What Comes Around Goes Around and Other Ancient Wisdoms…
Good old fashioned fairy stories have the message we need in these troubled, selfish times
Sally Warner, Taunton

Forgive me if I sound smug. I am on rather good form because someone who did me a very great and unwarranted injustice a few years ago, and has since behaved appallingly by spreading malicious unfounded rumours about me, has finally fallen flat on her face. There’s no one going to run to her assistance.
Those who might have done have now seen her for what she really is. It has taken a while for just desserts to be delivered but nothing and no one as evil as she is can live undetected forever. She made one spiteful remark too many and it has all now backfired. Those who had snubbed me as a result of her lies have come to me to apologise profusely for ever having believed her. And even her lackey husband is said to be about to leave her (though he is so weak I’d be amazed if he actually did manage to slink away). When he does, which I am sure he will eventually if he wants to get a life, she’ll have no one left, even her own children are repulsed by her, and were this a fairy tale she’d disappear in a puff of evil smelling green smoke never to be seen again!
What this story is all about is not revenge per se. It is about justice being done and it underlines the fact that none of us on the receiving end of vicious and vile behaviour need actively seek revenge or respond. We need not lower our standards or stoop to that level. I had no need to vent my spleen or retaliate though I often felt like it, instead I kept my counsel and composure knowing that she’d get her comeuppance. I smiled through her jeering and snide remarks, and through each of her futile attempts to unnerve me. I swear she wasted every day plotting and scheming to bring me down to her level – silly woman. No one else on this earth, save for her cronies who were coerced into inhabiting the sour space that surrounds her and into conducting ill deeds on her behalf, cared less when she fell from grace. Some, I am sure, quietly cheered.
I knew all along that if I simply sat back without retaliating that she would get so frustrated that she’d go a step too far. She did just that and her evil behaviour rebounded and delivered back all the nastiness she had pumped out. That amount of
poison in one foul dose should have been lethal! There must be a dozen fairy tales and parables that teach just this message
– the nasty evil one against the good and the honourable. Now wouldn’t the world be a better place if those who perpetrate evil deeds knew that we “victims” were emotionally stronger than them and more than capable of sitting back and waiting for justice to be done? These fairy tales certainly aren’t just for children – in fact many of them ring all the more true for adults – and they certainly provide food for thought and salve for troubled minds.
These tales contain the moral teachings our modern day society seems to have lost in its bid to be politically correct. Which is why I must extol every grandparent to dust off the old (unmodernised and played about with) copies of Grimms and Hans Anderson fairy tales, to dig out Aesop’s Fables, The Water Babies, and other wondrous books and take the time to read them with their children and their grandchildren. And winter is the ideal time to do this, curled up together in front of the fire, away from the TV and the DVD player. Reading
aloud, getting into character, sharing and enjoying every finely crafted word.
Human beings are the same as ever they were with the same strengths and weaknesses. This is why these old tales, many of which have survived for generations have as much to teach us and our children in this decade as they had hundreds of years ago…. and often, you will find, the penny will drop with your six and your eight year olds as they equate the bully, the wicked stepmother, the good fairy, the downtrodden orphan, the ugly duckling… with some of the people in their own lives.
Your children and grandchildren need to learn that simple justice works every time, and that good always triumphs over evil. Learning these simple things and waiting for nature to take its course can save us all from unhappiness, from wasting time and energy. There is so much that is good and positive and worthy of attention in our world. Imagine for a moment that we could all free our minds from thoughts of jealousy, greed, spite, and revenge and simply get on with what we were put on this earth to do. There would be no wars left to fight.
Fairy stories and fables are excitingly full of tales of evil, two faced individuals. The creature who tried her evil best to do me down was of the classic ugly stepmother cum Cruella Deville (101 Dalmatians mould). Nasty, greedy, chiselled rodent like features, prone to fawning over her customers/charges while it suited her, only to rage, snarl and insult them when they were out of earshot. Complete with the classic, gawky, downtrodden lackey husband/gopher who was all mouth and insults to others when in her presence but who cowered and visibly shrank, afraid of his own shadow any time you saw him alone.
What comes around really does go around. I have it on very good authority that the small business she started with her illgotten gains and which initially had the support of people who fell for her lies - is on its last legs. Her sad little husband is said to be about to jump ship and most of the people she thought to be her friends are now steering a very wide berth.
The moral before you start picking on someone for no real reason or start to throw your weight about, be sure to fully consider the consequences. Justice invariably gets done in the end and those that act with evil intent will suffer greater losses than they can ever imagine.
And, as the tales all say, those that have suffered at the hands of the scurrilous will live happily every after…