I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.
I am not sure how much good is done by moralising about fairy tales. This can be unsubtle - telling children that virtue will be rewarded, when in fact it is mostly simply the fact of being the central character that ensures a favourable outcome. Fairy tales are not, on the whole, parables.
As someone who used to work in an abortion clinic and who now has helped over 425 people get out of the abortion industry, I have hundreds of first-hand accounts of what abortion clinics do to cut corners on cleanliness and health. Truly disgusting tales.
My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug 'Vanity Fair.' You feel smarter, somehow, for reading it.
We know their names: Hippolyta, Antiope, Thessalia. But they were long thought to be just travelers' tales or products of the Greek storytelling imagination. A lot of scholars still argue that. But archaeology has now proven without a doubt that there really were women fitting the description that the Greeks gave us of Amazons and warrior women.
If Queen Amezan and Queen Penthesilea could somehow meet in real life, they would recognize each other as sister Amazons. Two tales, two storytellers, two sites far apart in time and place, and yet one common tradition of women who made love and war.
I feel like the theme song to 'Duck Tales.' 'Life is like a hurricane; it's a duck blur.' That's absolutely what it is.