Fairy tale

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Theodor Hosemann, Illustration to the fairy tale: The wedding of a young royal couple accompanied by angels and dwarfs. Watercolour over black pencil, on wove paper (papier vélin).
Great Sphinx of Tanis, Louvre
Snow White and Rose Red, illustration by Alexander Zick
The Prince at Snow White's Glass Coffin, illustration by Alexander Zick (1886)

Fairy tales, also fairytale, wonder tale, magic tale, fairy story or Märchen (from Middle High German: maere "news, report, message") are stories that seem fantastic at first glance, but which often contain echoes of the old natural clairvoyance. Like myths, they can be an expression of spiritual truths.

Fairy tales as remnants of the old clairvoyance

„Fairy tales are not invented anywhere, they are the last remnants of the old clairvoyance, which was experienced in dreams by people who still had the powers for it. What was seen in dreams was told, like the fairy tale of Puss in Boots, which is only an alteration of the fairy tale I told you today. All fairy tales ultimately existed as the last remnants of the original clairvoyance. Therefore, a real fairy tale can only come into being if - either consciously or unconsciously - the imagination is present in the soul of the fairy tale writer, projecting itself into the soul, otherwise it is not right. A fairy tale made up at random can never be right. If today a real fairy tale is still being created here or there by some human being, it is not created in any other way than by the awakening in the human being of a longing for the old times which humanity once went through. This longing is present, only it sometimes creeps into even hidden depths of the soul, and man, in what he can consciously create, often greatly fails to realise how much comes up from the hidden depths of the soul-life, and how much is only distorted by what man can do with his present consciousness.“ (Lit.:GA 127, p. 207f)

In the ancient Indian culture clairvoyance was still widespread. It is therefore not surprising ...

„... that by far the greatest number of all fairy tales, legends and fables can actually be traced back originally to India. If you go through the animal fables and other fairy tales of the various European countries, you will find minor or major changes, but you will see that the basis of many European fairy tales can be found in the old Indian books. This is not surprising to us, since the cultures together belong to the fifth root race, which spread from the Gobi desert via Egypt and Greece to Europe.“ (Lit.:GA 92, p. 45)

The most important Indian collection of fairy tales is the Panchatantra (Sanskrit: पञ्चतन्त्र "Five Treatises"), which, however, was not written before the 3rd century BC and contains many folk animal fables. By the 6th century, the Panchatantra was already so popular that it was translated into Pahlavi. Via Persian and Arabic translations, the collection came to Europe in the 13th century and was known at most European princely courts by the end of the 15th century.

Lucifer and Ahriman

All fairytale motifs are ultimately connected with man's relation to the Luciferic-Sphinx-like and to the Mephistophelian-Ahrimanic forces:

„Legends and fairy tales, which are so incomprehensibly regarded by the scholars of our present day, point by their structure either towards the Mephistophelian, the Ahrimanic, or towards the Sphinx-like, the Luciferic. All sagas and fairy tales derive from the fact that their content was originally experienced either through the relationship that man has to the Sphinx, or through the relationship that man has to Mephisto. In the legends and fairy tales we find more or less hidden either the question motive: that is the Sphinx motive, the motive that something must be solved, that a question must be answered, or the motive of enchantment, of being spellbound by something: that is the Mephistophelian, the Ahrimanic motive. For what does the ahrimanic motive consist of in more detail? It consists in the fact that when we have Ahriman beside us, we are constantly in danger of falling into his clutches, of passing into his nature, of no longer being able to tear ourselves away from him. And one would like to say: towards the Sphinx, man feels something that penetrates him and, as it were, tears him apart; towards the Mephistophelian, man feels something like: he must submerge himself in this Mephistophelian, he must devote himself to it, he must become a slave to it.“ (Lit.:GA 158, p. 107f)

Children need fairy tales

„It is easy to say that myths and fairy tales are ideas that have sprung from the childhood stages of humanity. Certainly, people have not physically faced the angels of whom the myths and fairy tales have spoken. But thinking through philosophy is of no use in the spiritual world. This knowledge has no meaning in the spiritual worlds. It is easy to say that fairy tales are not based on any truth. The spiritual researcher has always been so clever that he has known that fiery dragons do not fly through the physical air, but he has always known that the imagination of the fiery dragon is necessary to form it. For by being in the soul, this imagination throws spiritual light on the spiritual world. These are ideas of power. This is the nature of all myths, not so much to represent externally as to be able to live really in the spiritual world. The materialists say: Myths and fairy tales originate in the childhood stage of humanity. - But people were taught by gods in their childhood. The myths and fairy tales are thus lost to the evolution of humanity in this way, but children should not be brought up in this way. There is a great difference between letting the child grow up with fairy tales and letting it grow up without them. The power of fairy-tale images to uplift the soul only emerges later. If fairy tales are not given, it shows itself later in a boredom of life. It is even expressed physically; fairy tales can also help against illnesses. What is instilled through fairy tales comes out later as the joy of life, the meaning of life, as a way of coping with life, even at a very late age. Children must experience the power of fairy tales in their youth, when they can still experience them. Those who cannot live with ideas that have no reality for the physical plan die for the spiritual world. And many philosophies that only want to support themselves on the physical plan are means of death for the soul. The outer evolution becomes the means of death for the spiritual world. Humanity must come to a judgement which is not based on the external, but which is based in itself. More and more it must come to that: I believe what I know.“ (Lit.:GA 154, p. 129f)

„Well, one may think what one likes about the spiritual content of the outer sensual reality, but it is poison for the growing human being if he does not get his imagination developed in a fairytale-like way in the period between the 6th, 7th and 9th year. If the teacher himself is not a fantasist, he will first of all teach the child everything he wants to teach him about the human environment - the child does not yet differ from the environment, this only occurs later, in the 9th year - everything he develops about animals, plants, about the rest of nature, he will teach the child in the form of fairy tales. If only one could become familiar with the enormous difference between reading fairy tales to the child and creating such tales oneself! I beg you, read as many fairy tales as you like and tell your children fairy tales you have read, they do not have the same effect as if you yourself had created much worse fairy tales and brought them to the children, and that is because the process of creating in you - that is precisely what I mean by the living - continues to have an effect on the child, because it really communicates itself to the child. These are the imponderables of dealing with the child.“ (Lit.:GA 301, p. 84f)

„And because the fairy tale is so connected with the innermost part of the soul, with that which is so deeply connected with the innermost part of the human soul, the fairy tale is precisely that form of representation which is most appropriate for the childlike mind. For it may be said of the fairy tale that it has succeeded in expressing in the most profound way what is most profound in spiritual life. One gradually feels that in all conscious artistic life there is no art so great as the art that completes the path from the misunderstood depths of the soul's life to the charming, often playful images of the fairy tale.

When one is able to express the most difficult to understand in the most natural forms, then that is the greatest art, the most natural art, art that is essentially connected with the human being. And because in the child the human being is connected in an even more original way with the whole of existence, with the whole of life, the child also needs the fairy tale as nourishment for its soul. That which represents spiritual power can move more freely in the child. If the child's soul is not to become desolate, it cannot yet be spun into abstract theoretical concepts. It must still be connected with that which is rooted in the depths of existence.

Therefore, we do the child no greater benefit for its soul than if we allow what thus brings together human roots with the roots of existence to have an effect on its soul. Because the child must still be creatively active in its own shaping, because it must still bring forth the shaping forces itself for its growth, for the unfolding of all its faculties, that is why it feels such wonderful nourishment for its soul in the images of the fairy tale, in which it is root-like connected with existence. And because man, even if he abandons himself to rationalism and understanding, can never be torn away from the roots of existence, and because he is most intimately connected with the roots of existence when he must be most devoted to life, that is why he returns joyfully to the fairy tale at every age, if he is only of sound, rational mind. For there is no age, there is no human condition that could alienate us from that which flows from the fairy tale, because we would have to stop with the deepest things connected with human nature if we no longer had a sense for that which expresses itself from this sense of human nature, which is so incomprehensible to the intellect, in the self-evident fairy tales and in the self-evident, simple, primitive fairy tale mood.“ (Lit.:GA 62, p. 349ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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