Enchanting Limericks about Fairy Tales

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Albert Einstein typically gets the credit for this pithy piece of parenting advice, but whether or not he really said it doesn’t really matter.

The fact is, it makes a good story, and that’s what fairy tales are all about. The special theory of relativity may rely on objective verification, but myth and folklore do not. If the story says there were three sisters and one had freckles, then there were three sisters. If the story says the earth was created in six days, then so be it.

So long as there’s an internal logic to the story, then you have something worth reading. How you choose to interpret that story is up to you. And the more interpretations the better. Why should there be a limit placed on the shades of insight to be gleaned from a piece of literature?

The following series of limericks celebrates this polyvalent wisdom of legends and folklore. And I hope you walk away from it with a keener understanding of the human condition.

Catch a Fairy by the Tale
A devouring dragon resides down below
Inside of the oven where stepchildren go
It’s a personal test
A spiritual quest
To enter the place that so few of us know

Pinocchio
This puppet behaved himself horribly
Speaking to elders ignobly
But everyone knows
To beware of his nose
For we know that he’s prone to hyperbole

Jonah and the Whale
A metaphor helps with the truth to unveil
See for yourself what’s inside of a whale
A dark hollow place
With some hard facts to face
Without inner wisdom you’re certain to fail

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Conjuring energies at your command
Channelling nature to strengthen your hand
Invoking vibrations
With keen incantations
Exerting the power that few understand

The Tale of Bluebeard
A wife left alone with the keys to the palace
Discovers a room full of secrets and malice
She might have ignored it
But fate draws her toward it
And some say the key soaked in blood was a phallus

Dangerous Liaisons
Little Red Riding Hood what would Freud say?
A girl begins bleeding then wanders astray
She’s lured off the path
By cunning and craft
And ravaged in bed when the wolf has his way

The Ground of Becoming
Latch on to life if your ardor is able
Every last option remains on the table
The one became real
With the turn of a wheel
And someday will come when the truth becomes fable