#47: The Fairy Wand

This is no ordinary fairy wand. It isn’t simply something that looks pretty, that you can hold when you dress up as a fairy. It also makes the noise of a fairy spell, a high-pitched

‘Ping!’

In fact, in googling this wand to try and find out more about it, I found that it is actually a music wand. I’ve had it since I was little, so I don’t remember where it came from, but for my childhood fantasy world, it made a fabulous, magical-sounding fairy wand, and that’s what was important.

Last weekend we had a 21st birthday party for one of my housemates. The theme? Fairytale and nursery rhyme, the theme of all mature 21st parties. Guests included Tinkerbell, Snow White, Prince Eric (from The Little Mermaid), and a number of other princesses and fairies. Everything was either white or pink, with glitter, and we even had a princess cake and a gingerbread house.

This is the fantasy land of modern fairytales. The Disney version, not the Grimm version; a world full of fun, romance, beauty, and happy endings. It is the definition of ‘fairytale’:

‘Something resembling a fairy story in being magical, idealized, or extremely happy.’

I would take the ‘or’ out of that definition and replace it with ‘and’, because a fairytale is nothing but an exaggeration of all those features.

Yet there is a second definition, one that hints of the darker world behind all fairytales:

‘A fabricated story, especially one intended to deceive.’

This is what fairytales are. They are stories of deception, of make-believe and a totally imaginary world. The use of ‘deception’ has more sinister connotations that don’t sit well in the modern, fairytale world. And what is it that makes a fabricated story into such a negative thing? This second definition can encompass all fictional stories, not just those of the fairytale.

However, we are never truly deceived, and that is the power of fiction. As we read a book or watch a movie, we are both engrossed in the fairytale world, believing every word, while simultaneously aware that it is make-believe. One of the great powers of being human is to believe in two seemingly opposed things at once. We are creatures of fantasy, believing in multiple worlds. We repeat the famous Disney quote:

‘All you need is faith, trust, and pixie dust.’

Yet that doesn’t mean that we truly believe in a real version of pixie dust. We believe in the make-believe, in the power of a magical feeling of fiction. Fictional stories have survived so long for a reason. We are not totally practical in our lives. Humans are emotional beings, affected by the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ equally. How many times have you cried at the death of a fictional character? There is something magical when we enter that world, either to dress up as our favourite characters, or to read a book or watch one of the many Disney films. Yet we always know that this is make-believe: we are not truly deceived. Instead, fiction provides us with a way to carry that little bit of magic with us.

It may seem sentimental, but we all have a little sentimentality in us. As Disney honestly put it,

‘All right. I’m corny. But I think there’s just about a-hundred-and-forty-million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.’

Because even though we know we won’t lose sight of reality and of our responsibilities, we know that we are one of the ‘a-hundred-and-forty-million’.