Episode 7.5: Fairy Stories, Folklore, and the Fantastic

In the last post, we discussed Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." In this episode, we'll be focusing on quotes and discussion of “On Fairy Stories”.

"On Fairy Stories" is an essay version of a lecture Tolkien gave in March 1939 as a public dis to the work of famous and influential folklorist, Andrew Lang, about two years after the publication of The Hobbit. It’s really not germane to the topic at hand, but it’s interesting to note that Tolkien went to give this lecture at the Andrew Lang lecture series at the University of Saint Andrews, named for the guy he repeatedly drags throughout the lecture/essay.

For the kids, Tolkien is Kendrick. Lang is Drake. No one is a nonce.

And, to be clear, I don’t think Tolkien was just being a jerk. I think he was so invested in the nature of fairy stories, so interested in the nature of folk tales and high romances, that he couldn’t let a misunderstanding of the nature of the material go by without challenging it. In public. At a celebration of the dude he’s criticizing. 

Also, I want to mention that, while “On Fairy Stories” is now (relatively) well-known, it wasn’t so much at the time. Tolkien gave the lecture in 1939: the enhanced essay version saw print in 1947. However, it wasn’t until a reprint in 1964 that the essay gained much traction outside of the very narrow confines of fantasy-inclined academics.

Therefore, we aren’t looking at “On Fairy Stories” to see what influence it had on fantasy authors directly because it didn't. Except, maybe the Inklings or authors much later in the 20th century. I don’t think, for example, that upcoming authors like Fritz Lieber or Leigh Brackett specifically read “On Fairy Stories” and took specific inspiration or direction from it. The influence was indirect, through Tolkien’s own fiction, especially The Lord of the Rings. While the influence was indirect, the essay does provide the most direct and interesting insight into the mind of the author that, more than any other, moves the genre from high romance to high fantasy. From the roots of the genre to the trunk and the branches.

Also, On Fairy Stories is one of the reasons I haven’t focused overly much on the biographies of the authors we’ve covered. Often, histories of art – like music, theater, etc. – will focus on the lives of the performers and artists. While I’ve tried to provide enough context to give folks an idea of who these authors were – and, by necessity, women and writers of color are going to get slightly more attention to their backgrounds – as Tolkien says, biographical reading can be reductive. It interferes with reading the stories as stories.

Knowledge about the author’s life can provide insight into certain aspects of these writings, but the story needs to be read as a story. We should endeavor to understand these stories on their own terms, each as its own secondary creation. And, in a history of fantasy literature, the more interesting aspects of the genre are the stories. I’m only trying to provide as much biographical info as is necessary for context, and part of the reason I’m focusing on texts from specific authors, rather than the authors themselves, is because of some of Tolkien’s ideas from "On Fairy Stories".

Let’s get to the quotes!

“I propose to speak about fairy-stories.”

1939/1947 and we’re still not the “fantasy” genre. Yet. We’re getting there. Tolkien repeatedly talks about “fantasy” as an exercise, as a descriptor of what’s in fairy stories, but, importantly, not about “fantasy” as a genre.

“What is a fairy-story?”            

Tolkien in full professor mode. Or full “undergraduate on Sunday night” mode. The grandmaster himself looks to the definition of “fairy tale” in the Oxford English Dictionary. This only represents an acceptable way to start this kind of essay when you’re the one who wrote large chunks of said dictionary. Anyway, Tolkien takes issue with the OED definition of “fairy tale”, all the extant multiple definitions really, and provides his own…eventually. Along the way, he takes swipes at Shakespeare and the “rationalization” of Elfland and fairies, something that puts him on the same side as Miralees, who’s Elfland is specifically irrational and constantly mutable.

“It seems to become fashionable soon after the great voyages had begun to make the world seem too narrow to hold both men and elves.”

Tolkien attributes the change in the assumed nature of fairies – from humanoid creatures more like his high elves to diminutive tricksters – to the great voyages of discovery, or, as we would now more accurately describe it, the colonization of vast territory followed by the exploitation and enslavement of millions of people.

Throughout this project, I’ve attributed a lot of aspects of the developing fantasy genre to the rise of capital-M Modernism, either as a rejection of its conventions or as an alternative to its fixations. I think Tolkien may be on to something here, pushing this timeline back a bit, closer to its ultimate foundation.

However, I think this is also a product of Tolkien’s literary and academic biases. He’s analyzing and discussing the popular conception of fairies and the supernatural in literature and popular culture – particularly much of the Victorian Children’s literature. Meanwhile, he is giving ignoring the folk-nature of many fairy stories.

Meaning, I think there may be a major break in literary depictions of fairy creatures for a variety of reasons – including Shakespeare’s Puck and Oberon – but there was probably always a strain of Fairy and Elfland inhabitants that were less sophisticated, high-elvish, and terrifyingly Other than Tolkien focuses on here. The King of Elfland's Daughter is a good example, combining Elfland kings and princesses, with tiny Elfland trolls, who are written more diminutive and mischievous. Irish mythology is replete with dozens of different types of fairy and otherworldly creatures, some more or less dangerous, alluring, etc.

Remember to that Tolkien’s essay was originally a lecture taking issue with the depiction of elves and fairy creatures by a folklorist, Andrew Lang. I think Tolkien has excellent points about the literary depiction of fairy creatures in works like Shakespeare and children’s literature, but I also think he is approaching the subject from a more mythological and epic tradition, where the supernatural is used in a symbolic, literary fashion, rather than the more folk traditions as seen in the Grimm brothers, for example. There is something of an elite vs. commons approach to some of this, I think. We’ll come back around to discuss this in LOTR and a little in The Hobbit, where the focus is almost entirely on the great and good, even in a place as humble as the Shire.

In any case, Tolkien eventually settles on a definition of the “fairy story”. What is that definition? Let’s go to another quote.

“Fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about FAIRY, that is Faerie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being.”

What’s Tolkien’s eventual definition? Fairy stories are defined by the inclusion of the “otherworld”, the secondary world.

Let’s look at another quote from OFS.

“The definition of fairy story – what it is, or what it should be – does not then depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faerie: the Perilous Realm itself.”

Fairy stories are about setting. Another quote.

“Most good “fairy-stories” are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches.”

Ok, I’m harping on this point, but I think it’s important. Fairy stories, fantasy tales, these stories take place, in whole or in part, somewhere else. “Faerie” or “The Shadowy Realm” or the “Otherworld” or Neverland or Oz or the Nevernever or whatever. Some place where the rules of our world, the mundane world, do not apply.

This throws back all the way to Tarzan and why I thought it was worthwhile (and logical) to include that story in a podcast about the history of fantasy. It’s not just because lots of authors would have read Tarzan. It’s because his setting – “darkest Africa” – for all its colonialism and inherent racism, is exactly what Tolkien is talking about here. It’s “the Perilous Realm” where the “heroes” go, and the rules aren’t the same as those in the fields we know. Even if the setting is Earth, our world, even our time, its still Faerie.

We’ve seen lots of secondary worlds already – the River of The Wind in the Willows, Oz, Arcturus – but this is the real foundation of the genre’s obsession with secondary worlds and, as we’ve discussed before, portal fantasy. Fairy stories, fantasy literature, are a vibe. Tolkien is almost channeling Justice Potter Stewart here, the old “I know it when I see it” definition. Another quote:

Faerie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible.

We know it, but we can’t define it. Tolkien takes this approach throughout his essay, mostly arguing what fantasy is not. Fantasy/fairy stories aren't traveler’s tales, dream stories, or beast fables (poor Aesop). Fantasy is, however, the excursion into the unknown, the uncanny, and the perilous.

And this is where I’m going to break my own rule and talk a little about Tolkien’s biography, but also the general cultural milieu during the interwar period. Tolkien’s work – particularly the more adult LOTR and The Silmarillion – are profoundly concerned with loss. With fading. Even in The Hobbit, Bilbo loses his respectability and constantly wanders around the ruins of the past. It’s both a reflection of Tolkien’s idea of the divine – the fall from grace, from Eden – and because Tolkien, along with most people of his post-WWI generation, were profoundly traumatized.

We talked a little in the first few episodes about how it can be important to remember that these are 20th century stories, often written by 19th century people. Many of these authors grew up during the Second Industrial Revolution. At a time of democratization, nation-building, and the mechanization of everything from agriculture to warfare. And then, their heroic ideals and noblesse oblige ran smack into barbed wire, artillery, airplanes, and machine guns.

Later in On Fairy Stories, Tolkien talks at length about the benefits (and artistic merit) of fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. If this was a standard essay about "On Fairy Stories", I would probably spend most of my time and quotes talking about how Tolkien defines and defends those terms. But here, I just want to point out what emotions Tolkien is addressing:

• Fantasy: it’s ok to imagine a different world.

• Recovery: it’s ok to create something to help you heal.

• Escape: It’s ok to want to leave the “real world”, even if just for a little while. You can learn things in Faerie.

• Consolation: Somethings can’t be healed or escaped, you can only hope for:

"A sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to reoccur.”

Frodo going to the West. Your happy ending, your eucatastrophe, even if always tinged with loss.

Finally, a quote:

In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is…as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic.

Long story somewhat short, this is a description, a conception of fantasy literature by someone who is profoundly traumatized and searching for a way to process it. Tolkien does so by using myth and fable and folklore and romances to create a secondary world where he – and tens of millions of others like him – can process their trauma. Later authors are going to borrow settings and plots and even characters from Tolkien, but, I think, they are often going to miss that Middle-Earth was Faerie. Middle-Earth was a place Tolkien used to process profound trauma and contemplate big questions. Later fantasy authors are frequently going to nick the sets and ignore the stage.

Presented without comment.

Hard to move on from that, but I want to pick up a couple of other issues before we close out for the day. I am, by necessity, skipping over quite a bit of On Fairy Stories. Like, Tolkien’s ideas about children, the origins of fairy stories, and why it’s hard to stage plays with fantastic elements. Tolkien has THOUGHTS.

But before we leave, I want to address one last concept: sub-creation. Sub-creation is incredibly important to Tolkien. In the last section of "On Fairy Stories" entitled “Epilogue”, Tolkien directly ties the creation of fantasy and fairy stories to the Christian mythos of the incarnation and the eucatastrophe of the resurrection. Just in case you were wondering if Tolkien really was a serious Catholic.

But the reason I bring this up is that Tolkien believes that the sub-creative art, the writing of fantasy and fairy stories – and, by extension, other forms of creative endeavor, one assumes – is linked to this larger creation narrative. Another quote:

“But in such “fantasy,” as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes sub-creator.”

Fantastical authors are experiencing, in some small way, not just the divine but also the most important aspect of the divine, creation. They are creating, just like God does, and you can experience:

“A dream that some other mind is weaving.”

Not only is fantasy writing not just for kids. Not only is it not purely escapism, not that escapism is bad. Not only is fantasy a vehicle for healing and consolation. It is also a reflection of the power of capital-G, GOD.

I think that’s a good spot to end on. While the American pulps were hoping for whatever literary table scraps anyone was willing to throw them, Tolkien was literally comparing his writing to the work of the first mover unmoved, the first changer unchanged. You gotta give Tolkien credit for taking what is, admittedly, a pretty vacuous argument about high art versus low art and responding with “In creating a fantastical secondary world, I am literally imitating the Almighty. What do you got?”

For the next episode, we’ll be back to discussing books and covering Tolkien’s The Hobbit, where he weaves Victorian children’s literature into high romance, and also Evangeline Walton’s The Virgin and the Swine, a retelling of the Welsh Mabinogion. In The Virgin and the Swine (aka The Island of the Mighty, but I prefer the original title) we’ll look at a book that is explicitly trying to retell an ancient mythology rather than use elements of it to create an original Secondary World. Join us next time here at Something About Dragons.