Today's Reading
The value of the myth is that it takes all the
things () we know
and restores to them the rich significance //which has been
hidden by “the veil of familiarity”.
The child enjoys his gold meat
(otherwise dull to him) by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with
his own bow and arrow.
And the child is wise.
The real meat comes back
/to him /more savoury /for having been dipped in a story;
you might say
that only then is it the real meat.
If you are tired of the real
landscape, look at it in a mirror.
By putting bread, gold, horse, apple,
or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality:
we
rediscover it.
As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things
are more themselves.
From On Stories
On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature. Copyright © 1982, 1966 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.