“I said the sense “stories about fairies” was too narrow. It is too narrow, even if we reject the diminutive size, for fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faerie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being. Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fantasy Stories
Tolkien’s Concept of Enchantment
- Fantasy is not an escape from reality—it is a way of seeing reality more clearly.
- The goal of fantasy is to reawaken the sense of wonder—to restore the enchanted perception of the world.
- He rejected the idea that fantasy should be dismissed as mere fiction; rather, he saw it as a sacred act of sub-creation.
B. Fairy Tales as the Real World Without the Disenchanted Human
- Tolkien suggested that the world of Faërie is not a separate realm, but this world seen with unclouded vision.
- Myth is not a fictional escape but a return to the original enchantment of existence.
"The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity’. The child enjoys his cold meat (otherwise dull to him) by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savoury for having been dipped in a story; you might say that only then is it the real meat. If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book applies the treatment not only to bread or apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish, and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly. I do not think he could have done it in any other way." - C.S. Lewis's, From his essay, "Tolkien's Lord of the Rings:"