the timboucher experience

I have a few passages that I want to quote from that book I’m reading, Shadow & Evil in Fairy Tales. The first one comes during her talking about how fairy tales from all around the world seem to contradict each other, as to how they advise evil to be dealt with. But then she says there is one thing they all have in common. (p. 145-146)

The one exception to the rule of contradiction, however, seems to be that one must never hurt the helpful animal in fairy tales. I have found a few cases where disobedience leads to trouble, but in the long run does not lead to disaster; you may temporarily disobey the advice of the helpful fox or wolf or cat. But if basically you go against it, if you do not listen to the helpful animal or bird, or whatever it is, if any animal gives you advice and you don’t follow it, then you are finished. In the hundreds and hundreds of stories that is the one rule which seems to have no exception. However, when we analyze what the animals say, again it is completely contradictory: one says to run away, another says to fight, another to lie and another always to tell the truth. The animal plays it this way and that, from an ethical standpoint, but if you go against it you are lost. This would mean that disobedience to one’s inner being, one’s instinctual inner being, is the one thing which is more essential than anything else. In all nations and all fairy tale material I have never found a different statement.

• Maybe Love *Don’t* Actually Hurt
• Those crazy carp!
• Animal Totems
• National Animal Identification System
• Ghosts of Animals