Western Civilizations Sacred Stories: Fairy Tales

Many years ago, I attended a course at the University of Utah, “The Imagery and Psychology of Dreams.” It was fun and fascinating. We kept dream diaries, discussed our dreams with the class, learned how to talk to our dreams and even role played, or acted out dreams. It was quite revealing. The instructor spent about fifteen minutes on Dr. Sigmund Frued, who was the first to say, “Dreams have meaning!” Then he went on to spoil it all by saying that only trained Psycho-analysts could interpret the dream. We hastily moved on to Carl Jung who agreed with Frued that dreams have meaning, but insisted that only the individual could properly interpret their dreams for the individual chose those images in the first place.

Why do I bring this up? Because it was while taking this course I discovered the importance of our European Fairy Tales. Carl Jung called them stories of the collective conscious. It works like this. Centuries ago, someone told a story. The story was told again and again, passed on by word of mouth from one person or group to another. As it is told, words change, names change. It morphs and moves and as the years go by, then the centuries, the story begins to take on a truth about the culture and peoples it sprang from.

For the class, I had to write a few papers and while pondering on what I would write about, I found myself driving home from work reciting out loud to myself, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all?” I felt a sudden connection to the story, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Was I asking myself, “Fair as in beautiful, or Fair as in just?” I wrote the entire paper, centered around this fairy tale and how it applied to me, psychologically.

Thus began my love affair with Fairy Tales. I read them, collected them and tried to discover the earliest versions I could - and found out that Fairy Tales are NOT for children. In one version of “Snow White,” the wicked queen takes the ‘heart’ of Snow White, which is really the heart of a pig, and cooks it, salts it and eats it. At the end of the story, she is invited to Snow White’s wedding feast and is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead. Not a very nice story for children.

If you would like to learn more about Fairy Tales as the collective conscious of a culture, I’d like to recommend the following books by Robert Johnson, “He: Understanding Masculine Psychology,” “She: Understanding Feminine Psychology,” and “We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love.” These books rely on Carl Jung’s work (Jungian Psychology) and utilize Legends, Fairy tales and Greek Mythology to teach us truths about ourselves.

However, it was some years later, as I was expanding my interest into legends, myths and folk stories of other cultures, I came across an article about Native American Indian folk lore. The author of this article insisted that the Native American stories were not Fairy Tales. “These are our sacred stories.”

I thought and pondered on this idea and finally asked myself, “Do we (meaning western civilization, children of European descent) have sacred stories?”

I’m not really sure how or when I made the connection. I’m a deeply religious person and read scripture daily. However it happened, the connection was made.

Our so called Fairy Tales are actually the Book of Revelation!

I turn your attention to Revelation, chapter twelve. We begin with verse one, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

The chapter goes to describe how the woman is ready to give birth, but a dragon waits to devour her child as soon as it is born. Yet, when the man child is born it is immediately caught up to God.

Verse six: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there....”

Hmmm. That sounds familiar.

Snow White: Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a queen who desired a child... The dragon, or wicked Step Mother, persecutes the child. The child is forced to flee into the woods.

Rapunzel: Once upon a time, there was a couple who longed to have a child... The wicked witch (dragon) steals the child and takes it far into the wilderness and locks her in a tower.

Shall I go on? Actually, I will. In fact I’m going to discuss four of my favorite Fairy Tales over the next four weeks. There will be overlapping themes and many concepts pointed out over and over with each story, but I hope you will find it as interesting as I do.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Woman Forced to Flee Into the Wilderness
Sleeping Beauty: Apostasy
Cinderella: Out of Obscurity
The Twelve Dancing Princesses: Restoration and the Wedding Supper of the Lord.