Tale-Telling
STORIES for children—at least all successful and lasting ones—nearly always work on several levels. There is, firstly, the level of pure narra- tive—accurate and usually elaborate : the world of the White Rabbit and Humpty-Dumpty, for instance, or the careful footsteps through the garden of Jemima Puddleduck. The next level is usually philosophical or at least moral; lessons are learnt, conclusions drawn. We must never forget that the moral is as vital to the child as anything else in the stories he is read- ing: it imparts a sense of order, limits the borders of the frightening outer world. The third level is pure symbolism, often as mysterious to the writer as it is to the mind of the child-reader. It is a level that includes and honours the numinous, pays heed to the divine.
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