Tolkien's Definition of Faërie-Stories Part 1 - The Power of Magic & The Nature of Wonder

The Power of Magic & Grammar!

To start with, I know I’m ‘Johnny Come Lately’ with this essay, as the English are fond of saying, I’ve recently heard this saying to describe Greek Civilization in comparison to that of the Egyptians by an Egyptologist who said so very fondly. Anyways I’m late to the party, and really must reference

Eric Falden

and

Clifford Stumme

for having written superb essays on this topic, doubtless mine won’t be up to the same quality as theirs but I’ll give it a mighty good swing.

To start with everyone knows John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, he’s a man who needs no introduction where Mythic (Fantasy) fiction is concerned. He’s honestly the greatest author in the genre who ever lived, and frankly one of the most charming and inspiring individuals of the 20th century.

His spirited defence of Faërie-stories is one that is really quite remarkable. The first page though is quite dry, with Tolkien setting the stage for an introduction to the linguistic history of the term Faërie or rather Fairy.

It is a nice intro, with Tolkien even throwing in a bit of poetry before getting to the serious business of explaining the psychology and ideas behind the genre he’s helped transform into the finest in existence. The bit that caught my eye not very far into the essay (about page 5 of the version I have), introduces Tolkien’s thoughts on Magic and it is fascinating to say the least.

“Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic—but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician.”

The aforementioned quote shows Tolkien’s positive revulsion towards the scientific, towards magicians and towards the advancement of technology. Everyone knows this and how industrialization was something he was disgusted with, and felt to be a blight upon nature, in the Lord of the Rings we see three lands bent on industrialization; Mordor, Isenguard and the Shire.

Mordor is of course the black-land, Isenguard damages the landscape and wrecks all around the great tower of Saruman, while the Shire is ruined by Saruman who introduces what can only be termed an ‘industrial revolution’ to the Hobbits.

Tolkien is here dividing the Faërie from the Science-Fiction, from the Modern, from all other genres. He is establishing the idea here that what we have is a genre focused around Magic, one which stands at the opposite totem pole so to speak from the advancement of science.

“There is one proviso: if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away. Of this seriousness the medieval Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an admirable example.”

The proviso here is one that establishes that Magic must never be the butt of the joke, in fact it must never be part of the joke. The reason for this is that it lies at the heart of the story, and that to do so would be tear apart one’s own story.

The reason this rings so true especially in the past few decades is that Magic has indeed become the butt of the joke, and Faërie-stories (Fantasy/Mythic) have been subverted. What Tolkien is really advocating against is deconstruction, subversion of Magic.

I’ll explain my reasoning; subversion as a process to undermine and demoralize a people was already a thing back then (goes back centuries), and Tolkien knew the effect of making something beautiful ridiculous. What he was pleading for here was to not subvert, not deconstruct the sacred in Faërie-stories, because once you make fun of, turn Magic into a source of ridicule the Magic will be lost.

He knew this, and this is why he says what he says. Because think about it; how could you take a tale seriously, believe in the risks and the desperation of the hero’s story if you laugh at what lies at the heart of the tale and the world that’s been built up? To laugh at it is to deconstruct the story itself, it is to make the most serious and terrible and wondrous element to the tale something to be ridiculed.

And make no mistake Wonder is on trial in movies and tv shows such as those that have come out recently, as Wonder was what the genre was built upon. Just look not only at Tolkien but his semi-rival Robert E. Howard, with his many myriad tales and Hour of the Dragon, or any of the authors who succeeded them or filmmakers such as Miyazaki. What is the one core, one thing they all aim to do; fill their worlds with Wonder.

And think of the movies of the past fifteen years, have any of them struck as much of a chord with you as those of old? The Wonder has gone out.

In order to understand it as pointed out by Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, some have had to break the thing, and that’s not led to any great wisdom. What it has led to is a lesser grasp of what makes Magic so Magical.

As to the Tale of Gawain and the Green Knight, it is one of the most magical, mystical and beautiful tales of all times. It is an epic story of Gawain’s Quest, and has remained a staple in the Occidental hemisphere for a long time for a reason. In it, the Magic and Wonder of the world in which Gawain inhabits is preserved and respected.

In it humour isn’t used to punch-down at the genre, and this is important as humour in recent years has been directed this way rather than punching upwards.

And that brings us to another matter; you should have some humour in a story, by all means even Tolkien had it. But one thing that he never mocks or sneers at is Magic, and so it should remain because once you go down that route there is no hope to recapture the ‘Magic’ of the story. It’s gone, it is gone like smoke that’s left a building after you opened the windows, it has escaped and cannot be recaptured.

Is this to say that all recent Fantasy stories are bad? Not at all, there’s been a great many that have been wondrous, have been magnificent and deserve much merit. Look at the movie Tangled.

I would argue that it is a supreme example of a recent work that takes the Magic at the heart of the tale seriously, there are gags to be sure but the actual Magic which is to say the youth-giving hair of Rapunzel is never truly mocked. It is braided, the after-effects are jested about, but the hair itself is shown to be a beautiful and amazingly mystical thing.

There is also the recent 2015 video game-remake of King’s Quest, which had about 5 or 6 chapters/parts to it. In there Magic is never jested about, but rather held up on a pedestal but also treated as very dangerous and serious business. It is dangerous because one wrong move with it could lead to one’s destruction.

Starting from Part 2, and moving forward into the latter parts of the tale Magic becomes a rapidly more distressing and disturbing element of the plot. We see it tear father and son apart, see it shatter and tear asunder men’s very beings and more. In this regard while the story like that of Tangled has its butt-monkeys and its figures of ridicule and moments of ridicule, it never dares to mock Magic.

You might think this is taking things too seriously, maybe but one should take one’s genre seriously when writing it. You should take the Romance in let’s say Musashi or Gone with the Wind seriously, you should take the Science of Star Wars, Star Trek and others, just as you should take the Horror within Horror seriously. Same goes for Magic, take it seriously, tackle the Wonder at the heart of the genre with a great deal of thought and you’ll create something magnificent.

This is not to say be utterly humorless, just be careful with what you mock. You want your story to last, so you have to tackle the Wonder and Mystique of Magic with the utmost respect. Because only you can make it real. By that I mean only you can make it real, in the sense of bringing it to life within the imagination of your readers.

“But even if we apply only these vague and ill-defined limits, it becomes plain that many, even the learned in such matters, have used the term “fairy-tale” very carelessly. A glance at those books of recent times that claim to be collections of “fairy-stories” is enough to show that tales about fairies, about the fair family in any of its houses, or even about dwarfs and goblins, are only a small part of their content.”

Here what Tolkien is doing is doing is establishing that a great many use the term fairy-tale very loosely to describe the genre. He is tackling how a great many authors might pigeon-hole their stories into a genre, and say, ‘tadah! it is a fairy-story/fantasy!’ and this is genuinely a problem.

Because if everything is Fantasy, then nothing is.

This might just be a meme but it applies here; once everything from Sci-Fi, to Horror, to Romance becomes Fantasy there is no Fantasy.

The genre survives on ‘tales about fairies, about the fair family in any of its houses, or even about dwarfs and goblins, are only a small part of their content.’ This lies at the heart of the story, sure you can combine elements of this or that to the tale (I’m not the rule-maker do what you want), but at what point does constantly adding stuff start to remove from it?

You can and should be allowed to depict let’s say giant robots managed by mutants. But if there’s no world-building, no fairy-tale elements and no Magic, is it even Fantasy anymore? Probably not.

I know it isn’t popular to say, but it must be said. Faërie-Stories are a different genre from the others, each one is unique and offers a different experience and they should. They all have something that gives them wonder and that inspire awe and admiration in their readers, but the Faërie element is very particular to this genre, which has goblins, and dwarves and strange fair families as Tolkien points out.

It is one of the strange peculiarities of the genre, is his point that it relies upon and is in many ways not detached from the early Faërie-tales of Brothers Grimm, Perrault, and so many others who collected them and passed them down in anthological fashion.

“But these books also contain many tales that do not use, do not even touch upon, Faerie at all; that have in fact no business to be included.”

Tolkien is stating that there’s a great many stories ought not to be included when saying what is Fairy-tale and what isn’t. Too many stories have been lumped in that have no business being lumped in with the rest.

“I will give one or two examples of the expurgations I would perform. This will assist the negative side of definition. It will also be found to lead on to the second question: what are the origins of fairy-stories?The number of collections of fairy-stories is now very great. In English none probably rival either the popularity, or the inclusiveness, or the general merits of the twelve books of twelve colours which we owe to Andrew Lang and to his wife. The first of these appeared more than seventy years ago (1889), and is still in print. Most of its contents pass the test, more or less clearly. I will not analyse them, though an analysis might be interesting, but I note in passing that of the
stories in this Blue Fairy Book none are primarily about “fairies,” few refer to them. Most of the tales are taken from French sources: a just choice in some ways at that time, as perhaps it would be still (though not to my taste, now or in childhood). At any rate, so powerful has been the influence of Charles Perrault, since his Contes de ma Mère l'Oye were first Englished in the eighteenth century, and of such other excerpts from the vast storehouse of the Cabinet des Fées as have become well known, that still, I suppose, if you asked a man to name at random a typical “fairy-story,” he would be most likely to name one of these French things: such as Pussin-Boots, Cinderella, or Little Red Riding Hood. With some people Grimm's Fairy Tales might come first to mind.”

Here Tolkien lays down the whole of the history of Fairy-stories from the earliest beginnings of collecting them into large anthologies, to the more recent ones. He then goes on to comment at some length about pygmies, and then into the development of one theory regarding the ‘ylfe’ or ‘elf’ wherein they were believed to have sprung from Cain.

Tolkien’s evidently not sure about this one, and it is an interesting notion. He comments that the greatest thing about Fairy-stories is the distance, this is where the real magic can be found. It is in the distance from them, as they tend to grow in magnificence and wonder with the retelling.

“The magic of Faerie is not an end in itself, its virtue is in its operations: among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires. One of these desires is to survey the depths of space and time. Another is (as will be seen) to hold communion with other living things. A story may thus deal with the satisfaction of these desires, with or without the operation of either machine or magic, and in proportion as it succeeds it will approach the quality and have the flavour of fairy-story.”

Here we get a real interesting exploration of what the genre and Magic means to him; first off he acknowledges that they are primordial tales. They ought to be archetypal, magical, and mystical in ways many to-day could not possibly fathom.

The next major point is the idea of surveying the depths of space and time, which is to say to build a world all on its own, one that is apart from this one. For the readers it means to escape from this one, into one of Magic and Wonder, while for the Writer it is an intellectual exercise that involves sub-creation of an entire pantheon of existence that must awe the reader.

What is more is that if one does not create a ‘Secondary World’ what one is doing is interacting with space and time in our own world and tweaking it, which is itself a fascinating thought-exercise and one that is quite remarkable.

As to interacting with living things, or holding communion with them, this means to speak to the soul. It means also to be in communion with the soul of the readers, as reading as we all know is a very spiritual thing. In this way what Tolkien speaks to doing here is holding communion with them and being respectful of them.

He is also talking about how one is interacting with very old energies when writing or reading fantasy, like it or not there are ancient spiritual forces in this world and the Fairy-genre is one that is somehow connected to them. It is a strange connection and one that Tolkien likely believed ought to be treated with respect and that to commune with irreverently was unwise.

“A story may thus deal with the satisfaction of these desires, with or without the operation of either machine or magic, and in proportion as it succeeds it will approach the quality and have the flavour of fairy-story.”

I only reiterate this quote to bring it up fresh in everyone’s minds. It is one that is frankly quite intriguing. It expresses that it is possible to interact with the ancient forces of the world, it is possible to write stories with the ‘flavour of fairy-story’ which is to say that captures the tone, elements and ideas of fairy-stories without the Fantasy genre.

This is perfectly true, as there is a ‘Magic’ and ‘Wonder’ and such to say Star Wars, How I Met Your Mother and many others. For Star Wars let us examine how mystical and magical the Force is, and how there are Fairy-elements to it, as it is very much an enchanted universe, this much cannot be denied (it’s one of the best parts of that universe), so that it tapped similar sources as the Fairy-Story for its universe.

HIMYM is another case where there is a Fairy-element. What I like about that universe so much is how ‘Enchanted’ it is. It might be modern but there’s something at work within the story, there is a sense of destiny and the idea of ‘once upon a time’ with Ted Mosby as he goes through many hardships, developing as a human being and dealing with very peculiar ‘coincidences’ to arrive before Tracy and sweep her off her feet. What Star Wars in a way did cinematically for Science-Fiction, HIMYM did for serialized tv Romance series.

There is also in terms of Horror plenty of examples also, as Horror in a way is derived from the darker aspect of Fairy-stories, with the world of the Wolfman from the 1940s or even those of the Hammer horror movies feeling very much like darker Fairy-Stories. They are very real and visceral in how they feel, and yet there’s a brilliance, a splendour and a glory, and a sense of the ‘once upon a time’ also. The idea of being warned off from entering the ‘Beast’s Castle’ feels real in those stories, and happens in a number of them which only adds to the ‘fairy-flavour’ of those stories.

Every genre can and should be able to tap the elements of Fantasy/Fairy-Stories, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they suddenly magically become Fairy-Stories. Simply because a story is set in Medieval England and has similar tropes doesn’t make it automatically a Fantasy tale, just as a Detective story might have a coming-of-age element with a grea deal of wonder is not Fantasy.

This doesn’t make them lesser, just different and it is part of the joy of having so many different genres to choose from. Each one is unique, each one beautiful, it is quite like staring into a lovely winter-wonderland and seeing different kinds of trees or different trees handle the weight of the snow differently from each other.

I hope I accurately conveyed my thoughts on this one and did a good job summarizing this fascinating essay, and having fun with it. The next time I tackle this topic, it’ll be to tackle the Dream element and the element of ‘Truth’ in the genre that seems to have intrigued Tolkien as there’s some interesting bits there to chew on (hopefully next week).

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