The Effect of a Fairy Tale

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 26  (This is part of a weekly serial started on Michaelmas 2023. To see the other entries, please see the post linked HERE and scroll down to the bottom for individual links)

The effect of a fairy tale on our soul is spontaneous, elementary, and therefore remains unconscious. When we try to get a feeling for it, however, we can find that what a fairy tale expresses is not about one person in a particular situation in life, is not a limited portion of life, but rather something so integrated in human experience that it has to do with the comprehensive truth of all mankind. It is not about some special individual who finds himself at a certain time of life in a singular dilemma; what the fairy tale describes lies so completely in everyone’s soul nature that it represents actual experience to children in their early years to persons of middle age and even to old men and women.

Throughout our whole lifetime the fairy tale happenings picture our most profound experiences of soul, even though the style is light, playful and picturesque. The artistic enjoyment of a fairy tale, in its correspondence to inner soul experiences, can be compared—a rather bold comparison—to the relationship of an enjoyable taste on the tongue to the hidden, complex proceedings in the rest of the body, where the food takes up its task of nourishing the organism. What lies in that further process, after our pleasure in its taste, is not at all evident to our observation or understanding. Both things seem at first to have little to do with each other; no one is able to say, from savoring a food, what its particular use will be in the life processes of the body. And so it is with our joy in the art of the fairy tale. It is far, far removed from what is happening at the same time, all unconsciously, deep in the soul. There the essence of the fairy tale is pouring forth, satisfying the soul’s persistent hunger for it. Just as our body has to have nutritive substances circulating through the organism, the soul needs fairy tale substance flowing through its spiritual veins.

“

Rudolf Steiner
The Poetry and Meaning of Fairy Tales

Fairy tales have taken a front seat in my life lately as they, as well as fables and storytelling in general, have been a large part of my handwork training lessons.

I have always been on drawn to story. I love to tell stories, I love to hear stories, I love to write stories. I have a stack of homemade books that span my entire childhood, from primitive motion picture books I created in kindergarten to full on novels from high school. And I do believe it was one of the bigger points of interests that first drew me to Waldorf education, the rich and deep connection to storytelling that holds the space in childhood.

The storytelling component is one that also trips many parents and caregivers up, because they look at the tale through the eyes of an adult, and not through the eyes of a child OR through the eyes of its deeper messages. They see the dark themes and harsh experiences and consequences of the main characters and it makes them feel uncomfortable. I think much of the discomfort comes from a place of love. A place of not wanting our children to feel frightened or be exposed to such harshness. I also believe it comes from our modern day place of not truly seeing or understanding what lies behind something.

While working toward my BA in Human Services and Early Childhood Education I had to take an English course. I chose the one about fairy tales, because of course I did! I almost failed that course (I challenged the grade and won). Little did I know the course was going to go all Freudian on me, and for every paper I wrote I was told I failed to see the deeper imagery in fairy tales because I would not participate with the narrative that fairy tales were rated R for sexual content or themes, and proceeded to write about why I disagreed with the course creator’s viewpoints. Goodness me, what a disaster that course was for me!!

What the course did do was highlight how adults struggle to see something through the eyes of a child and how they struggle to connect with their inner soul wisdom. I’m not saying I saw the inner soul wisdom in my 20s, but I did know there was much more wisdom in fairy tales than people were seeing.

I shared a quote recently from The Kingdom of Childhood over in THIS post:

“Through anthroposophy you learn once more to believe in legends, fairy tales and myths, for they express a higher truth in imaginative pictures.”

Rudolf Steiner
The Kingdom of Childhood, Lecture Five

These tales are whispers of humanity. Let your heart give them a chance.

Until next time,
Marina