For a bit of a change, here's a fairy tale I once wrote. I'm not a big fan of popular fairy tales; children are obviously able to cope with the more glaring untruths they contain, but are probably influenced by the more subtle lies which are hinted at. For example, fairy tales often suggest that people can be neatly divided into two categories, the good and the bad, and that social class, nationality and physical appearance are good ways to tell who is in which category. An idea which often filters down into later life is magical thinking, including the idea that, when you believe something strongly enough, it will happen. This is true to a certain extent of things within our own heads, so I decided to stick to that context. Here is the story:
Once upon a time, in a very familiar place where the sky was almost always blue, there lived a strong and handsome prince. He lived in a grand castle on a hill with a dense forest all around. He was not only strong and handsome, but he was also courageous. Once, he had climbed all the way to the top of the highest tree in the land. He had opened his eyes, looked around, and seen his very own castle below him. He had thought how much like a ribbon the road that ran from his door looked as it wound into the distance. He had been astonished by how far away the forest went in all directions, and especially downwards. And he had hardly even been scared a bit.
But although he was so strong, and so brave, and so handsome, and he owned a grand castle and was prince of the whole land, he was still very sad. Every day he would look around at all the things that he had, and would say: 'I would be happier without all of these things if only I had somebody else to talk to'. For, you see, he was the only living person in the whole of the land. The only face he saw was his own, reflected in the gleaming treasure that filled his rooms. The reason for this was that the prince was a character in a story, and that the person who had written the story did not have enough imagination to think of anybody else at all to put in the story with him.
One day, the prince was feeling very sad indeed. He thought to himself 'Maybe, if I was more sure of how strong and how brave I am, I would be happier'. So he decided that he would not only climb to the top of the tallest tree in all the land, but that he would hang from the highest branch by only one hand. But when he had climbed all the way to the top, and was hanging there by one hand, he was still sad. He said to himself 'I would be happier even if I was not so strong and so brave as I am, if I just had somebody I could be friends with'.
Just as he had finished saying this, he noticed that there was a small cloud of dust above the road in the far distance. He had never seen such a thing before, so he climbed down out of the tree as fast as he could, and ran along the road to see what it could be. After he had been running for almost an hour, he saw what the cloud was. It was dust being kicked up by the hooves of a mighty horse. Riding on that horse was a knight in armour that shone as brightly as the brightest of his treasures, and the knight was holding a small teddy bear.
The knight got off the horse, and said 'Hi. Who are you?'. Now the prince did not think that this was a very respectful way to address the prince of so large a kingdom, but he did very much want to talk. So he said 'I am the prince of this land and of all the surrounding country, from the sea to the great river. Before addressing such a great person, you should remove your helmet and grovel.' The knight took off her helmet, and said 'What's a grovel?' But the sight of her face left the prince too surprised to reply; she was just a little girl.
'I'm Anne. What's your name?' said the little girl. The prince thought about this for a while, and eventually gave up. He did not have a name. This upset him, for he thought that he really ought to have such a simple thing as a name. When she saw how sad he was, and he told her that he did not have a name, Anne decided that she would give him one. Now, she had named something before with only a little bit of help, and she decided to do just the same again. So she said 'I shall call you Spot'.
The prince was delighted with his new name, and was thrilled to have Anne to talk to. They talked for what seemed like days. He told her all about his castle and his treasure and his forest, and she told him about her house and her family and her dog. He wanted to know how she had come to be in his forest, and she explained that she had been listening to a story about a handsome prince and had begun to drift towards sleep, and had been dreaming about riding through the forest when she met him.
But she explained that soon she would have to go because every morning she had to go to school. This made the prince very sad, for he knew that without her he would soon become lonely again. When Anne heard this, she felt sorry for the lonely prince, and thought seriously about what she could do to help him. Soon, she had an idea. She said to the prince 'You can come and live in my imagination.' The prince was not sure how to get into her imagination, and asked what he ought to do. 'I'll imagine you, silly!' said Anne, and closed her eyes.
She imagined the prince just as hard as she could and soon he found himself in her imagination, which was a busy, exciting place, full of interesting people. There was McDougall, the only dinosour who had stayed behind when the others had left for Saturn in their spaceship (because, you see, he was terribly afraid of heights). There was a fat man in a big red coat trimmed with white fur. Usually he was very jolly, but at the moment he was not; he was suffering from a strange disease called 'existential angst'. He gave the prince a bottle of a dark fizzy liquid called 'the real thing'. There was Anne's imaginary friend Bill, who somehow managed to get people to blame Anne for all the naughty things he did. And there were hundreds of others. With so much company, the prince was very happy.
Now as the years went by, and Anne grew up, she began to thing more and more about the sorts of things that adults worry about, like spelling and tea. Indeed, if you spoke to her, you would probably not be able to find out about the prince. But every night she would fall asleep and the fat man and McDougall the dinosaur and prince Spot and all the others would come out to romp and play.
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