The really good happy ever after stories all contain a lesson or a moral. In general all the popular fairy tales are aimed at girls. At the center of these stories the message is loud and clear – You are a princess and if you only believe in true love your prince charming will come.
I always saw their origins as starting around a camp fire, some old gypsy grandmother telling the wee children a story of magical adventure, of dragons and witches and princes and damsels in distress. The story would entertain the little ones, but just at the edge of the fire light some older girl, probably in her mid teens just in ear shot is hearing the wisdom of the story. Maybe the details are being carefully reshaped to connect in some way with the troubles in her life.
Trouble with controlling maternal figures, longing for the boy of your dreams, worries about your future, wishes that time would stop or simply continue without you; all these plots are investigated in the fairy tales we all know. Each story carries a truth.
Sleeping Beauty shows that no matter how long it takes true love will set you free. In Cinderella we find that no matter how bad things are it could always be worse, and in case you think things can't get better even Cinderella got to go to the ball. Snow White teaches you can count on your friends and that jealousy and envy can make you do wicked things. In the story of Rapunzel the damsel in distress, locked away from the world, finally finds an escape through a man willing to go to extraordinary lengths to be with her.
In short each of our princesses needs to learn patience. As Diana Ross tells us “you can't hurry love” There are other lessons to teach after all the Big Bad Wolf is still out there threatening to gobble up Red Riding hood, though these days it is less likely to be an actual canine in the woods.
All these stories are as important today as ever they were. The Disney studios have taken on the mantle of the fireside storyteller in today's world. Thanks to the Brothers Grimm we have a rich heritage of fantasy and adventure to draw lessons from. Think how attitudes might change if the meanings behind the fairy tales were made more apparent.
Children need to hear the stories but they also need to recognise the lessons.
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