Tag Archives: George MacDonald

Una and the Fauns

In Defense of Faerie Tales

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… 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.

It is beyond the scope of this blog to present a cohesive defense of fairy tales in the Christian tradition, and I gladly leave the task to those far more able than I.

“The Ethics of Elfland” (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

“Fairy Tales” (G.K. Chesterton)

“The Fantastic Imagination” (George MacDonald)

“On Fairy Stories” (J.R.R. Tolkien)

The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be…

“The Red Angel” (G.K. Chesterton)

“Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said” (C.S. Lewis)