By Luke Pelser, Juicy Ecumenism.
One essay from British author J.R.R. Tolkien is especially prominent in its relation to the Christian faith. His 1947 On Fairy-Stories essay was written for a lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Best known for fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, a Roman Catholic and philologist, infused his imagined world with moral and spiritual depth, drawing on his faith, love of language, and expertise in medieval literature, despite being against allegory or writings being explicitly “Christian.”
Tolkien’s essay, On Fairy Stories, reminds Christians to bring back something lost or neglected within our lives. Below are six benefits of fairy-stories for Christian living. Many Christians may believe fantasy stories are fine, but Tolkien reminds us of their extreme potency. I urge readers to dive into the essay for themselves and reflect upon his thoughts for they are remarkable.
The Oxford professor defines fairy-stories not as tales about “fairies” as we see them, but as narratives set within the realm of Faërie: a world of enchantment, wonder, and moral depth.
These stories generally hold three characteristics that combine independent invention “bits” thrown in with the shared “soup” of inheritance and cultural diffusion. True fairy-stories evoke enchantment by presenting fantasy as internally true within a consistent secondary world. They reveal the beauty and meaning of ordinary things, like grass or water, and often express a longing for harmony with all living things. Fairy-stories allow us to participate in Faërie and glimpse truths through imagination.