Edmund Gosse

“ Fairy-tales, therefore, must be understood as dealing with irresponsible beings and imaginary adventures which do not rest on any basis of experience or reason or physical possibility whatever. In a story of real life it is important that what is narrated should appear probable, however strange, and should not be in plain contradiction with the laws of nature. But the whole essence of a fairy-tale rests in its impossibility, in its dependence on a mysterious power above all mundane forces, which we call enchantment. ”

“ So independent of racial prejudice are these creatures of the supernatural world that the only law they seem to recognize is the primitive one: Be kind to those who are kind to you.
The popular idea of a fairy is bound up with the image of a diminutive woman, dressed in wings and a ballet-skirt, who is small enough to sit among the petals of a full-blown rose, and light enough to be wafted through the air on a wild bird’s wing. ”

“ But we think that the form in which every story we have chosen is told, although perhaps not the essence of the story itself, is characteristic of each particular country, and all that we need say more is that it has amused us to bring together specimens of the folk-lore of the fighting friends of humanity.
We have not forgotten the almost universal distribution of fairy-tales, and the uniformity with which a certain tradition reappears in the legends of one country after another. The “people of peace” have no politics and are ignorant of the elements of patriotism ”

“ We must resign the pride of intellect, and become as little children, before we are capable of accepting a fairy-tale. One thing, for instance, which we are very frequently called upon to believe is that the words which drop from the lips of nice girls turn to diamonds and those from the lips of nasty girls to toads. ”

“ Isabel reports that “as for elf-arrows, the Devil sharps them with his own hand and delivers them to elf-boys, who whittle and dight them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle; but when I was in Elf land, I saw them whittling and dighting them.” What an enviable experience!
“When I was in Elfland!” The sound of the words is music in itself, but unfortunately Isabel Gowdie was called a witch. She did not deny the charge; indeed she gloried in it, and was much surer of the fact than we can be. But in truth a measure of wizardry is essential to the fairy-tale. ”

“ The fairy-tales of all nations seem to agree in depending for their effects upon magic and witchcraft. Sir James Frazer and the other mythologists have heaped up evidence to show that man in a primitive condition delights in seven-leagued boots, enchanted cows, caps of darkness, and waters of life and death. Ravens that prophesy, horses that are swifter than light, werwolves, and, above all, malignant witches play a preponderating part in peasant imagination. ”

“ The world-wide conviction that our sphere is peopled by creatures of enchantment, beings of supernatural powers and unnatural qualities, has caused many persons of otherwise reasonable habit of mind to argue that these must in some form exist. There is an irrepressible tendency in mankind to believe that where there is smoke there must be fire, and that so much cannot be said without some basis of truth. ”

“ There is no record of the appearance of fairies upon a battlefield. It is when the hearts of country-folk are hushed and silent that the mysterious voices of goblins are heard calling, at dewfall, from the terraces of the haunted hills. ”

“ It has been observed by those who have studied the fairy-tales of Russia that they deal with the doings of a class of supernatural beings quite distinct from those which people the folk-tales of Western and Central Europe. Fifty years ago a charming scholar, who was to Russia almost what Perrault was to France, A. N. Afanasieff, collected in many volumes the popular legends of his country, and displayed to the world the extraordinary wealth of Russian folk-lore. ”

“ Such solemn, pious men as Richard Baxter, as Samuel Johnson, and as John Wesley have been firmly convinced that though much may be false, yet something must be true in the wonderful tales which are so constantly repeated on lines so consistent in themselves.
The answer that science has to give to this seems to be that there is no limit to the degree in which the mind of honest people is worked upon by illusion. In days when the observation of nature was primitive, people saw, rapidly and timorously, phenomena to which they gave a false interpretation. ”

“ The Russian folk-lorists have doubtless been fortunate in the individuals from whom they originally heard the fairy-tales, but much must also be due to the graceful simplicity of their own style. A man who cannot use his own language with delicacy is able to make the most charming story in the world seem dull, and much depends on the art of the reporter. ”

“ To understand what is essential and what is not in a fairy-story, it is needful to have the heart of a little child. This the learned Perrault possessed, and the less we tamper with his text the wiser we shall be. It is noticeable that the French balance of mind and delicate apprehension colour even their fairy-tales, which have not the crudity and violence of other folk-lore ”

“ It has been a subject of constant discussion why in so many, indeed in practically all, parts of the world the human race has willingly given itself up to a belief in the vain things of enchantment. No doubt, in the first instance, fear, working upon a complete ignorance of the laws of the natural world, encouraged a timorous and fantastic credulity. ”

“ There are incantations which have the effect of turning the tangible world topsy-turvy, and there are particular people who are in possession of the formula needful. To make up for this extraordinary privilege, they have to endure the suspicion of the majority who do not boast these powers, and to be subjected to the shame and danger of being condemned as witches and wizards. ”

“ It was from Ralston that we learned, in those far-off days, of the mythical beings which people the imagination of the Slav races. In spite of the efforts of the Church and the spread of education, nothing can prevent the Ruthenian or Serbian peasant from believing that the woods are full of fauns and elves, the rivers of sprites, and the houses of “lares” or domestic fairies. ”

“ How it can be that the character of these nocturnal illusions has been uniformly powerful over the human mind it is difficult indeed to say, but it seems to be the fact that similar traditions and alleged phenomena occur in every corner of the globe. The Domovois of the Russians, for instance, who sweep the house and clean the hearth when everybody is asleep, are identical with the Pixies of Devonshire and with numberless other useful, although crotchety, creatures of darkness in countries that seem to have had no possible communication with one another. ”

“ In particular, the terror of darkness must always have acted a great part in stimulating and preserving legends. With the fall of night, primitive man loses his self-control, and is ready to accept as fact any terrifying conjecture or surmise. In Western Europe until comparatively recent times the dark was peopled for country-folk with every description of ghost, hag, and hobgoblin ”

“ Noises that foretell death, beneficent gnomes whose task it is to reveal the place of buried treasure, mirrors which give back mystic forms instead of reflections, all the superstitions of the extreme West are repeated in slightly different shape by the soothsayers of the Slavonic peoples. ”