippers are made from, if they are too grand or "out of reach" for seemingly normal people to ever own. I love that the translator mistook fur for glass without question. To me, white squirrel fur is as unexpected as glass. I wouldn’t imagine wearing either. Yet, both capture my imagination. Both flavour Cinderella’s special night with wonderment. Both are memorable for years to come, as a moment of absolute triumph.

 

 

·      it adds to the wonder - it makes something even more interesting or attractive

·      dazzling adj - impressing somebody very much

·      spellbinding adj - holding your attention completely

·      startling adj - extremely unusual and surprising

With the passing of time, the language of fairy tales has altered, so that readers of every age can still engage with the story. If we tried to read a fairy tale from a hundred years ago, we might grasp the meaning but the phrasing would seem peculiar.

 

I love that a fairy tale can pass through so many diverse societies and the language is able to capture the essence of enchantment, so the heart of the story prevails: the dark and the sorrow, the brilliance, and the utterly gorgeous and astonishing shoes, are still meaningful hundreds of years later. And the influence of fairy tales can still be found in brand-new books being published today.

 

Take any of your favourite books or well-loved children’s classics: Harry Potter, Peter Pan, Lemony Snicket's A series of Unfortunate Events, or Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. You may consider these books to be very modern, or quintessentially British, but they all take inspiration from a legacy of storytelling that has woven its way through a myriad of times and cultures, making literature as powerful a part of our future as it is our history.

 

Much like the journey of how the first book came to be, and regardless of the language they began in, fairy tales are – and always have been – for everyone.

 

 

·      to alter v - to make somebody/something different; to change

·      to prevail v - to be accepted, especially after a struggle or an argument

·      quintesseltially adv - in a way that represents the perfect example of something

·      myriad n - an extremely large number of something

The king gave a christening feast so grand that the like of it had never been known. He invited all the fairies he could find in the kingdom—there were seven of them—to come to the christening as godmothers. He hoped that each would give the princess a good gift.

When the christening was over, the feast came. Before each of the fairies was placed a plate with a spoon, a knife, and a fork—all pure gold. But alas! As the fairies were about to seat themselves at the table, there came into the hall a very old fairy who had not been invited. She had left the kingdom fifty years before and had not been seen or heard of until this day.

<…>

At last the prince came to a chamber of gold, where he saw upon a bed the fairest sight one ever beheld—a princess of about seventeen years who looked as if she had just fallen asleep. Trembling, the prince knelt beside her, and awakened her with a kiss. And now the enchantment was broken.

The princess looked at him with wondering eyes and said: “Is it you, my prince? I have waited for you long.”

<…>

The prince gave the princess his hand, and they all went into the great hall for supper. That very evening the prince and princess were married. The next day the prince took his bride to his father’s palace, and there they lived happily ever afterward.

Sun, Nov 29, 2021, 11:28 Christina 

King’s second wife found dead after news of her daughter’s marriage to cobbler made public 

Last week’s news of the king’s oldest daughter being sent away from home with nothing but bread, cheese and beer have both sparked the public’s outrage and commanded the world’s attention. The princess, Colchester-born, was found several days later, already a queen - in a different kingdom. Adding to the wonder, the same king’s stepdaughter, apparently urged by her mother, was seen taking the same road. Now wife to a cobbler, who is believed to be the deciding factor in the queen’s death, she was exiled by the king himself yesterday.