“
Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien On Fairy-stories)
“
The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...
”
”
Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales)
“
Not every tale has a happy ending. In fact, many of them are grim.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Here is the world of imagination, hopes, and dreams. In this timeless land of enchantment, the age of chivalry, magic and make-believe are reborn - and fairy tales come true. Fantasyland is dedicated to the young-in-heart, to those who that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.
”
”
Walt Disney Company
“
Life can be a piece of art, a magic enchantment, a fetching fairy tale or an adventurous story trimmed with alluring episodes. But it may as well be a delusive or hazardous act with many wildcat players seeming to be what they are actually not.
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
The whole thing becomes like this evil enchantment from a fairy tale, but you're made to believe the spell can never be broken.
”
”
Jess C. Scott (Heart's Blood (Anger))
“
Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.
”
”
Ben Okri
“
The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale.
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Enchantment)
“
They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.
”
”
Stephen King (Carrie)
“
The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien On Fairy-stories)
“
Passion isn't a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. It's the deepest, wildest part of the forest; the grove where the fairies still dance and obscene old vipers snooze in the boughs. Everybody but the most dried up and dysfunctional is drawn to the grove and enchanted by its mysteries, but then they just can't wait to call in the chain saws and bulldozers and replace it with a family-style restaurant or a new S and L. That's the payoff, I guess. Safety. Security. Certainty. Yes, indeed. Well, remember this, pussy latte: we're not involved in a 'relationship,' you and I, we're involved in a collision. Collisions don't much lend themselves to secure futures...
”
”
Tom Robbins (Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)
“
Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold...The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (On Fairy-Stories)
“
That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. "My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child."
I stopped.
”
”
Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1))
“
Today , I saved Brody Carmicheal's life!
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Not all Fairy Tales have happily ever afters. Some just have afters.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Mina held her breath as Jared's eyes flickered between them, the longest pause in the history of long pauses.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
He was astonishingly vain even by fair folk standards, which was like saying a pond is unusually wet, or a bear surprisingly hairy.
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
“
The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy tales’ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual.
”
”
Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales)
“
…This place was once like your Enchanted Forest is- home to tens of thousands of fairies. But that was many ages ago, before the Kingdom of Britain was established. In those early days, the fairies ruled over the land.
”
”
Christopher Daniel Mechling (Peter: The Untold True Story)
“
Mina, trust me, it's better if we don't discuss this anymore. Words have power and it makes it that much easier for the Story to find you.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Then they gave me a loaf of bread and told me to walk through the forest and give some to anyone who asked. I did exactly what they told me, and the second beggar-woman was a fairy in disguise, but instead of saying that whenever I spoke, diamonds and roses would drop from my mouth, she said that since I was so kind, I would never have any problems with my teeth.”
“Really? Did it work?”
“Well, I haven’t had a toothache since I met her.”
“I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something
”
”
Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1))
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Since there are thousands of fairy tales, one may safely guess that there are probably equal numbers where the courage and determination of females rescue males, and vice versa.
”
”
Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales)
“
If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.
”
”
Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales)
“
Devic Magic
Woodland sprites, elves and nymphs
Waltz in time take a glimpse
Fairies hide the forest wit
Mushrooms fly, agarics hit
”
”
William O'Brien (Peter, Enchantment and Stardust: The Poems (Peter: A Darkened Fairytale, #2))
“
the fairy tale stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: The reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories)
“
Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet of Obeisance ... (But) the best fantasies pull aside the velvet curtain of mere appearance. ... In most instances, fantasy ultimately returns us to our own now re-enchanted world, reminding us that it is neither prosaic nor meaningless, and that how we live and what we do truly matters.
”
”
Michael Dirda
“
And you are?” “Not important. All you need to know is that you’re lucky you’re so cute, and I decided to help you.” “But not prom queen cute.” “Definitely not.” They both smiled,
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
In this life you have to be your own hero.
By that I mean you have to win whatever it is that matters to you by your own strength and in your own way.
Like it or not, you are alone in a forest, just like all those fairy tales that begin with a hero who’s usually stupid but somehow brave, or who might be clever, but weak as a straw, and away he goes (don’t worry about the gender), cheered on by nobody, via the castles and the bears, and the old witch and the enchanted stream, and by and by (we hope) he’ll find the treasure.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (The PowerBook)
“
In the enchanted woodland wild,
The Prince shall wed a Fairy child.
Dragon, Human, and Fairy,
Their union will be bound by three.
And when these lovers intertwine,
Three races in one child combine.
Dragon, Fey, and Humankind,
Bound in one bloodline.
”
”
Janet Lee Carey (Dragonswood (Wilde Island Chronicles, #2))
“
Inevitably they find their way into the forest. It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great and mysterious. No one ever gains power over the forest, but the forest posses the power to change lives and alter destinies.
”
”
Jack D. Zipes (The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World)
“
Once, a Whimsical poet died of despair after finding himself unequal to the task of capturing a fair one's beauty in simile. I think it more likely he died of arsenic poisoning, but so the story goes.
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
“
By day Lisbon has a naive theatrical quality that enchants and captivates, but by night it is a fairy-tale city, descending over lighted terraces to the sea, like a woman in festive garments going down to meet her dark lover.
”
”
Erich Maria Remarque (The Night in Lisbon)
“
Prince of the Enchanted Forest. Adopted son of the Fairy Folk. Wild Boy. Your reputation precedes you, child. All of Germany has been talking about you lately. And yet, no one knows your name.” The boy looked up at the King and smiled. The king smiled back, and took a deep breath. “…Henceforth, you shall be known as Peter.
”
”
Christopher Daniel Mechling (Peter: The Untold True Story)
“
True love was forever lost. The prince was never coming back to kiss me awake from my enchanted sleep. I was not a princess, after all. So what was the fairy-tale protocol for other kisses? The mundane kind that didn't break any spells?
Maybe it would be easy - like holding his hand or having his arms around me. Maybe it would feel nice. Maybe it wouldn't fell like a betrayal. Besides, who was I betraying, anyway? Just myself.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer
“
Fairy blood does not make you clumsy. That’s human.
”
”
Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted)
“
Instead of making me docile, Lucinda’s curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally.
”
”
Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1))
“
What if there is no end?
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Everything, she noticed, seemed capable of transmogrification. Even the two boulders in the backyard sometimes turned to silver in the early morning sunlight. In the books she read, every stream might be a river god, every tree a dryad in disguise, every old woman a powerful fairy, every pebble an enchanted soul. Anything had the potential to transform, and this, to her, seemed the true meaning of art.
Only her brother, Warren, seemed to understand the hidden layer she saw in things, but then they had always had an understanding, since before he had been born.
”
”
Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
“
And what do you look like on the next plane?” “Imagine me now, except twice as handsome.” “Yeah, right.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
One gift the fairies gave me ... the love of books, the magic key that opens the enchanted door.
”
”
Andrew Lang (Ballades & Rhymes: From Ballades in Blue China and Rhymes & a la Mode)
“
You clean up nice,” Mina said, trying to ease the tension in the air. “This is a good look for you.” “Thanks,” he muttered. “You look…fantastic.” Mina smirked. “Why, Jared, that may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” “I cannot tell a lie,” he replied, shrugging before helping Nan into the car.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of the face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. [...] She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshipppers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around that floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home.
”
”
Doris Lessing (On Cats)
“
He was furious with himself for having lived these last days on a wish. On a lie. A kiss does not make the future. Love alone does not make a life.
”
”
Alethea Kontis (Enchanted (Woodcutter Sisters, #1; Books of Arilland, #1))
“
In books, no one helped a girl who didn't help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your enemy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (The Invisible Hour)
“
I loved you then… I love you now… I love you still… and I will always love you… forever.
”
”
Kristina Stangl (The Curse of the Dark Horseman (The Enchanted Forest Saga, #1))
“
Men like Henry are legends. They exist only in our romanticized tales. But men like Walter, they’re real.
”
”
Kristina Stangl (The Curse of the Dark Horseman (The Enchanted Forest Saga, #1))
“
Nan, I’m cursed.”
“Yeah, I know. We all are.” Nan kicked her legs back and forth and grabbed a magazine from Mina’s nightstand. “It’s called being a teenager.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)
“
Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic.
Curses bloomed.
Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked.
A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death.
Girls became victims and heroines.
Boys became lovers and murderers.
And sometimes... they became both.
”
”
Sarah Cross (Kill Me Softly (Beau Rivage, #1))
“
The store of fairy tales, that blue chamber where stories lie waiting to be rediscovered, holds out the promise of just those creative enchantments, not only for its own characters caught in its own plotlines; it offers magical metamorphoses to the one who opens the door, who passes on what was found there, and to those who hear what the storyteller brings. The faculty of wonder, like curiosity can make things happen; it is time for wishful thinking to have its due.
”
”
Marina Warner (From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers)
“
I was the kind of child who’d always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific explanation.
”
”
V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1))
“
Even Aristotle, master of pure reason, said: 'The friend of wisdom is also a friend of myth.
”
”
Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales)
“
Our love is forever enduring. It’s everlasting. It’s timeless.
”
”
Kristina Stangl (The Curse of the Dark Horseman (The Enchanted Forest Saga, #1))
“
Mina turned in dread and then froze, her heart beating loudly in her ears. He was right there, standing mere feet from her. Jared.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
What do you mean, Mom, ‘the one’? I don’t want ‘the one,’ just a boyfriend.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Hans Christian Andersen said 'Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.' Maybe he was right, maybe not. Either way, just remember: enchanting as they may be, in fairytales the forests are always dark.
”
”
Greg F. Gifune (Gardens of Night)
“
My dear girl, please don’t waste any more time chasing after your dreams and fairy tale like aspirations, in the hopes of achieving a happy ending. Such endings are not designed for everyone.
”
”
Kristina Stangl (The Curse of the Dark Horseman (The Enchanted Forest Saga, #1))
“
So I have to add this to my cereal, huh?
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
And now about the cauldron sing
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
“
Mina penned the jubilant words into her blue spiral notebook with her favorite ballpoint pen. She faithfully used the same pen when writing all of her entries in the hope that
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me
”
”
Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1))
“
In the fairy tales, sixteen was always the age when girls either learned they had magical powers, were truly princesses in disguise, or were cursed and needed a handsome prince to help them break the dark enchantment.
”
”
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
“
Fae can’t lie, you know. But they can, and do, manipulate the truth.” “What’s the difference?” Mina asked. “Like, if you asked me if you were ugly, I couldn’t say yes, but I might tell you that you’ll probably never be prom queen.” “Pfft. Like I’d want to be.” “Only if Brody Carmichael were king.” Mina threw a stick at him, feeling the heat rush into her face.
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
I was the kind of child who always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific explorations.
”
”
V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1))
“
The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it.
”
”
Charles Williams (The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante)
“
What a magical place," she whispered in an awed voice. "I expect a unicorn or fairies to appear."
"What would the fairies be doing?" Shermont asked. "Waltzing with the butterflies," she answered before thinking.
”
”
Laurie Brown (What Would Jane Austen Do?)
“
I’ve never believed in fairy tales. One day, the fairies will tell this story. There will be a valiant prince, a part no doubt played in history by the brave Vartan who journeys to rescue his bride from a dragon. There will be fairies. There will be horse-birds and there will be an enchanted blade. But, I will no doubt be stricken from the tale, a cursed blemish on a shining story. Happy endings don’t always happen in the real world.
”
”
T.T. Escurel (The House of Rose (Auronia #1))
“
In the old stories, despite the impossibility of the incidents, the interest is always real and human. The princes and princesses fall in love and marry--nothing could be more human than that. Their lives and loves are crossed by human sorrows...The hero and heroine are persecuted or separated by cruel stepmothers or enchanters; they have wanderings and sorrows to suffer; they have adventures to achieve and difficulties to overcome; they must display courage, loyalty and address, courtesy, gentleness and gratitude. Thus they are living in a real human world, though it wears a mythical face, though there are giants and lions in the way. The old fairy tales which a silly sort of people disparage as too wicked and ferocious for the nursery, are really 'full of matter,' and unobtrusively teach the true lessons of our wayfaring in a world of perplexities and obstructions.
”
”
Andrew Lang
“
That couldn’t be possible, could it? Why didn’t Nan come back in? Where was she?
”
”
Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
“
Peaceful living does not entail eliminating things from our lives—instead, it challenges us to transform those things to serve us better.
”
”
Paola Merrill (The Cottage Fairy Companion)
“
Once upon a time--which, when you come to think of it, is really
the only proper way to begin a story--the only way that really
smacks of romance and fairyland--
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Magic for Marigold)
“
Once I had overheard Bertha tell Mandy that he was only a person on the outside and that his insides were ashes mixed with coins and a brain.
But Mandy had disagreed. 'He's a human through and through. No other creature would be as selfish as he is, not fairies or gnomes or elves or giants.
”
”
Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1))
“
Kiran says (the shelf) is full of stories. If it is, then I like fairy stories. Fairy stories are fair. In them wishes are granted, words are enchanted, the honest and brave make it safely through to the last page and the baddies either have to give up their wickedness for ever and ever, no going back, or get ruthlessly written out of the story, which they hardly ever survive. Also in fairy stories there are hardly any of those half-good half-bad people that crop up so constantly in real life and are so difficult to believe in...
”
”
Hilary McKay (Forever Rose (Casson Family, #5))
“
We stared at each other for a long moment. His hand smoldered against my skin. In my face, I knew there was nothing but wistful sadness―I didn't want to have to say goodbye now, no matter for how short a time. At first his face reflected mine, but then, as neither of us looked away, his expression changed.
He released me, lifting his other hand to brush his fingertips along my cheek, trailing them down to my jaw. I could feel his fingers tremble―not with anger this time. He pressed his palm against my cheek, so that my face was trapped between his burning hands.
"Bella," he whispered.
I was frozen.
No! I hadn't made this decision yet. I didn't know if I could do this, and now I was out of time to think. But I would have been a fool if I thought rejecting him now would have no consequences.
I stared back at him. He was not my Jacob, but he could be. His face was familiar and beloved. in so many real ways, I did love him. He was my comfort, my safe harbor. Right now, I could choose to have him belong to me.
Alice was back for the moment, but that changed nothing. True love was forever lost. The prince was never coming back to kiss me awake from my enchanted sleep. I was not a princess, after all. So what was the fairy-tale protocol for other kisses? The mundane kind that didn't break any spells?
Maybe it would be easy―like holding his hand or having his arms around me. Maybe it would feel nice. Maybe it wouldn't feel like betrayal. Besides, who was I betraying, anyway? Just myself.
Keeping his eyes on mine, Jacob began to bend his face toward me. And I was still absolutely undecided.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
I needed to go into that bare, with nothing from my own life on my body, the way woodcutters' children in fairy tales have to leave their protections behind to enter the enchanted castle; the way votaries in old religions used to go naked to their initiation rites.
”
”
Tana French (The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2))
“
It was the egret, flying out of the lemon grove, that started it. I won’t pretend I saw it straight away as the conventional herald of adventure, the white stag of the fairy-tale, which, bounding from the enchanted thicket, entices the prince away from his followers, and loses him in the forest where danger threatens with the dusk.
”
”
Mary Stewart (The Moon-Spinners)
“
Peter and the deer herd ranged over the forest together, and without words, Peter told the deer about his new life at the Palace, amongst people. The scents that lingered on him told a hundred stories. His expressions and movements too, echoed foreign influences. And in Peter’s eyes, the story was told plainly. They sensed that he had grown not just physically, but in his being he was bigger, more mature.
The deer wanted the Wild Boy to return to the Enchanted Forest with them, but they were uncertain he would come. They called him by his forest name, and he replied, “Peter.” The strangeness of this intonation puzzled them.
”
”
Christopher Daniel Mechling (Peter: The Untold True Story)
“
In the common walks of life, with what delightful emotions does the youthful mind look forward to some anticipated scene of festivity! Imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the festive throng, 'the observed of all observers.' Her graceful form, arrayed in snowy robes, is whirling through the mazes of the joyous dance; her eye is brightest, her step is lightest in the gay assembly. "In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance into the Elysian world, of which she has had such bright dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to her enchanted vision! Each new scene is more charming than the last. But after a while she finds that beneath this goodly exterior, all is vanity, the flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates harshly upon her ear; the ball-room has lost its charms; and with wasted health and imbittered heart, she turns away with the conviction that earthly pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
“
In the books she read, every stream might be a river god, every tree a dryad in disguise, every old woman a powerful fairy, every pebble an enchanted soul. Anything had the potential to transform, and this, to her, seemed the true meaning of art.
”
”
Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
“
It was an irresistible development of modern illustration (so largely photographic) that borders should be abandoned and the "picture" end only with the paper. This method may be suitable for for photographs; but it is altogether inappropriate for the pictures that illustrate or are inspired by fairy-stories. An enchanted forest requires a margin, even an elaborate border. To print it coterminous with the page, like a "shot" of the Rockies in Picture Post, as if it were indeed a "snap" of fairyland or a "sketch by our artist on the spot", is a folly and an abuse.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien On Fairy-stories)
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Sometimes there’s nothing more comforting than sitting in thankful awareness of our physical selves, our consciousness, and the ability to think and feel joy and pain. Our bodies and minds let us experience the world in our own ways, completely and utterly unique to ourselves.
”
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Paola Merrill (The Cottage Fairy Companion)
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Mina’s stomach sank. “About what?” She had a feeling she already knew the answer. She’d seen something in Nan’s hand when she had previously opened the window and leaned out. “Oh, nothing much. I’m just tweeting the picture of you running like a madman after the bus to all of my followers.” "Followers" made it sound like some sort of cult. “Nan,
”
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Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
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“It wasn’t a ruse. Everything I said is true.”
He huffs and attempts a glare. But underneath, I see the same doubt and vulnerability I heard in his voice when he sent me to the train without him. I also see something more: a damaged and enchanted fairy who pushed aside his selfishness and faced the bandersnatch for me, who looked a train dead-on, who put himself between Jeb and Sister Two, and who saved my dad from having his life sucked away.
I’m overwhelmed with compassion and gratitude and another emotion I don’t dare put a name to. I have to convince him that there’s a place for him in my heart, too.
Just not yet.
I glance at the wings covering me, at his body, immovable in front of me, then rise up on tiptoe and take his smooth face in both my hands. He tenses for an instant—suspicious—but relaxes slowly, each muscle surrendering bit by bit as I stroke his jaw.
”
”
A.G. Howard (Unhinged (Splintered, #2))
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Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.
Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted away from their own lives and selves. Even princesses are chattels to be disowned by fathers, punished by step-mothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in wh they were made for but in their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one.
In them, power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness -- from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sewn among the meek is harvested in crisis...
In Hans Christian Andersen's retelling of the old Nordic tale that begins with a stepmother, "The Wild Swans," the banished sister can only disenchant her eleven brothers -- who are swans all day look but turn human at night -- by gathering stinging nettles barehanded from churchyard graves, making them into flax, spinning them and knitting eleven long-sleeved shirts while remaining silent the whole time. If she speaks, they'll remain birds forever. In her silence, she cannot protest the crimes she accused of and nearly burned as a witch.
Hauled off to a pyre as she knits the last of the shirts, she is rescued by the swans, who fly in at the last moment. As they swoop down, she throws the nettle shirts over them so that they turn into men again, all but the youngest brother, whose shirt is missing a sleeve so that he's left with one arm and one wing, eternally a swan-man. Why shirts made of graveyard nettles by bleeding fingers and silence should disenchant men turned into birds by their step-mother is a question the story doesn't need to answer. It just needs to give us compelling images of exile, loneliness, affection, and metamorphosis -- and of a heroine who nearly dies of being unable to tell her own story.
”
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Rebecca Solnit (The Faraway Nearby)
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When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to anyone except me. And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything.
”
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E. Nesbit (The Enchanted Castle)
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I love your silence. It is so wise. It listens. It invites warmth. I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you. You have the loneliness that all true heroes have, a loneliness that is a deep sea, within which the fishes of mystery dwell. I love your quest. It is noble. It has greatness in it. Only one who is born under a blessed star would set sail across the billowing waves and the wild squalls, because of a dream. I love your dream. It is magical. Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the world, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of thing, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.
”
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Ben Okri (Astonishing the Gods)
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All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic.
”
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G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
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His kiss was like no other! His kiss was enchanted and fairy-tale like. He applied pressure, but just enough to feel his tenderness and warmth. I could feel his heart beating wildly as he pressed his chest against my chest all the while his loving lips brushed up against mine with a care-filled affection. His tongue lightly licked the outer edges of my mouth, and then searched for my tongue. The pursuit allowed a marriage of both tongues to meet - inspiring a mingling tango of hot and heavy French kissing to manifest profusely. We kissed like two hot and horny teenagers, our mouths moving and craving each others lips, in animalistic desires!
”
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Keira D. Skye
“
The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.
The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
”
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Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
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The Land of Fairy Story is wide and deep and high … its seas are shoreless and its stars uncounted, its beauty an enchantment and its peril ever-present; both joy and sorrow are poignant as a sword. In that land a man may (perhaps) count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very mystery and wealth make dumb the traveller who would report. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates be shut and the keys be lost. The fairy gold (too often) turns to withered leaves when it is brought away. All that I can ask its that you, knowing all these things, will receive my withered leaves, as a token at least that my hand once held a little of the gold.
”
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J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien On Fairy-stories)
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you’ve spent two years at the same school as Mina, hardly talking to her, never even realizing she is alive. Then she goes and does something crazy, against my wishes. She placed her own life in danger to save yours.” Her face became very still. “Now, because of those actions, our whole family has to live with the consequences. You now feel obligated to help her, like she did you. I get that, I really do. But what gives you the right to question our actions and lifestyle?” Silence filled the kitchen. Mina held her breath, afraid to move. Brody straightened in his seat and swallowed slowly. Sara brushed her hands over her forehead in defeat. “You’re enamored. That’s it. In another week or so, you will wake up, and this will all be a dream. You will forget that Mina ever even saved your life. She will go back to being my clumsy, forgotten, outcast teen daughter, and you will go back to ruling the school and dating the head cheerleader.
”
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Chanda Hahn (UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1))
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I live in gratitude to my parents for initiating me--and as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting--into knowledge of the word, into reading and spelling, by way of the alphabet. They taught it to me at home in time for me to begin to read before starting school.
My love for the alphabet, which endures, grew out of reciting it but, before that, out of seeing the letters on the page. In my own story books, before I could read them for myself I fell in love with various winding, enchanted-looking initials drawn by Walter Crane at the head of fairy tales. In "Once upon a time," an "o" had a rabbit running it as a treadmill, his feet upon flowers. When the day came years later for me to see the Book of Kells, all the wizardry of letter, initial, and word swept over me a thousand times, and the illumination, the gold, seemed a part of the world's beauty and holiness that had been there from the start.
”
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Eudora Welty
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I wanted to find something of the beauty of myth that we’ve left behind, carry its shreds before us all, so we could acknowledge it, somehow bring it back to life. I wanted to delve back into that world that cradled us when we were young enough to still touch it, when trolls lived under creek bridges, faeries fluttered under mushroom caps, and the Tooth Fairy only came once you were truly sleeping. I wanted to see if enchantment was somehow still there, simply waiting to be reached. When I felt my loss, I realized that if I could do anything in this life, I wanted to travel he world, searching for those who were still awake in that old dreamtime, and listen to their stories – because I had to know that there were grownups out there who still believed that life could be magical.
And in that moment I decided: I am going to find the goddamn faeries.
”
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Signe Pike (Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World)
“
Silence is another element we find in classic fairy tales — girls muted by magic or sworn to silence in order to break enchantment. In "The Wild Swans," a princess is imprisoned by her stepmother, rolled in filth, then banished from home (as her older brothers had been before her). She goes in search of her missing brothers, discovers that they've been turned into swans, whereupon the young girl vows to find a way to break the spell. A mysterious woman comes to her in a dream and tells her what to do: 'Pick the nettles that grow in graveyards, crush and spin them into thread, then weave them into coats and throw them over your brothers' backs.' The nettles burn and blister, yet she never falters: picking, spinning, weaving, working with wounded, crippled hands, determined to save her brothers. All this time she's silent. 'You must not speak,' the dream woman has warned, 'for a single world will be like a knife plunged into your brothers' hearts.'
You must not speak. That's what my stepfather said: don't speak, don't cry, don't tell. That's what my mother said as well, as we sat in hospital waiting rooms -- and I obeyed, as did my brothers. We sat as still and silent as stone while my mother spun false tales to explain each break and bruise and burn. Our family moved just often enough that her stories were fresh and plausible; each new doctor believed her, and chided us children to be more careful. I never contradicted those tales. I wouldn't have dared, or wanted to. They'd send me into foster care. They'd send my young brothers away. And so we sat, and the unspoken truth was as sharp as the point of a knife.
”
”
Terri Windling (Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales)
“
Long ago, when faeries and men still wandered the earth as brothers, the MacLeod chief fell in love with a beautiful faery woman. They had no sooner married and borne a child when she was summoned to return to her people. Husband and wife said a tearful goodbye and parted ways at Fairy Bridge, which you can still visit today. Despite the grieving chief, a celebration was held to honor the birth of the newborn boy, the next great chief of the MacLeods. In all the excitement of the celebration, the baby boy was left in his cradle and the blanket slipped off. In the cold Highland night he began to cry. The baby’s cry tore at his mother, even in another dimension, and so she went to him, wrapping him in her shawl. When the nursemaid arrived, she found the young chief in the arms of his mother, and the faery woman gave her a song she insisted must be sung to the little boy each night. The song became known as “The Dunvegan Cradle Song,” and it has been sung to little chieflings ever since. The shawl, too, she left as a gift: if the clan were ever in dire need, all they would have to do was wave the flag she’d wrapped around her son, and the faery people would come to their aid. Use the gift wisely, she instructed. The magic of the flag will work three times and no more.
As I stood there in Dunvegan Castle, gazing at the Fairy Flag beneath its layers of protective glass, it was hard to imagine the history behind it. The fabric was dated somewhere between the fourth and seventh centuries. The fibers had been analyzed and were believed to be from Syria or Rhodes. Some thought it was part of the robe of an early Christian saint. Others thought it was a part of the war banner for Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, who gave it to the clan as a gift. But there were still others who believed it had come from the shoulders of a beautiful faery maiden. And that faery blood had flowed through the MacLeod family veins ever since. Those people were the MacLeods themselves.
”
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Signe Pike (Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World)
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While the Eternal Feminine in Faust II still appears in personalized form as the Madonna, she works her effects in The Magic Flute as an invisible spiritual power, as music. But this music is the expression of divine love itself, which unites law and freedom, above and below, in the wisdom of the heart and of love. As harmony, it grants humankind divine peace and rules the world as the highest divinity.
From the earliest times, magic and music have stood under the rule of the Archetypal Feminine, which in myth and fairy tale is also the mistress of transformation, intoxication, and enchanting sound. Thus it is quite understandable that it is precisely this feminine principle that bestows the magical instruments. The Orpheus motif of the magical taming of the animal energies through music belongs to her, for as mistress of the animals the Great Goddess rules the world of wild as well as tame creatures. She can transform things and people into animal form, tame the animal, and enchant it because, like music, she is able to make the tame wild and the wild tame with the power of her magic.
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Erich Neumann (The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology)
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The road goes west out of the village, past open pine woods and gallberry flats. An eagle's nest is a ragged cluster of sticks in a tall tree, and one of the eagles is usually black and silver against the sky. The other perches near the nest, hunched and proud, like a griffon. There is no magic here except the eagles. Yet the four miles to the Creek are stirring, like the bleak, portentous beginning of a good tale. The road curves sharply, the vegetation thickens, and around the bend masses into dense hammock. The hammock breaks, is pushed back on either side of the road, and set down in its brooding heart is the orange grove. Any grove or any wood is a fine thing to see. But the magic here, strangely, is not apparent from the road. It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind. By this, an act of faith is committed, through which one accepts blindly the communion cup of beauty. One is now inside the grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. Enchantment lies in different things for each of us. For me, it is in this: to step out of the bright sunlight into the shade of orange trees; to walk under the arched canopy of their jadelike leaves; to see the long aisles of lichened trunks stretch ahead in a geometric rhythm; to feel the mystery of a seclusion that yet has shafts of light striking through it. This is the essence of an ancient and secret magic. It goes back, perhaps, to the fairy tales of childhood, to Hansel and Gretel, to Babes in the Wood, to Alice in Wonderland, to all half-luminous places that pleased the imagination as a child. It may go back still farther, to racial Druid memories, to an atavistic sense of safety and delight in an open forest. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home. An old thread, long tangled, comes straight again.
”
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Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek)
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It has generally been assumed that fairy tales were first created for children and are largely the domain of children. But nothing could be further from the truth.
From the very beginning, thousands of years ago, when tales were told to create communal bonds in face of the inexplicable forces of nature, to the present, when fairy tales are written and told to provide hope in a world seemingly on the brink of catastrophe, mature men and women have been the creators and cultivators of the fairy tale tradition. When introduced to fairy tales, children welcome them mainly because they nurture their great desire for change and independence. On the whole, the literary fairy tale has become an established genre within a process of Western civilization that cuts across all ages. Even though numerous critics and shamans have mystified and misinterpreted the fairy tale because of their spiritual quest for universal archetypes or their need to save the world through therapy, both the oral and the literary forms of the fairy tale are grounded in history: they emanate from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.
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Jack D. Zipes (Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture)
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Fear
My dictionary informs me that the word “fear” comes from the Old English word faer, which is related to the word faerie and means to cast enchantments. Faerie, or fairy, has roots in the word fae or fay, meaning of the Fates, or fate, which in turn is linked to faith, derived from the Latin word meaning to trust…
He appeared, when I fist sumoned him, tall and stooped, big, hooded, and draped in mists and swathes of gray, from pale to almost black. There was a line between him and me. He walked over the line and stood just behind my left shoulder. He’s there now. He stoops and whispers in my ear, “Watch out!” “Don’t trust what you’re hearing,” “Slow down the car down,” “Trust the omens!” He is Fear. He warns me of probable danger, and I listen to him because he is always correct.
Fear is your ally! It is your instinct to survive. Worry is a useless thing, it achieves nothing. Resolution is the key to success.
”
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Lore de Angeles (Witchcraft: Theory and Practice)