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From the category archives:

Fairy Tales

Fairy Tale Artwork

by Travis Prinzi on April 10, 2009


Grimm and Other Folk Tales from Cory Godbey on Vimeo.

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Escape into the Perilous Realm

by Travis Prinzi on February 16, 2009

“I don’t want to analyze a story. I don’t want to find hidden meaning. I just want to escape from the real world for a bit.”

I’m guessing you’ve either heard some variation of those words or said them yourself. Books are for “escaping.” Stories are for entertainment value. A page-turner is all we want – something that will help us to “veg out,” to leave the day behind.

I can’t begrudge someone entertainment. I like entertainment. I watch a few TV shows just for the mindlessness, and I watch others because they make me think. But a line often gets crossed in this type of thinking, which goes something like this: “It’s silly to think J.K. Rowling wrote the whole Harry Potter series on an alchemical framework, utilizing symbols and themes that are meant to transform one’s vision. She was just writing fun, entertaining books.” [click to continue…]

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Monday Magical Musings: Children Only?

by Travis Prinzi on January 26, 2009

Discuss:

“The artist…must retain the vision which includes angels and dragons and unicorns and all the lovely creatures which our world put in a box and marked Children Only. ~ Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

  • Why are supernatural beings considered kids’ stuff?
  • What benefit does the adult derive from these “lovely creatures”?
  • What do you say to people who think you’re nuts for liking “kids’ stories”?
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Theories and Stories

January 4, 2009

Warning: The following contains an unpopular theological belief. I don’t want to get into a big theological debate here, so please keep the discussion to Kreeft’s thesis and not his example.
Peter Kreeft:
“Theories lie more readily than stories. That is why our psychologists tell us we are good but our novelists tell us we are [...]

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Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien

January 3, 2009

Today is J.R.R. Tolkien’s 117th birthday.  Since the theme here has been fairy tales lately, here are a couple of Tolkien quotes that get to the heart of it.
On Myth:
“History often resembles myth, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.”   ~ “On Fairy-Stories”
On Eucatastrophe:
Endings of this sort suit fairy-stories, because such tales have [...]

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E. Nesbit and G.K. Chesterton on Fairy Tales

January 3, 2009

“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true – such things, for instance, as that the earth goes around the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, [...]

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E. Nesbit and Xenophilius Lovegood

January 2, 2009

Discuss:
The Enchanted Castle, by Edith Nesbit, from chapter 1:
“It is an enchanted castle,” said Kathleen.
“I don’t see any castle,” said Jimmy.
“What do you call that, then?” Gerald pointed to where, beyond a belt of lime-trees, white towers and turrets broke the the blue of the sky.
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone about,” said Kathleen, “and [...]

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Imagination as “Third Characteristic” of Humanity

December 26, 2008

In between the strict rationalism of the scientific fatalist and the elusive, esoteric musings of gnostic spiritualism, and as a necessary alternative to both, is “Myth.” Clyde S. Kilby writes,
We intellectualize in order to know, but paradoxically, intellectualization tends to destroy its object. The harder we grasp at the thing, the more its reality moves [...]

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Harry Potter, Christmas, and “Mythic Space”

December 23, 2008

I’ve argued before, as well as in my book, that never does a Christmas go by in a Harry Potter book without some significant plot developments.  You can read a bare-bones version of Christmas at Hogwarts here and get a bit more detail in Harry Potter & Imagination.  What I want to address in this [...]

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Hog’s Head PubCast #63: Faerie Christmas

December 23, 2008

Christmas and fairy tales; the magic of wonder; an excerpt from Harry Potter & Imagination
You can subscribe to the Hog’s Head PubCast through iTunes, or Odeo.  Nice reviews are greatly appreciated!
Pub Menu

Andrew Peterson: Behold the Lamb of God
Tony Woodlief: “OK, Virginia, There’s No Santa Claus. But There Is God.”
Order Harry Potter & Imagination
Christmas at Hogwarts
Hogwarts Radio

 
icon for podpress  Hog's Head PubCast #63: Faerie Christmas [26:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Happy Birthday, George MacDonald!

December 10, 2008

Today is George MacDonald’s 184th birthday. Since fairy tales has been the topic of conversation here of late, I’ll let him speak on the matter. These words will be familiar to some – indeed, they’ve been discussed here before – and new to others. In either instance, they are worth our careful consideration.
“You write as [...]

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Beedle was a Gothic Calvinist

December 10, 2008

“The Warlock’s Hairy Heart.”  Now that’s one freaky story.  The heart of a man who does not want to love is locked away, and over time, loses its humanity and because the heart of a beast.  
The darker elements of fairy stories are the things that Mrs. Bloxam and the Nice People don’t think children [...]

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Beedle the Bard: “The Tale of the Three Brothers”

December 4, 2008

Here’s the great irony of Dumbledore’s commentary on “The Tale of the Three Brothers” – The man who knows the dangers of temptation to power, particularly the temptation of deathlessness, used his authority as a well-respected, even revered, member of the Wizarding community to convince the Wizarding World that the three Deathly Hallows have no [...]

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Beedle the Bard: “Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump”

December 4, 2008

What a fantastic little story! Aside from being a delight to read, there’s some interesting commentary by Dumbledore, who notes that this is the only story of the five that almost completely plays by the rules of real Wizarding World magic.
It’s an interesting observation, because even though the magical world is not, as I’ve argued, [...]

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Beedle the Bard: “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart”

December 4, 2008

This story, the most gruesome of Beedle’s tales, draws a little bit more directly from a tradition Rowling has already pulled from for the creation of Horcruxes: the magical ability to remove one’s heart and keep it in a safe place. As Colin Duriez notes in A Field Guide to Harry Potter and I expound [...]

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Del Toro on Fantasy and Religion

August 4, 2008

by Travis
From a USA Today article on Del Toro:
“I’m interested in monsters because, much like archangels and angels, they represent a portion of the human soul.”
“In adult movies, R-rated movies, monsters can signify many different things,” says del Toro. “But in the (PG-13) Hellboy mythology, they symbolize our imperfections and how we can embrace them. [...]

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Hog’s Head PubCast #57: Beedle the Bard

August 3, 2008

Tales of Beedle the Bard; why fairy tales matter; Half-Blood Prince trailer; site business
You can subscribe to the Hog’s Head PubCast through iTunes, or Odeo, and VOTE for The Hog’s Head for the month of August (NEW MONTH!) at Podcast Alley.
Pub Menu

Pre-order The Tales of Beedle the Bard
G.K. Chesterton: “The Ethics of Elfland”  (Chesterton at The Hog’s Head Bookstore)
Half-Blood [...]

 
icon for podpress  Hog's Head PubCast #57: Beedle the Bard [16:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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