Tales are stories about stories; they are brought to us from memory and arrive with often an antique finish; they are also arrived from the deep unconscious of a country or place. Tales may be a residue from childhood. They lived in a more dimensional world than a story that is a reportage, or a story that is about something, or that is current in the world of reporting. I believe that a Tale has more magic than a story. It breathes within a separate world of memory or desire. Its remoteness from the center of things is what is endearing about a Tale and it doesn’t tell the truth about itself; it tells us what it dreams about. And remember that a Tale arises from the imagination, and this is what makes a Tale live in another dimension.
Barbara Guest, Forces of Imagination
