Most of us get our earliest life lessons from fairy tales, like “True love can overcome anything”, and “Even a frog can turn into a prince”.

我们大多数人都从童话故事中学到了人生第一课，如“真爱能够战胜一切”，“就算是青蛙，也能变成王子”等等。

However, at a certain age, we start to learn new things about life, particularly that love doesn’t always win, and that a frog is just a frog.

然而，到了一定年纪，我们开始学到了人生中的新课，尤其是爱情并非无所不胜，而青蛙也永远只是一只青蛙。

But somehow, our love for fairy tales never dies. Just look at animated films like The Lion King and Frozen, which have millions of fans young and old. And this year’s Lucerne Festival in Switzerland – a classical music festival – will also feature the themes of “Childhood” and “Fairy tales” when it runs from Aug 17 to Sept 16.

但无论如何，我们对童话故事的爱却永远不会消逝?？纯础妒ㄗ油酢?、《冰雪奇缘》等动画电影拥有数百万不分老幼的粉丝就明白了。而在今年8月17日-9月16日，于瑞士举行的古典音乐节琉森音乐节也将以“童年”与“童话”为主题。

“Fairy tales endure because they are the stories of our lives in their most stripped down form,” wrote US author Laura Packer on the National Storytelling Network website. “They are stories of love and loss, desire and death, riches and ruin.”

“童话故事历久弥新，因为它们是人生故事最纯粹的形式，”美国作家劳拉·帕克在美国全国讲故事联合会网站上如此写道。“这些故事讲述了爱与失去、渴望与死亡、富有与毁灭。”

Fairy tales are all about reality. But if children only see just one side of reality, adults usually see the other.

童话故事都与现实息息相关。但孩子们只能看到一面，而成年人往往能看到另一面。

For example, in the 2014 film Maleficent, we’re told the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the evil queen. Unlike the children’s version of the story, we see that the queen wasn’t born evil. Instead, she suffers great losses growing up, leading to the creation of her “evil” side. And in US author James Finn Garner’s book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, he tells the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a modern touch: When the wolf tells Red Riding Hood that it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through the woods alone, she calls the wolf sexist, which connects with today’s gender equality movement.

比如，在2014年的电影《沉睡魔咒》中，我们通过邪恶皇后的视角观看了《睡美人》的故事。与儿童版故事不同的是，我们看到，皇后并非生来就是恶人。她在成长过程中遭遇了重大打击，从而激发了她“邪恶”的一面。而在美国作家詹姆斯·芬恩·加纳所著的《政治正确的睡前故事》一书中，他以一种现代的方式讲述了《小红帽》的经典故事：当大灰狼告诉小红帽，小女孩独自前往森林并不安全时，小红帽认为大灰狼这是性别歧视，将这个故事与如今的性别平权运动联系起来。

It looks like fairy tales aren’t just stories our parents read us at bedtime. They may usually start with “Once upon a time …”, but as we grow older, we learn that every story doesn’t always need a “Happily ever after” to be a good one.

看起来，童话故事并不只是父母给我们讲的睡前故事。它们的开头或许都是“很久以前……”，但当我们渐渐长大，我们会发现，一个好故事的结局并不一定非得是“从此幸?？炖值厣钤谝黄?rdquo;。