Some solemn and superficial people (for nearly all very superficial
people are solemn) have declared that the fairy-tales are immoral; they
base this upon some accidental circumstances or regrettable incidents
in the war between giants and boys, some cases in which the latter
indulged in unsympathetic deceptions or even in practical jokes. The
objection, however, is not only false, but very much the reverse of the
facts. The fairy-tales are at root not only moral in the sense of being
innocent, but moral in the sense of being didactic, moral in the sense
of being moralising. It is all very well to talk of the freedom of
fairyland, but there was precious little freedom in fairyland by the
best official accounts. Mr. W.B. Yeats and other sensitive modern
souls, feeling that modern life is about as black a slavery as ever
oppressed mankind (they are right enough there), have especially
described elfland as a place of utter ease and abandonment—a place
where the soul can turn every way at will like the wind. Science
denounces the idea of a capricious God; but Mr. Yeats’s school suggests
that in that world every one is a capricious god. Mr. Yeats himself has
said a hundred times in that sad and splendid literary style which
makes him the first of all poets now writing in English (I will not say
of all English poets, for Irishmen are familiar with the practice of
physical assault), he has, I say, called up a hundred times the picture
of the terrible freedom of the fairies, who typify the ultimate anarchy
of art—
“Where nobody grows old or weary or wise,
Where nobody grows old or godly or grave.”
But, after all (it is a shocking thing to say), I doubt whether Mr.
Yeats really knows the real philosophy of the fairies. He is not simple
enough; he is not stupid enough. Though I say it who should not, in
good sound human stupidity I would knock Mr. Yeats out any day. The
fairies like me better than Mr. Yeats; they can take me in more. And I
have my doubts whether this feeling of the free, wild spirits on the
crest of hill or wave is really the central and simple spirit of
folk-lore. I think the poets have made a mistake: because the world of
the fairy-tales is a brighter and more varied world than ours, they
have fancied it less moral; really it is brighter and more varied
because it is more moral. Suppose a man could be born in a modern
prison. It is impossible, of course, because nothing human can happen
in a modern prison, though it could sometimes in an ancient dungeon. A
modern prison is always inhuman, even when it is not inhumane. But
suppose a man were born in a modern prison, and grew accustomed to the
deadly silence and the disgusting indifference; and suppose he were
then suddenly turned loose upon the life and laughter of Fleet Street.
He would, of course, think that the literary men in Fleet Street were a
free and happy race; yet how sadly, how ironically, is this the reverse
of the case! And so again these toiling serfs in Fleet Street, when
they catch a glimpse of the fairies, think the fairies are utterly
free. But fairies are like journalists in this and many other respects.
Fairies and journalists have an apparent gaiety and a delusive beauty.
Fairies and journalists seem to be lovely and lawless; they seem to be
both of them too exquisite to descend to the ugliness of everyday duty.
But it is an illusion created by the sudden sweetness of their
presence. Journalists live under law; and so in fact does fairyland.
If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs
from one end of them to the other—the idea that peace and happiness can
only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics,
is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland
hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven
on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she
must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies
to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful
results will follow. Bluebeard’s wife may open all doors but one. A
promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise
is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may
be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him;
she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition
she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world
rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that
they do not eat one fruit: they eat it, and lose their joy in all the
fruits of the earth.
This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folk-lore—the idea that
all happiness hangs on one thin veto; all positive joy depends on one
negative. Now, it is obvious that there are many philosophical and
religious ideas akin to or symbolised by this; but it is not with them
I wish to deal here. It is surely obvious that all ethics ought to be
taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if one does the thing forbidden,
one imperils all the things provided. A man who breaks his promise to
his wife ought to be reminded that, even if she is a cat, the case of
the fairy-cat shows that such conduct may be incautious. A burglar just
about to open some one else’s safe should be playfully reminded that he
is in the perilous posture of the beautiful Pandora: he is about to
lift the forbidden lid and loosen evils unknown. The boy eating some
one’s apples in some one’s apple tree should be a reminder that he has
come to a mystical moment of his life, when one apple may rob him of
all others. This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which, so far
from being lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding (like
common books of ethics) a rationalistic basis for each Commandment,
they find the great mystical basis for all Commandments. We are in this
fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the
conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The
vetoes are indeed extraordinary, but then so are the concessions. The
idea of property, the idea of some one else’s apples, is a rum idea;
but then the idea of there being any apples is a rum idea. It is
strange and weird that I cannot with safety drink ten bottles of
champagne; but then the champagne itself is strange and weird, if you
come to that. If I have drunk of the fairies’ drink it is but just I
should drink by the fairies’ rules. We may not see the direct logical
connection between three beautiful silver spoons and a large ugly
policeman; but then who in fairy tales ever could see the direct
logical connection between three bears and a giant, or between a rose
and a roaring beast? Not only can these fairy-tales be enjoyed because
they are moral, but morality can be enjoyed because it puts us in
fairyland, in a world at once of wonder and of war.