Fairy Stories

I love The Little Mermaid, don't you?  It was so fun seeing it acted and danced/skated yesterday to that wonderful score.  As I was watching, I remembered how someone once told me their parents didn't want them to watch The Little Mermaid growing up, one of the reasons being that Ariel was disobedient to her parents and then was seemingly rewarded for it in the end by getting what she wanted.  I pondered that, but then I had the thought that no, it wasn't a moralistic story illustrating how children should behave toward their parents, but it was a fairy tale.  And doesn't it sound familiar?  Disobedience and then temptation to satisfy your heart's desire by wicked means...

But in the end, a father's grace and forgiveness and getting everything you always wanted even though it was undeserved?

Thinking about that this morning made me remember a story we heard while visiting C.S. Lewis's home in Oxford.  There was a widow and her daughter who Lewis helped provide for after WWI (more about that later).  They didn't have much money, but the mother had told her daughter that there was a very slim chance that she might inherit a title some day.  

Through a series of unforeseen events, the daughter eventually did inherit the title of Lady_____ (I can't remember her name off the top of my head.)  When Lewis was very sick and near death, the daughter came to visit him.  She was told that he wasn't doing well and not to expect him to remember or recognize her.  As she approached his bed, he immediately addressed her correctly not by the name he had known her by, but by her new title as Lady_____.  

She was astonished and asked, "How did you remember THAT?!?"  He smiled and said, "How could you think I would ever forget a fairy story?"  

I loved that.