ON FAIRY STORIES
I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware
that this is a rash adventure. Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are
pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. And overbold I may be
accounted, for though I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read,
and have at times thought about them, I have not studied them professionally. I
have been hardly more than a wandering explorer (or trespasser) in the land,
full of wonder but not of information.
The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and
filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there;
shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an
ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man
may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness
and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while
he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates
should be shut and the keys be lost.
There are, however, some questions that one who is to speak about fairy-stories must expect to answer, or attempt to answer, whatever the folk of Faërie may think of his impertinence. For instance: What are fairy-stories? What is their origin? What is the use of them? I will try to give answers to these questions, or such hints of answers to them as I have gleaned — primarily from the stories themselves, the few of all their multitude that I know.
There are, however, some questions that one who is to speak about fairy-stories must expect to answer, or attempt to answer, whatever the folk of Faërie may think of his impertinence. For instance: What are fairy-stories? What is their origin? What is the use of them? I will try to give answers to these questions, or such hints of answers to them as I have gleaned — primarily from the stories themselves, the few of all their multitude that I know.
J.R.R. Tolkien
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