We’re taught that our mistakes don’t define us and that we can recover from our falls. If we fall down 100 times, we just need to get up 101 times.
But fairy tales aren’t like that. In fairy tales, there’s one thing you cannot do at all costs. Everything depends on it. You’ve been warned, but if you fail to heed the warning, all will be lost.
Chesterton calls it “The Doctrine of Conditional Joy.” We find it in his chapter “the Ethics of Elf-land,” from his book, Orthodoxy. He describes it this way:
According to elfin ethics all virtue is in an “if.” The note of the fairy utterance always is, “You may live in a palace of gold and sapphire, if you do not say the word ‘cow”’; or “You may live happily with the King’s daughter, if you do not show her an onion.” The vision always hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld.
This Doctrine of Conditional Joy may be the “note of the fairy utterance,” but it did not begin with fairy tales. The idea is much older than that:
You may eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
That is the value of fairy tales, as Chesterton explains, fairy tales help us see the fundamental realities of human existence with fresh perspective. The things we’ve grown so accustomed to that they’ve become invisible are suddenly presented as if for the first time.
These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.
The fresh perspective of the fairy tale warnings, like, “you must be home by midnight,” shows the house rules of the garden of Eden in a new light. We can derive two important lessons from comparing our situation to the heroes of fairy tales.
First, the hero of the fairy tale is always in a state of abject poverty when the deal is made. Cinderella doesn’t have a beautiful ball gown or an invitation to the ball—so having them until midnight is more than she could imagine. In Chesterton’s examples, not saying the word “cow” is a small price to pay for a palace of gold and sapphire. Not showing the King’s daughter an onion is totally worth the opportunity to live happily ever after with her.
So too, Adam and Eve had nothing that was their own. It was all free gift. And even though they were literally in Paradise, the garden was not the primary gift. The primary gift was the gift of life. They suddenly existed out of nothing. They had been created. They were alive. That’s why the ultimate punishment was death—it was the opposite of the ultimate gift.
Similarly, you and I can claim precisely nothing. As St. Paul puts so bluntly: “What do you have that has not been given to you?” (1 Cor. 4:7). We are not in a position to bargain. When you come to the negotiation with a weak hand, you take what is given you. As Chesterton explains:
If the Miller’s third son said to the fairy, “Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairy palace,” the other might fairly reply, “Well, if it comes to that, explain the fairy palace.”
Turns out that we have no standing. In the position we’re in, obeying God’s commandments is a pretty good deal in exchange for being alive at all.
The second lesson to be derived here is that the poor creature being given this sweet deal is not equipped to fathom the logic of the injunction. Why do I have to be home at midnight? Why can’t I say the word “cow”? Don’t show her an onion?
Any tree but the one?
The fairy tale comparison helps us realize that the most important rules rarely make sense. This is a problem for people with trust issues. They will only do what they think is right. They will only do what they believe is correct.
That’s not how the saint sees it. When it comes to obedience for the saints, no understanding is required. You do what you’re told. The deep magic involved here is far, far beyond your comprehension. Just obey.
C. S. Lewis points out that the reason the saints know more about sin than the sinners do is that you don’t really understand rules until you obey them. How many times have you said, under your breath, after a moral struggle, in a flash of understanding, “Oh that’s why…” Understanding is possible. Understanding may come, but obedience comes first.
Now of course all of this can be applied to daily temptations. Why can’t I get angry in traffic? Why can’t I watch this video? Why shouldn’t I join in this conversation? Because it’s not allowed. Just obey. You have no standing to take matters into your own hands.
But we do take matters into our hands. We do sin. We do fall short. Luckily, we have the grace and mercy of God to catch us, and confession for the forgiveness of sins.
But it’s not that way in the fairy tale. In the fairy tale (and in Eden, for that matter) everything is at stake. You only get one chance. The consequences are dire.
Why so final? What is the lesson in that?
Gamblers understand this: nothing wagered, nothing gained. When a child is being read a fairy tale and their eyes fly wide open at the anger of the giant, it’s because they know what’s at stake. Jack could lose it all. And then what? The complete and utter loss of everything is frightening.
But it’s also exhilarating. I call it the “Indiana Jones” theory of life. He gets into one impossible situation after another, and we love it. We watch it over and over again. “No conflict, no story,” as some English teacher probably told you in high school.
So fairy tales are trying to remind us that there is quite a lot at stake here on this mortal coil. It is possible that the giant catches Jack. Though we never talk about it much, even in the Church, you can suffer the complete and utter loss of everything. It’s called hell, the irrevocable choice of the damned. Your chance for repentance ends at death, and any moment could be “the hour of our death.”
But no one ever talks about that. We take this incredible gift for granted. We’re like those tenants in Jesus’ parable, where the owner keeps sending servants to collect the wine and the tenants suddenly think they own the place. They mistreat and kill the servants, and eventually even kill the landowner’s son. And Jesus asks, “What do you think the landowners will do to those tenants?” And the apostles reply: “Put those miserable thieves to a wretched death.”
To which our modern sentimentality replies, “Isn’t that a bit harsh?” It might be, if we had any rights, if we had some standing. We don’t.
For all those who say, “Explain how God could damn someone for all eternity to a miserable existence,” God might fairly reply, “If it comes to that, explain existence.”
Editor’s Note: For those seeking God in the chaos of the twenty-first century, Peter Giersch invites you to accompany him in his latest release, Talking of Michelangelo: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell in the Burgundy Region, available from Sophia Institute Press.
Follow along for more in this series on “Chesterton and the Mystery of Man” here.
Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash
