You know, ironically, I have the entire set of 12 volumes of Lang's Fairy books and have read a sizable number now. I may not be an expert, but I do see the effort to instill morals, frighten kids to obey or simply make folks happy with their lot in life. Many are, indeed as you say, gruesome and there is often no rhyme or reason as to whether good or evil prevail.

One of my favorite tales is "Prince Darling" from the Blue Fairy book.

A good king acquires the friendship of the Fairy Truth. The King is old and dying and the Fairy grants him any wish because he saved her when she was in the form of a bunny, testing his reputed goodness.

His main concern is about his son. The one that he loves dearly and calls 'Prince Darling'. All he asks of the fairy is that she become his friend.

"With all my heart" answered the fairy. "I can make him the handsomest prince in the world, or the richest, or the most powerful; choose whichever you like for him."

"I do not ask either of these things for my son. But if you will indeed make him the best of princes I would indeed be grateful to you. What good would it do him to be rich, or handsome or possess all the kingdoms of the world if he were wicked? You know well he would still be unhappy. Only a good man can be truly contented."

"You are quite right, but it is not in my power to make Prince Darling a good man unless he will help me. He must himself try hard to be good; I can only promise to give him good advice, to scold him for his faults and to punish him if he will not correct and punish himself."

The king was satisfied with this and soon died.

Soon after the prince had a visit from the fairy.

"I promised your father I would be your friend, and to keep my word I have come to bring you a present." At the same time she put a little gold ring on his finger.

"Take great care of this ring, it is more precious than diamonds; every time you do a bad deed it will prick your finger, but if in spite of its pricking, you go on in your own evil way you will lose my friendship and I shall become your enemy."

For some time Prince Darling behaved so well that he never received a prick and was called 'Prince Darling the Happy'.

Then he kicks his dog after a bad hunt and receives a prick.

Things go downhill from there before they get better for Prince Darling but the message of the story is quite powerful. The gold ring is the Prince's conscience and when he ignores it, it pricks him and if he follows such a path, ignoring his conscience, TRUTH is lost to him.

Such fairy tales offer a worthwhile message and are the sort of tales I would love to see turned into films. Probably for every twenty horrifying tales, there is one really good one in those volumes. Even Disney chose stuff that was not that great at all, compared to some of the stuff in those books.

The H.J. Ford art is excellent (my bazooka barbies can only aspire to grow up to become one of H.J. Ford's serene faeries ;-)

I didn't want to argue with you MA. Everytime I do - I feel that darn ring prick me.

;-)