Fairy tales are wonderful things.  Stories that have long stood the test of time and are often retold for new audiences in many different ways.  They are stories that are passed from generation to generation, rooted in moral authority and epiphany.  The Cinderellas and Little Mermaids and Hansel and Gretels of the world come themselves with a story at their core, a lesson of life to learn.

“Don’t trust strangers.”

“Honesty will always win through in the end.”

“Never sacrifice yourself for the one you love.”

More importantly, they come with that one moral that we all forget: “Believe.  Whatever you believe in, whether it’s fairies, goblins, evil queens, dwarves, mermaids, anything.  Just believe, and believe simply because you can.”

The art of storytelling has been around for probably as long as the art of speech.  Describing events of the day around the fires of old transformed into the telling of fables and tall tales, which themselves evolved into the stories of morality and reason that we know today.  But they were always rooted in something somewhat relatable and often came from events that had happened at some point in the long ago.

In their own way, most any story can be a “fairy tale”.    It is only once the story has been preserved in a written or printed form that it becomes known as a literary fairy tale and they can become as renowned as the stories of The Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson.  But the stories you tell are still fairy tales.

The stories that your parents tell you are fairy tales.  Even ones they make up on the spot.  These stories often shape our childhood.  Imagine: you are five years old, laying in your bed and your father tells you a story, your favourite story.  He tells you of a distant land with a princess and a prince, battling against the force of evil, the overcoming of such torment and tragedy with hope and adversity, and sometimes with the help of a woodsman who just conveniently happens to be passing by.  The battle of good versus evil is a classic hallmark of the fairy tale, and the story your father is telling you is no different.  It’s your favourite fairy tale.  You know it’s only a story, you know it is made up, but you sometimes wonder how it came to be.  You know that it’s not real, but you wish it were.  You recognise that it’s nothing more than a fairy tale.  And you know it’s a fairy tale because they all start at the exact same point in history.

They all start “Once upon a time …”