One essay from British author J.R.R. Tolkien is especially prominent in its relation to the Christian faith. His 1947 On Fairy-Stories essay was written for a lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Best known for fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, a Roman Catholic and philologist, infused his imagined world with moral and spiritual depth, drawing on his faith, love of language, and expertise in medieval literature, despite being against allegory or writings being explicitly “Christian.”
Tolkien’s essay, On Fairy Stories, reminds Christians to bring back something lost or neglected within our lives. Below are six benefits of fairy-stories for Christian living. Many Christians may believe fantasy stories are fine, but Tolkien reminds us of their extreme potency. I urge readers to dive into the essay for themselves and reflect upon his thoughts for they are remarkable.
The Oxford professor defines fairy-stories not as tales about “fairies” as we see them, but as narratives set within the realm of Faërie: a world of enchantment, wonder, and moral depth.
These stories generally hold three characteristics that combine independent invention “bits” thrown in with the shared “soup” of inheritance and cultural diffusion. True fairy-stories evoke enchantment by presenting fantasy as internally true within a consistent secondary world. They reveal the beauty and meaning of ordinary things, like grass or water, and often express a longing for harmony with all living things. Fairy-stories allow us to participate in Faërie and glimpse truths through imagination.
Moral and Religious Understanding
One benefit of fairy-stories for Christians is the potential to discover and convey moral and religious truth. The hobbits of Tolkien’s own fairy-stories often help to understand many real truths such as the true meaning of courage and a reflection on the concept and duty, loyalty, and friendship in a way that would fail within the confines of the “primary” world.
Tolkien holds an understanding of fantasy and reason or knowledge to be tied together.
“The keener and clearer is the reason, the better fantasy it will make,” he writes.
Although, as Tolkien also acknowledges, the power of fantasy can be used in excess and be put to evil ends of deception and corruption. This worry, however, should not encourage Christians to revile against all fantasy but rather to use continual discernment in the realms of the secondary worlds, to hold fantasy to higher standards of being proper, good fantasy-stories, and to participate in the creation and imaginative work of fairy-stories to revive a Christian influence within modern fantasy.
Identity as Sub-creators
By engaging in the work of fantasy and participating in the imagining, Tolkien believes we are participating in a natural right of “sub-creation” which develops and affirms our identity as sub-creators as we are made in the image of a Maker. In this way, the work of fairy-stories and even minor imagining is a form of art honoring God, maybe even “the purest form of Art”: it does not force imposed constraints on reality in the form of something pure and residing only in the imagination. It is no way “counterfeit,” unlike other forms of Art, especially drama for Tolkien.
Cultivation of Imagination
Tolkien, in his essay, calls us into action as we can take the place of the enchanter and participate in the natural act of imagining. This is especially important for Christians as we hope and grow in faith. For as it says in Hebrews 11:1, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Our hope and faith require a step into the realm of the unseen. “We must travel hopefully if we are to arrive,” writes Tolkien. Imagination must be cultivated well to grow within faith and the best way of doing this is by entering into fairy-stories, the realm of imagination.
Recovery of Child-like Wonder
Fairy-stories also help us to renew our sense of child-like wonder and encourage us to marvel at the things of the world around us that have become too familiar. Tolkien describes what we have done to the wonders of the everyday world as that “we laid hands on them, and locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.”
In watching an adaptation of another fairy-story, Beauty and the Beast, this past weekend, Belle strolls in an icy garden with the Beast whilst reading a poem about the frost leaves and branches.
“It is as if I am seeing it for the first time,” he expresses. This remark conveys joyous awe in the beauty of creation that returns when we step into the world of Faërie and a reminder of the wonder and awe which we ought to express towards God.
In Matthew 18:3, Jesus calls us to return to the humility of a child, and while Tolkien expresses that practicing humility can be enough, fantasy can be a strong aid in the struggle of getting back to the humility of a child and give us “a fresh appetite for marvels”.
Christian Escapism
For Tolkien, fairy-stories can also provide a temporary escape from the troubles and extreme sorrows of the “primary” world. Although escape can hold a negative connotation, Tolkien reminds us of our limited strength and energy as human beings. Entering into fantasy and imagination can give a healthy, Christian form of escape for renewal and recovery of souls. The weight of this world is heavy, and fantasy provides a form of relief that is not characteristic of “delusion or hallucination” like that found in other common forms of escape in our world.
Tolkien asks, “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?”
Consolation within the Eucatastrophe
Lastly, Tolkien argues that fairy-stories give the participant a peace or consolation through what he calls the “eucatastrophe” and, possibly, a splendid renewal in how we see the life of Christ.
Tolkien emphasizes that all truly complete fairy-stories have the consolation and joy of the happy ending or rather, “the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’…a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur, giving a fleeting glimpse of joy, joy beyond the walls of the world.”
However, Tolkien believes that this sudden feeling received from these “eucatastrophes” may just be a glimpse at something greater, “a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.” The Gospels, for Tolkien, contain a fairy-story or an overarching story that holds within it the essence of all fairy-stories. It holds many marvels and chief among these is “the greatest and most complete conceivable Eucatastrophe.” The birth of Christ being the eucatastrophe of man’s history and the resurrection being the eucatastrophe of the story of the incarnation.
Tolkien writes, “This story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and history have met and fused.” As to what to make of this, I can only say that this is a truly beautiful vision of the Gospels that fantasy-stories can point us to and consequently, may help to brighten our daily actions and imaginings with the marvels and wonders of scripture.
Luke Pelser is a University Scholar Major at Baylor University concentrating in philosophy, psychology, and political science on the pre-law track.
Comment by Loren J Golden on July 28, 2025 at 1:39 am
A copy of “On Fairy-Stories” can also be found in the Appendix of Tales from the Perilous Realm, an anthology of several of Tolkien’s lesser-known, but still quite delightful, shorter works:
Roverandom, a story Tolkien wrote to console his young son after he lost a toy dog during a visit to the seaside, of the dog’s subsequent fanciful adventures, culminating in being transformed into a real dog, whom the Tolkiens eventually adopted.
Farmer Giles of Ham, a story in which the extraordinarily ordinary eponymous Farmer Giles—in full, Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo—was the recipient of a magical sword and used it to humble the mighty dragon Chrysophylax, who had been terrorizing the English countryside.
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (a book of Tolkien’s poetry, only two of which were actually about Bombadil, and a few of which found their way into LOTR.
Smith of Wootton Major, the story of a boy—the eponymous Smith, so named because he grew up and followed that trade, as did his father before him—swallowed a magical star baked into the Great Cake by the (apparently) young assistant of the village of Wootton Major’s Master Cook, which Cake was baked only every 24 years for a special feast, and which star allowed the child who swallowed it to be transported into the world of Faërie during the 24 years that elapsed until the next feast, when said star would be passed on to another child in the same manner.
Leaf by Niggle (a tale of the afterlife, much in the same vein as C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, although more consonant with Tolkien’s Catholic belief in Purgatory, and which beautifully illustrates his concept of man as sub-creator.
Each of these stories, as I said, is a delightful read from Tolkien’s masterful storytelling art, and I heartily recommend Tales from the Perilous Realm to other lovers of Tolkien’s works.