The Death of the Fairy Tale?
Flick through any book of Fairy Tales, and you will be forced to confront the tragic extents to which the population of talking frogs, obese godmothers, and fairy princesses has plummeted in recent centuries. (And to qualify as a genuine fairy princess, one must be beautiful, sweet of voice and a sufferer of acute insomnia when in a five-mile radius of legumes. If you believe yourself to be a member of this excessively rare breed, please contact Smith & Rumpilstiltskin, Bounty Hunters)
The dying out of the world's LIPS (Ludicrous and Impossible Peoples) has been so gradual, that some of the world may have forgotten that they had existed to begin with, so minor a minority group are they. It's a disgrace when the breeding habits of Bengel Tigers get more media attention than the recent ingenious plots of that devilish feline in knee-high boots. But what is the cause of this decline? Has our society doomed the wicked stepmothers and flying carpets of the world to extinction with logic and political correctness? Is it something in the water?
In her book, 'A Watcher's Guide to Elf-Spotting', Professor C. Derella explains, "Like rabbits to other rabbits, elves and faeries are inevitably drawn to fast-moving water, mainly because of their love of raucous and highly social games, frequently involving the highly anti-social water nymphs." Granted, this enlightening piece of information does not answer our question, but it does explain why - in these censored times of ours - elves and water nymphs are never heard of, or even mentioned, in the same story.
However Fairy Tales, as anyone who has ever heard a bedtime story would know, do not merely contain faeries. And some say that this very diversity is what is saving the living-genre of the Fairy Tale; the argument being that, while faeries and gold-laying geese may be a thing of the past, the wicked stepmothers of the world have not disappeared - they have merely evolved. To unsure the survival of the species, frog princes have turned into undeniably masculine humans with Germanic accents and suspiciously throaty voices (This does not include women on steroids, since Frog Princes, so far as I know, have never mastered the ability to throw a javelin 70 metres). And those frail, golden-haired princesses of legend can now be seen getting day-jobs on the cast of 'Sex and the City'. Even the vain and foolish Emperors have moved with the times, becoming slimmer and adopting the dress sense of various skimpily dressed movie stars as camouflage. Among the few human scholars who care to study LIPS sociology, this notion of assimilation is a popular one.
Interesting, isn't it? When you think that the crazy lady in the mental home might not be sporting a humble backscratcher, but a magic wand. Or that tramp sitting on the corner outside the newsagency - not blind old bat at all, but a white witch, ready to well-wish the lottery tickets of any kind souls who offer her a lift.
In modern day, Fairy Tales seen about as realistic as Santa, but whether those fascinating beings that characterise them are dead or just invisible, hiding from human eyes, they linger in the world, like the sweet and tantalising aftertaste of a toffee. After all, the occasional sweet never did any harm to your teeth, and a little bit of Fairy magic, so long as you're not an ugly stepsister, never really hurt anyone.
By Felix Santon, Marquis de Carabas