THE ELF OF THE ROSE

[read the fairy tale here]

I was brought up in a rational family, where everything irrational was regarded as fantasy, illusion, or at the best, an innocent game for children. I always loved books and my mother bought them for me with special care not to disturb my small world with "adult problems" - evil, fear, death and pain. As with most other parents, mine thought that if they pretended in front of me that evil does not exist, it would disappear and I would not see it until I reached a certain age. They still do not know how mistaken they were at those times. Since a very early age, I was sensitive to my environment to such an extent that I quickly overlooked the protective atmosphere my parents wanted to create for me.

My first memory is when I was three years old, walking with my mother from kindergarten. I was walking, holding her hand and feeling sadness from her side and I felt it myself so intensively as if I was her. I asked her openly why she was so sad and what had happened. She looked at me, smiled and said that it was not true, she was not sad and nothing had happened at all. In her smile I could read that she considered me too little to understand her sadness.

It was the first time when I discovered, that behind words there's another world with its own, deeper truth. I experienced this kind of discrepancy between external, polished reality and the true reality hidden behind it many times after that first experience. It seemed to me that all the people around me were doing it - feeling something and pretending something else: my parents having problems in their relationship, neighbours quarrelling behind their doors, kids torturing frogs and cats, kindergarten teacher pretending she enjoyed playing with children but did not, my grandmother telling me that the cat which died in front of my eyes did not die but was only sleeping.

I was so confused from it all that I sank into my own secret world and stopped asking adults my questions. I knew they would not tell me the truth anyway. Books were my only oasis of clarity because they contained their own, definite worlds. Soon I started to distinguish which books I liked and which ones I did not like. To my parents' shock, I preferred books with old fairy tales full of dark stories. Those were the old books from my grandparents' house, published at the beginning of 20th century, uncensored by modern psychologists and therefore full of blood, suffering, some of them had even bad endings! My mother tried to accept my preferences, but refused to read me some of the stories which seemed to her too cruel and unsuitable for such a little girl.

One of those forbidden stories was Hans Christian Andersen´s The Elf of the Rose. Since as a 5 years old girl I could not read yet, I was constantly asking my older cousin to read it for me. I was listening to it with pleasant feelings of something far away but well known to me, as if I were coming home. This fairy tale seemed to me real and I could easily identify with the princess in the story. I was amazed that some other person - even only in a book - could perceive the world similarly to the way I did. Remembering dreams, searching for visions and symbols and uncovering their meanings, listening to silence in an empty house and deciphering what the creak of the old wooden door means, what are the trees whispering outside, enjoying various scents of flowers and silently wondering about their ability to be so solid and at the same time short lived after they were brought from outside and put to the vase.

"Alas, how soon all that is good and beautiful passes away", sighed the Elf. *

The story describes the deep love between a young man and his lady. In the unreal, glossy world, all such stories must end with a wedding and then the pair will live happily ever after. Infps** know that this is not always true. They know that there is not white without black, light without dark and that evil is not just an abstract term for crazy amateur philosophers. They see that evil presents itself in very concrete form in everyday life and is closely intertwined with suffering and pain. They refuse not to see it because they also feel its part deep inside and they know that even when they close their eyes and ears and pretend it does not exist, it will not disappear.

When the princess found a withered leaf on her bed, she did not throw it away as a "fantasy". She could not, because she was in deep connection with her own truth and could see the reality, the secret connections behind things. Her intuition and instincts were telling her clearly that the dream she had had was true, however horrible it seemed. It would have been much more comfortable for her to forget everything and force herself to believe that her lover was somewhere behind the hills, thinking about her.

She had the power to go to the woods at night and look at the worst nightmare changing from suspicion to palpable reality, as she was removing the old leaves, turning the earth up, finding that her lover was there, dead.

However unpleasant it looks, that she took his head home with her, this weird action has its deep meaning.

The love between the lady and young man was exceptional, pure and deep. All that was most precious for her was connected with his head when he was alive - his thoughts the quality of which she was feeling intensely when they were together, his soul that was looking at her through his dear eyes, words-Logos emanating from his lips.

Infps do not bond with others easily, most of the time they enjoy their solitude, withdrawn from the outside world, but once they find their kindred spirit, the bond is eternal and lasts forever.

The lady could not just leave the body there in the morning, go to the town and find another man. Infps, as she was, are different. She still could feel the invisible traces of the warmth of her beloved on the now cold skin and in the now dirty hair. Therefore she took the head home and made a secret grave for it in the pot.

Infps are intuitive, empathic, sensitive and these gifts enable them not to be naive. They do not share what they see with just anybody. That's why the lady did not say a word to her brother about what she found in the woods. She had felt the evil in her brother long ago. After the murder she was only crying that the evil had manifested itself in a most painful way for her. She was not naive to believe that her brother loved her dearly and she did not wonder why he was scolding her for crying over the pot. Infps have their own reasons why they are doing and feeling certain things their own way. They get used to the fact that they stand out from the crowd.

However, I regard this fairy tale as a story with its own happy ending.

The lovers meet in heaven, in their real home, far away from this world where evil always lurks behind the corner. And the murder was revenged because "behind the smallest leaf dwells the One who can discover evil deeds and punish them also".*

Infps do not want to take responsibility in their own hands and hurt anybody in revenge. They instinctively, surely, know that there's strict, just cosmic order, karmic law that takes care of all which goes astray.

Infps only feel that it is their duty, their mission in life to help to show others how beautiful this world could be, if people could only find the courage to look evil in the eyes and win the battle with their own evil.

In olden times, children lived with their large families and from an early age were undergoing all different kinds of experiences: mother's births, father's physical exhaustion from daily hard work, death of a sibling, grandparents' serious illnesses. Even in aristocratic families, people were dying in their homes and children, together with others, went to their beds and were watching as a member of their family died.

At present, all suffering and dying is moved to sterile hospitals, depressed people are prescribed pills and are forbidden to show their unhappiness openly, otherwise it is a faux pas. There's a danger living like this: if we show our children only sweet, censored Disney's world, they will not learn empathy, understanding for another person's suffering. They will not experience both sides of a coin, all variety of emotions which belong to life.

Contemporary fairy tales are often meaningless stories full of nice colours, pretending that life is always good, whatever happens, and that nobody needs to take responsibility for his/her deeds. They remind me of candy - packed in attractive wrapper, with good taste, addictive, but with no real benefit for the physical body. Contemporary fairy tales have a similar effect - they do not feed and benefit the soul, they are offering only illusion and escape from reality.

If my parents were not trying to hide the dark side of life from me, perhaps I would not feel so isolated from them. It is useless to try to create an unreal "always good world",to hide books and true feelings. Infps know anyway. They learn to read, find all hidden books and always feel what people are feeling, who they really are.

*This quotation is from Andersen´s fairy tale The Elf of the Rose

** One of the temperament types, see www.keirsey.com for an explanation

June, November 2004