fairy tales – Clementine Fraser

Fairy tales, and their modern counterparts, teach us more than unrealistic expectations about love and the chance of being hidden royalty. They teach us about courage and bravery, about the importance of using your wits, about dangers and evils and tragedy. They teach us that the monsters can be fought and dreams can be achieved.

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Neil Gaiman

Fairy tales keep alive the hope that there is such a thing as true love, and that it’s almost part of your destiny. In a world where the path to love is frequently bumpy or long, and loneliness is all too common, stories promising love as destiny, love as the Happy Ending, help us hang on to hope. Sure, they sometimes might set us up for unreal expectations too, but whats a little unreal expectation between friends! Continue reading “Why Fairy Tales are Important” →

I’m going to get this out of the way at the start – I hate scary movies. To be more accurate – I’ve tried to like scary movies but I’m the kind of person who screams at jump scares, and creepy stuff leaves me awake and alert and catastrophising all night.

The first horror movie I saw was House. I was 11, at a friend’s house, and she’d assured me it was a comedy horror. Now I think back and I can see some of the comedy, but at the time it was deeply traumatising. It took a long while for me to be able to open my wardrobe door at night. Or even during the day… I made my little sister do it – in the classic ‘little siblings are indestructible” way that older siblings have. Scream (another light horror) was the nail in the coffin (so to speak) of me ever wanting to live in an isolated house out in the country. I like having neighbours I can run to when the scary baddies arrive. And the bit at the beginning of Scream where Drew Barrymore’s character is trying to call out to her parents, who are so close to being able to save her, and her voice doesn’t work? Oh that’s only my recurring nightmare. I really wanted to watch Supernatural recently but made the mistake of watching the first one while I was at home alone and decided maybe I need to wait until my kids are at home with me (they somehow take on the indestructibility of siblings; when they are in their rooms asleep I feel a whole lot braver than if it is just me by myself). Continue reading “The Monster under the Bed – Why do people like scaring themselves?” →