Once Upon a Winter's Night

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I don’t remember when I heard my first fairy tale or even what it was. It could have been Hansel and Gretel, for I did act the part of Hansel in a school play when I was but six.

Nor do I recall when I actually read my first fairy tale, though I do remember checking out fairy-tale books from the library when I was nine or so. I read through the full spectrum of the Andrew-Lang-edited fairy-tale books, and I do mean “spectrum,” for the books were called The Crimson Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, and on through Orange, Yellow, Olive, Green, Lilac, Blue, Violet, Grey, and Brown: i.e., the spectrum.

I loved those books, for, just as a Captain Future Quarterly had launched me into science fiction, these launched me into fantasy.

But, you know, it is my contention that many of the old fairy stories were severely shortened as the number of bards dwindled, and the people who were left to remember and pass on the tales simply didn’t have the oratory skills to tell stories of epic scope. Too, we also know they were altered to help promote different religions from those in the societies where told, hence they were shortened merely to get the point across.

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