On Folktales

      What draws us to folktales (or any tale)?  They relay simple stories of improbable or peculiar events that require much "willing suspension of disbelief," and many tales subtly (or at times not-so-subtly) moralize in a way few readers would accept from another source.  Somehow, though, they draw us in, engaging our fascination with the unusual, the clever, or the supernatural.  Their simplistic form is easy to remember and recount, and countless authors have expanded the stories to give characters depth and context and to put interesting (or redundant) twists on the original tales to suit the palates of diverse audiences.  Teachers and parents also promote some for the way they effectively demonstrate manners and morals and their consequences.
      However, I believe the most important draw of folktales is this: the bulk of them inspire hope that good can win--that kindness will be repaid and evil punished.  We need hope like this in our lives to keep going in an unfair world where, despite the occasional temporal happiness, we are unlikely to find permanent equality and worldly happiness. Cruel Man, dispassionate Nature, and our own poor choices see to that.  Yet faith, hope, and love are necessary food for the human spirit to survive.  It's similarly been said that "The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for."  (Italics mine.)  Folktales can indeed encourage us and make us seek goodness and fairness in life.  Fortunately, though, as Christians, we have confidence in a greater Hope than tales and the World can offer us.



P.S.  Interestingly, the internet has attributed variations of the quote above to Immanuel Kant, Alexander Chalmers, Allen K. Chalmers, Joseph Addison, and the Chinese (among others).