Open Thread: Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy-tale Logic

by A.E. Stallings

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:

Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,

Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,

Select the prince from a row of identical masks,

Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks

And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,

Or learn the phone directory by rote.

Always it’s impossible what someone asks-

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe

That you have something impossible up your sleeve,

The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,

An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,

The will to do whatever must be done:

Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

h/t to Hecate

11 comments

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    • TMC on March 23, 2010 at 03:25
      Author
  1. especially when modernity is a myth…..

    the journey of humanity from mythic knowledge thro the stories of its peoples journey…..

    to the fantasy of our victory over the constraints of life itself with science and instrumentality……

    to the myth of our own victory over our own nature…..

    the myth of the existence of the uber person……

    • Edger on March 24, 2010 at 03:15

    if they keep knocking over the building blocks of society.

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