We all have heard or watched or listened to a fairy tale at some point in our lives. From Cinderella to Beauty and the Beast to Snow White (and pretty much anything else written by the Brothers Grimm) we have all experienced the feeling of being swept away into the story.
But is a fairy tale only for entertaining children? Is there lasting value in reading a story set in a mythical kingdom with mystical creatures, enjoying their fantasy lives?
A Fairy Tale for Adults
One of the best known and loved book series in my family is “The Chronicles of Narnia”, written by C. S. Lewis in the mid-1900s. The seven tales of Narnia have enthralled readers for years, but perhaps the most over-looked part of the entire series is the dedication at the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Right in the middle of this paragraph-long dedication written to Lucy Barfield, is this line: “But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
Lewis isn’t talking to a toddler, telling them to finally grow up, learn how to read, and pick up his miraculous book. He’s talking to a young adult who has grown up and moved beyond fairy tales, perhaps believing them to be irrelevant, silly myths. “But some day…” Lewis writes, “…you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
Some day, Lewis writes, you’ll understand why this world needs fairy tales so badly.
So why do we need fairy tales? Narnia shows us four reasons that shouldn’t be overlooked.
#1: Fairy Tales Force Us to Reconsider Reality
“But how could it be true, Sir?” said Peter.
“Why do you say that?” asked the Professor.
“Well, for one thing,” said Peter, “if it was real why doesn’t everyone find this country every time they go to the wardrobe? I mean, there was nothing there when we looked; even Lucy didn’t pretend there was.”
“What has that to do with it?” said the Professor.
“Well, Sir, if things are real, they’re there all the time.”
“Are they?” said the Professor; and Peter did not know quite what to say.
When Lucy steps through the wardrobe door, time stops. Peter, Susan, Edmund, England, the Professor – all of them are frozen in time as Lucy enjoys hours in Narnia. When she returns, time again begins and the other three Pevensie children are left wondering why Lucy continues insisting that she went to another world.
Because for them… time didn’t stop.
When Lucy steps through the wardrobe door, reality as she knows it, ceases to exist. In a perfectly ordered world, entire universes aren’t discovered at the back of the wardrobe. Everyone in the real world knows this, leading Peter and Susan to doubt the Professor’s sanity after he logically suggests that Lucy is telling the truth about Narnia.
Because from their standpoint… reality never ceases to exist.
Fairy tales break the rules. They create worlds where children become heroes, kingdoms are ruled by magical laws, and lions defeat witches. They give readers a glimpse into a world where our one-sided view of “reality” isn’t reality at all.
#2: Fairy Tales Force Us to Believe in Other Worlds
“But do you really mean, Sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds – all over the place, just round the corner – like that?”
“Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.”
Fairy tales force us to believe in other worlds. For the brief amount of time you stare at the pages of a fairy tale novel and allow yourself to be completely immersed in the story, characters, and plot, you’re denying your logical impulse that whispers: another world doesn’t exist.
But it does. And it always has.
Clinton Manley, an editor for DesiringGod.org, wrote an article entitled “The Magic of Great Stories: And How They Lead us to God“. Near the end of his post, he writes this:
“The magical lands of story can serve as a placeholder for the better country we are bound for (Hebrews 11:16). They can stretch our imaginations further and further in anticipation of our future home — a home that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart imagined (1 Corinthians 2:9). But oh, there have been hints. We have heard echoes. We have caught glimpses. We’ve smelled the Blue Flowers of Eden, and now we can never finally be content with the here and now.”
Narnia shows us another world, another realm, and another battle that is immensely different and yet radically similar to our own.
#3: Fairy Tales Show Us Shadows and Salvation
Edmund is my favorite character in “The Chronicles of Narnia”. His redemption story is pain-drenched and hope-filled. In the character of Edmund, we see darkness and dragons and despair. And in the person of Aslan, we see creation songs and safety and salvation.
Christian Ohnimus, a blogger and dad, argues for the importance of fairy tales in his article, entitled “Why Children Need Fairy Tales“:
“If children can believe little miracles like the slaying of a dragon, they will not so easily forget big miracles like justice and love. And by entertaining the existence of monsters their minds are opened to the possibility of angels. For, as anyone familiar with fairy tales knows, if there exists a dragon then, too, there must exist a righteous knight to slay it.”
Fairy tales give the reader a chance to believe in adventure. To break away from the mundane life where the world says your only purpose in life is to get rich, grow old, and then die.
Fairy tales tell you to quit believing that lie, to believe that there is another world where dirty, stained little children becomes Kings and Queens over a throne they didn’t die to receive. To believe in treachery that cannot go unpunished. And to believe in the sacrifice that only Aslan can pay.
Narnia teaches you to believe radical truths that the rest of the world scorns.
To believe that a Lion is willing to pay the ultimate price to save the life of a dirty little boy who betrayed the crown.
#4: Fairy Tales Fill Our Souls With Longing
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
How many of us have longed to be one of the Pevensie children, to stumble through a wardrobe and find a kingdom, to fight beside the great Lion in battle and to watch as the Witch is defeated? Narnian air is as real to some children as the air they breathe. Narnian creatures like Mr. Tumnus, the Beavers, and Reepicheep are as life-like as their own friends. Perhaps knowing and loving Aslan can prepare a child to know and love the true Lion of Heaven.
The end of Clinton Manley’s article summarizes this fact well:
“Good stories are signposts — alpine guides leading us up the path of life. Like Lewis, we can follow them past dragons, over hills, and high up into the mountains. In the pages and paragraphs of great tales, we can hear the voice of our Aslan echoing off the mountain walls, bidding us to come further up and further in. Will you heed his call?”
In Conclusion
Keep reading fairy tales.
Fairy tales are conveying powerful truths that are sometimes harder to believe when presented in other ways. In a fairy tale, you can allow yourself to experience what the character feels. You feel the helplessness of the Pevensie children when Edmund betrays them. You feel Edmund’s terror when the White Witch is going to kill him for treachery.
And you feel the radical injustice of a King dying for a traitor… yet the satisfying triumph of the Deep Magic from before the dawn of time as the Lion’s blood is spilled to satisfy the child’s crime.
When Lewis wrote that dedication in 1950 to Lucy Barfield, he understood that the adult who looks past the silliness and childishness of Narnia will see the real truths hidden deep within the world beyond the wardrobe.
So keep reading fairy tales and don’t stop reading them.
Maybe today is the day that you’re finally old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
- Lewis, Clive S. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 1950.
- Lewis, Clive S. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 1952.
- Manley, Clinton. “The Magic of Great Stories.” desiringgod.org, 6 Nov. 2023, www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-magic-of-great-stories.
- Ohnimus, Christian. “Why Children Need Fairy Tales.” Homeschool Connections, 8 July 2024, homeschoolconnections.com/why-children-need-fairy-tales/.
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