The book was old and dusty, she opened it and the beautiful pictures lay before her eyes, colours rich, bright golds, red hues, and the memories flooded back. Princesses and castles, wolves and red cloaks, evil queens and poisoned apples. She traced a finger over the title of each story, golden letters with vines that crept up the sides of the pages with tiny flowers like flecks of a rainbow. She remembered the magic that filled the pages and kept her in awe night after night. The storytellers voice soft and deep in her mind as he spoke of magical swords and magic mirrors and she could feel the magic entwining her heart again.

Fairytales have been part of most of our childhoods. Being whisked to magical lands on flying carpets to slaying dragons in deep dark caverns. Fairytales hold wonder and magic for everyone. You can be a pirate or a lion, an archer stealing for the poor or a wizard casting spells. Yet as we grow older we often put our books away on dusty shelves and forget they exist.

While as a child we may see the stories with eyes of innocence, as we grow older the stories can take on more meaning and teach us wonderful lessons about life and ourselves.

In Rapunzel we see the suppression of someone’s wonderful beautiful gifts, controlled by those who surround them and how we can all be hidden in darkness from the world our light not shining for others to see.

In Aladdin we see the desire to attain a better social standing, to gain riches and fortune but how life can teach us about love and the more important things such as stolen moments with people that we love.

Red Riding Hood shows us that on the road of life there are those that will try to distract us and divert us from our path, sometimes deceiving us for their own selfish gain.

Of course who can forget Snow White where the support of true friends shines through and that inner beauty matters more than outer beauty.

Yes, while fairytales were part of childhood we are never to old to be enchanted by them. We can delve into their magic and learn things that we didn’t see when we loved them as a child. Magic can live in the pages of books as old as time if we look for it. They can take us to wondrous places, to meet fabulous characters and do amazing things. We are never too old for fairytales or the spells they cast so fetch that book and dust off the cobwebs and open it again and find the secrets inside.

So she closed the book, the dust rising, sparkling like prisms of light and held it to her heart. Tomorrow she would share her gift with her own little fairy and together they would be pirates, eating from a house made of candy, and there would be magical adventures, for many days to come. But what made her happiest of all was she knew that once again she could enjoy their magic too and escape to worlds far beyond here, where rainbows fill the skies and clouds taste like candy floss and where anything is possible if you just believe.