The Allure of Fantasy - Jareth and Crystal of Dreams

Down in the underground

You'll find someone true

Down in the underground

A land serene

A crystal moon

It's only forever

It's not long at all

- Underground, David Bowie

I watched Labyrinth for the first time last week, and it strongly affected me. Since then I have watched the whole movie twice more, certain scenes many more times, danced alone in my room to the soundtrack, and raged at the "unfairness" of the mundane world. Normally I am very attune to the magic and mystery inherent in all aspects of the world. But after Labyrinth my desire for fantasy increased to bittersweet intensity, and for a while my "real"  life seemed unsatisfactory in comparison with imagination. I was intrigued by the strength of my emotions - the co-mingled joy and sorrow - the unrequited longing after the fantasy world and the goblin king.

Look at what I'm offering you. Your dreams...

I sought words to describe my state - and Tolkien's words from On Fairy Stories resonated within my mind:

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.

Yes, I thought. This is the feeling that burns within me - which I have felt before. It is the mark of Faerie - the longing felt by those who have once crossed into that Other World, and who pine for it on their return to mundane life. Cecilia Dart-Thornton named it Langothe - and anyone who has even briefly entered fantasy, and afterwards felt the "real" world to be unsatisfactory and diminished, will know how it feels - a poignancy of spirit, in which beauty and despair are inseparable.

This feeling may be sparked by different things - a piece of music; a painting; a reflection upon water. I have felt it come upon me when I was looking at The Beguiling of Merlin; reading Ode to a Nightingale; watching the elves in The Lord of the Rings; and at the end of Prince Caspian. All of these things have in common a "light better than any light that ever shone, in a land no one can define or remember, only desire".

Something about Labyrinth made me react the same way. But it was not the labyrinth itself that I desired - nor the company of the grotesque creatures that Sarah meets along the way. My feelings coalesce around Jareth the Goblin King. But why?

Need you ask?

Looking past the obvious - David Bowie's magnetic and mesmerising performance, and Jareth's spectacular appearance (which is undeniably attractive) - the character of the Goblin King seems to personify fantasy, with its capacity for both beauty and darkness. 

He is by times exuberant and dazzling; cruel and tender; careless, entreating and sorrowful. Mercurial and fey, he is archetypal - the trickster, the animus - at once the shadow and the hero.

How are you liking my labyrinth?

I'll leave my love between the stars.

I'll make you a prince. Prince of the land of stench!

The power of voodoo!

He shapes the world of Faerie and creates the story - the labyrinth - through which Sarah can express her heroic journey. He creates "dangers untold and hardships unnumbered", so that Sarah can overcome them. 

She'll never give up!
Won't she?

Within the labyrinth, Sarah undergoes a mythic quest - and on the way learns to find her innate courage, to look beyond appearances, to stop taking things for granted, to resist temptation, to show compassion, to realise her love for her little brother - and to exercise her fantasies. The journey is a universal one of maturation and development. But essentially - Jareth is the storyteller.

Jareth's fascination therefore, is his ability to craft living stories - a fully-realised fantasy world (the ultimate in subcreation, put in Tolkien's terms). Who can help loving a character who bestows gifts of beautiful dreams? In Labyrinth, the fairies do not grant wishes, but the Goblin King is master of wish-fulfillment.

There's such a fooled heart -

- beating so fast 

- in search of new dreams...

A love that will last within your heart.

I'll place the moon within your heart...

Part of the sorrow of Labyrinth has to do with the tragic bind in which Jareth finds himself. The storyteller becomes confined by the story - by "the way it has to be". Despite his capacity and desire to transcend the "villain" role - expressed in the masquerade-dream he crafts for Sarah - despite his dissatisfaction with his goblin subjects, his affection for Toby and his loneliness - his "generosity" drives his inevitable defeat. 

What have you done that's generous?
Everything.

You asked that the child be taken -

- and I took him.

You cowered before me - I was terrifying.

I have re-altered time.

 I have turned the world upside down -

- and I have done it all for you.

I am exhausted - 

- from living up to your expectations.

Isn't that generous?

This explains the pain in his last song, when Sarah seeks Toby in the "Escher" room. Jareth loves her - believes in her ability to rescue her brother. But he knows that when she succeeds, she will leave the labyrinth. Jareth's grief is his knowledge of the inevitability of Sarah's departure - the finite time she has left in the fantasy world he created for her. 

Your eyes can be so cruel. Just as I can be so cruel.

Though I do believe in you.

Live without your sunlight. Love without your heartbeat.

I - I can't live within you.

Watching the movie, the mingled love and pain that Jareth feels echoes in my own heart. But the archetypal, fairy-tale nature of the story extends and amplifies these feelings. As Jareth sings his desolate song - I burn with unrequited love for the heart of Faerie. Just as Sarah cannot stay in the labyrinth, neither can I stay in the fantasy. The sorrow is the unrequited longing for permanence in something that is by nature fleeting. But a mere glimpse of this beautiful world makes me realise the truth of Yeats' "dull world" of the mundane. And so I long for the fantasy even more desperately. In vain. As Jareth knows to his sorrow, no matter how much we wish to live in it, a fantasy is ephemeral as a bubble. 

Before the story began, Jareth knew how it would have to end.
"Give me the child!"

"You have no power over me..."

But there is one thing that one must always remember about the fae-folk. They cannot die. Jareth is defeated, but he changes into an owl. He was only required to be the villain up until Sarah reached the words "you have no power over me". But that was the middle of Labyrinth book. A fairytale does not ever end. Fantasies are blown and burst like bubbles, but Jareth has an inexhaustible store - as numerous as the dreams of a fertile mind. The labyrinth is only part of the infinite world of Faerie - the limitlessness and eternally changing nature is unconstrained. 

Stories continue and are retold and shaped again and again. 

I am fortunate. I am one of those who have access to Faerie - to its glimpses of mystery, heroism, grandeur, beauty and terror. Unrequited desire is the price that I must pay for entering. But I would rather burn forever with the Langothe than live without the glorious, strange and enchanting world.

After watching Labyrinth, let me modify Tolkien's famous words:

"I desired Faerie with a profound desire… the world that contained even the imagination of Jareth was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril."

This is no ordinary gift...

I'll be there for you

As the world falls down

Falling

Falling

As the world falls down

Falling in love

Making Everyday Magic

The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses - Charles DeLint

I made magic today. 

This afternoon, I was walking back home from the library, my arms full of books, listening to the music of Loreena McKennitt and Enya. Nearing the end of an unseasonably warm winter, today felt like late spring - balmy breezes wafted sweet waves of jasmine and magnolia and the savory scent of cut grass, and even the shadows were pleasantly warm. New growth showed on the branches of many trees, presaging fresh green leaves in the near future. As I walked along the ridges of the bay, I looked around, delighting in the beauty of house and garden, wall and verge; and below, the furred green valley and the spread expanse of azure water winged with yachts.  

The harbour on a beautiful late winter day...

It was lucky I paid attention today - otherwise I would have missed my chance.

As I walked along relatively quiet sidestreet, I saw a sign affixed with tape to the wall of a hedged garden. Written and illustrated in rainbow texta, it was clearly a child's masterpiece of commercial art. 

           The best shorever!

KIds Jewelry and

                         TOYS!!  

                      Family Shop

                (adult's makeup)          DVDs + CDs

This endearing notice was lavishly illuminated with smiley faces and stars. It took me back to my own childhood "shops", and the huge excitement I felt when some passer-by bought from them - and I wanted to go and make some sort of supporting purchase from this "Family Shop" - to contribute somehow to the children's happy memories.

                    

But the gate was shut, and nothing stirred behind the hedge. The sign was clearly less than a day-old. Had the shop closed early, due to lack of custom?

Rather disappointed, I continued on my way, and turned the corner. Then I thought of something I could do - something BETTER than simply going to the "shop" and buying something. I rested my pile of books on someone's wall, and retrieved my leatherbound and dragon-stamped notebook (which I carry in my handbag always, to capture fleeting poetic inspirations, visions and stories). On one creamy, stiff page I wrote, in my most beautiful script the words "From a Fairy". I illustrated the corner of the page with a faerie face, her hair blown across a night sky spangled with stars and adorned with a crescent moon. I tore the page out carefully. Then I took a couple of dollars from my wallet (choosing my most golden coins), and wrapped them carefully and neatly in the paper, so that the faerie face was the front of a small square package. 

Red Azalea 

Near me an azalea bush rioted over the fence, covered in crimson flowers. I plucked one, and walked back to the house with the sign. I looked around carefully to make sure no one observed me, then tucked the package (fae face uppermost) half-under the sign, lifting a bit of the tape to fix it securely. I then attached the big crimson flower just above, so that the children (or parent) would not fail to see it when they came to look at or take down the sign. 

Children are naturally attracted to mystery and magic.

Then I walked away, filled with delighted imaginings of the reactions of the children when they discovered the "fairy's" present. 

I think I did something truly magical today. Spontaneous, unexpected, and wondrous for the children. I remember how when I was a child myself, I would ask my parents "Did you do this?" when something magical happened, like the tooth-fairy taking my teeth, or Father Christmas coming in the night. And my mother would always arrange it so that she could say with honesty that it wasn't her (I somehow never thought to ask my father - just as well...) The mystery was the heart of the magic. 

So today, as I walked home, I imagined the children asking their parents, imploring (as children do), to be told that the magic is real and to believe, "It wasn't you who put this here was it?"

What makes me hug myself with glee is the fact that the parents will have no idea. And this genuine confusion and wondering will be picked up by their children, who will know their parents are mystified, and will draw their own conclusions. Maybe they will keep the note, and remember, even when they are older, as a magical mystery that was never solved. 

Maybe they will as adults spontaneously decide to "make magic" for another child.

I was a real fairy today. And that's how I will ever be remembered by those children. Making magic is a wonderful thing. I feel it won't stop here...

                

Perhaps I'll become a fairy-godmother. Who knows? 

Why everyone should see "The Slipper and the Rose"

What is a song that's never sung?
What is a heart that's never thrilled to being young?
What is a dream that can't come true?
What is my life to me, without my love for you?
- Secret Kingdom, The Slipper and the Rose

Prince Edward: Whatever happens afterwards, I will always remember this moment...

Tonight I watched (for the twentieth time), my favourite of all fairytale movies (and very close to my favourite movie ever), The Slipper and the Rose.

The movie is a musical adaptation of the classic Cinderella story. But there is nothing whatever trite or cliche about this adaptation - nothing caricatured or Disneyfied. I first watched it when I was about five years old, and have watched it several times each year since. Above all movies, it shaped my entire childhood perception of the world, and its magic still affects me just as strongly today.

Since it is sadly unknown in much of the world, I will briefly give a sketch of the storyline:

The moated manor where Cinderella lives, in the tiny kingdom of Euphrania 

After the death of Cinderella's father, his will places her under the protection of her stepmother , with only the memory of love to sustain her. 

The stepmother and stepsisters make "certain drastic economies in the household" ... 

... which involve making Cinderella the maid-of-all-work.

Meanwhile the king and queen urge the prince that "it's your duty to the state not to stay a celibate" while he argues that marriage begins with love, not duty. 

The prince's foolish cousin drops the "teensiest of social briquettes"., with hilarious consequences. 

The Fairy Godmother in her Domythic cottage, writing all the fairytales... 

She "tests" Cinderella before deciding she is worthy of help.

"I thought - a ball. A great ball! The greatest ball that has ever been known, sire! And to it we shall invite every eligible princess in Europe, and even beyond, your majesty."

Cinderella is set the task of making dresses for the ball, but fails miserably. Thankfully, someone steps in to help.

Cinderella" "Me, go to the ball?"
Godmother: "Of course! Wait, that is what you were wishing wasn't it?
Cinderella: "Not wishing... Thinking what it must be like."
Godmother: "Same thing."

Dancing mice. What's not to love?

The prismatically lovely carriage seems to be made of dreams and imaginings...

At the ball, the Prince "conceals his boredom from half a dozen twittering maidens of blue blood" (the princesses between whom he is meant to choose) while the local nobility attend to fill up space

A glittering carriage arrives late to the palace...

... and the "Princess Incognita" arrives. 

Entering the ballroom...

... Cinderella and the Prince are drawn to each-other

The waltz that Cinderella and the Prince dance at this point must be seen to be truly appreciated. It is the most beautiful dance I have ever seen, and earned The Slipper and the Rose two Oscar nominations. It tells the story of a relationship, and makes their falling in love believable.

It really is the most romantic and beautiful dance - ever.

After the dance Cinderella Prince Edward walk in the garden, and the Prince apologises to her for the "ridiculous charade" of the "bride-finding ball". He confesses that he has been "trapped by his birthright", but offers Cinderella his "private kingdom... with no castles and no vassals and no throne".

Unfortunately the chimes of midnight necessitate Cinderella's flight...

... and his pursuit is in vain. 

"Though this lovely night was only a fantasy/ And I know tonight is all there will ever be/ Dancing in his arms forever my heart will never be free... Dreaming of the night he danced with me."

"Could it be that she was only a fantasy? Could it be tonight is all there will ever be?"

Edward: It is unique, like its owner. Who ever fits this slipper, must fit the bill!
King: It really is remarkably dainty... half the size of your mother's... take it away... very disturbing...

Stepmother: "Now push  hard."
Palatine: "Oh I'm pushing, Mama!"

After a fruitless search of "three months, six days, ten hours", Prince Edward and his companion-at-arms John are both tortured by the pangs of love . Edward is educated as to the restrictive nature of "position" and social conditioning.

Frustrated and half-wondering if Cinderella had been a phantom-like "Belle Dame Sans Merci", Edward decides to throw the glass slipper away.

But it is found again by Cinderella.

Joyfully she dances in the fields with the slipper...

... where she is seen.

A passionate reunion...

... but there is talk of war, and the prince must make a marriage of alliance with a powerful kingdom with an "army to fortify the throne" of the tiny and vulnerable Euphrania.

Cinderella makes a noble sacrifice, going into secret exile. 

Edward prays on the eve of his wedding: "Forgive me dearest Cinderella. I have no heart for what I am about to do... I have loved but once. I have loved but you. And I have lost you - twice!"

In her place of exile, Cinderella "can't stop remembering" - until the Godmother shows up "to rise to the occasion and do something spectacular".

The marriage of alliance...

... but someone else has arrived.

Happy, but not yet the ending...

... and that's only a taste of the gorgeousness in store. It can't do justice to the music, the vivacity, the Romance and the magic of this peerless fairytale movie.

Essentially, the first half of the story is the one we are familiar with - except that the characters are far more real and the Prince (Edward) has as great a role in the story as Cinderella. There are a host of wonderful supporting characters (the stepmother, the prince's companion-at-arms, the royal family and the fairy godmother to name a few), which give the film depth  and allow it to explore themes of tradition, class warfare, independence, diplomatic relations and ethical dilemmas. When Cinderella is reunited with the prince at last, their happiness takes second place to the concerns of the kingdom, for a declaration of war requires the prince to make a marriage of alliance to a powerful princess... Of course it ends happily (and satisfactorily) thanks to the cleverness of the Fairy Godmother - but not before both Edward and Cinderella are tested.

The Slipper and the Rose is beautiful in every way - with incredible music, sumptuous costumes, an absolutely wonderful romance, humour and great characters. I can't praise it enough. For anyone who wants to watch it (which should be everyone after reading this!) - you can purchase it on Ebay or *watch here on Youtube*.

In fact, you have no excuse. Enter the fairytale. You will not be sorry. Go and watch it now.