The Gospel as a Fairytale
And Biblical women as archetypes
As a kid, I was never that into fairy tales. My reading tastes steered more towards realistic fiction. Aside from the genius of Gail Carson Levine, I eschewed princesses; I was more for realistic, contemporary stories featuring girls who looked and acted like I did. Fairytales always seemed less interesting to me with their cut-and-dry heroes and villains. A prince was never my goal, and castles never seemed that intriguing.
But I recently read Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian and it convinced me of the importance—in fact, the necessity—of fairytales. He writes about the way fairytales can teach children complex moral truths, forming their hearts to love what is good and aim for virtue in a world that tries to convince them to do otherwise. That combined with our current autumn-tinged weather has me longing for a good mythical tale of magic1 and a steaming cuppa, as our Australian friends say.
The more I explore these fairytales and myths, traditional stories that have taught us about virtue and character for generations, the more I’m intrigued by the idea of female archetypes.
The hag. The witch in the woods. The beautiful princess. The seductress. The warrior woman.
These women infiltrate our fairy tales; they’re the meat on the bones of so many stories. And they also appear in the Bible.