My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. The things that I believed most then, the things that I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong.
Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense.
This was at one with all popular tradition. But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before I could speak, and shall retain when I cannot write.