Let's all make an effort to read a fairy tale this week, 'kay?

Imagine going through a weekend without electric lighting, TV, radio, computers or even books. Use candles and lamps sparingly, as if wax and oil were rare and dear commodities. Instead, rely mainly on a fire. If you can, do this at an isolated rural house, away from the distractions and noise of the city. You are replicating the common experience of humanity before the twentieth century. The outside world is darkness, full of the noises of unidentifiable animals and insects, the groan of creaking wood and the whisper of wind through unseen spaces. Out there is the unkennable realm of nature, indifferent or perhaps even hostile to mankind. As night falls, your family begins to huddle in the pool of light and warmth thrown by your fire; the light is to weak to do much work by, so mostly you sit and talk to each other. This was the nighttime world of virtually every generation before ours -- the place and time of the storyteller, the folk poet and singer. In between the outer world of darkness and the inner world of light, there is an third place, where things can be seen but only indistinctly; of shifting shadows, curling smoke and imagined shapes. This is the world of Faerie11. Faerie has been our constant nighttime companion from the earliest days of our species until light bulbs and electricity became common in the last century. [Kuro5hin.org]