Fairy Tales are as full of good advice and examples of how to live a worthy life as any other type of story, but there is one subject on which they are almost completely useless: Love. Oh they’re are full of people falling in love but more often than not they are both good looking, it rarely takes anything longer than an instant and it is almost always mutual.
La Belle Dame sans Merci by Sir Frank Dicksee
It’s hardly surprising people desire this fantastical meeting, it’s so simple! Meet, fall in love and live happily ever after certainly beats meet; date sporadically; introduce each other to each others disapproving parents/friends; move in together against parents/friends advice; fall out over work commitments; agree to separate and argue about the CD collection.
So what should you do if you are looking for that fairytale romance?
Although there may be other options the basic checklist for young men who are seeking the perfect girl in the old fashioned way is as follows:
1/ Be a 7th son or at least youngest of three
2/ Be poor
3/ Have a magical weapon
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal (see FTC June 2011)
If you satisfy 3 or more of the above requirements then finding a well connected damsel in distress and hacking up the cause of her oppression will usually get you past the awkward introductory stage of the relationship and frequently overcomes any reservations her parents may have had. Though if they aren’t around to see it it’s probably wise to keep some proof of your heroism as it is common for cowardly but power hungry political types to make a false claim that they did the deed.
For young women there is a similar but slightly different checklist:
1/ Be a princess
2/ Be pretty
3/ Be kind and smile through all hardship
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal
Don’t be put off if you are not a princess (though it often helps with the parental approval side of things); for ladies it is generally acceptable if you can only tick off one item on the list and number 3, the one item that is in your control, is by far the most important. Unfortunately you will need the wicked step parent or the cowardly politician to place you in the way of mortal peril in order to be saved by the lad who you will instantly fall in love with. You will also have to accept that, statistically, his name will be Jack.
Having achieved the goal of boy meeting girl, do the fairytales have any further advice for your romance? Well, there may be useful information on how to rescue your intended from fairies, trolls or witches and the like but once the excitement is over and the wedding guests have all gone back to their own kingdoms the business of living happily ever after is usually assumed to be a simple process and one on which the fairytales are generally silent. To find out about loving happily ever after we will have to look in a different class of tale and another FTC…
Folk Tales Corner 
Thank you Cliff. It’s a few years now since I read my daughters stories, but there were and are so many beautifully written and illustrated modern takes on Fairytales. Roald Dahl did a brilliant job with Grimms. Re Romantic Fairy tales, it’s hard to beat ‘Princess Smarty Pants’… a girl who knows what she wants, which is not to be constantly hassled by suiters, so she endlessly constructs ridiculously impossible tasks for them to perform in order to win her hand. None but Prince Swashbuckle manage the tasks and when he does she kisses him and turns him into a toad! Look forward to your next scribblings matey x
Thanks Chris, great fun!
Feminist reworkings of fairy-tales can be fun, but the politically correct ones are (intentionally) hilarious.