Fairy Tale Spotlight: Definitions with Commentary (Vol. 2)

[All definitions are taken from Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Enjoy.]

Spell

-noun-

1. A story; a tale.

2. A charm consisting of some words of occult power. Start not; her actions shall be holy; you hear my speel is lawful. Begin, begin; the mystic spell prepare.

3. A turn of work; relief; turn of duty. Take a spell at the pump. Their toil is so extreme, that they cannot endure it above four hours in a day, but are succeed by spells.

4. In New England, a short time; a little time. [Not elegant.]

5. A turn of gratuitous labor, sometimes accompanied with presents. People give their neighbors a spell

-verb-

1. To tell or name the letters of a word, with a proper division of syllables, for the with a proper division of syllables, for the purpose of learning the pronunciation. In this matter children learn to read by first spelling the words.

2. To write or print with the proper letters; to form words by correct orthography. The word satire ought to be spelled with i, and not with y.

3. To take another's place or turn temporarily in any labor or service. [This is a popular use of the word in New England.]

4. To charm; as spelled with words of power.

5. To read; to discover by characters or marks; with out; as, to speel out the sense of an author. We are not left to spell out a God in the works of creation.

6. To tell; to relate; to teach. [Not in use.]

-verb intransitive-

1. To form words with the proper letters, either in reading or writing. He knows not how to spell Our orthography is so irregular that most persons never learn to spell

2. To read.

Commentary: This is one of those words that have different meanings that are utterly unrelated. The main example of this has to do with the spelling of a word. This really has nothing to do with the reason I chose this word to define. I was more interested in the word from a magical standpoint.

I was surprised to see that the very first definition was "A story; a tale." Only by the second definition do we go into the occult. Are the creation and telling of stories filled with some sort of magic power? Don't worry! I came with an answer. Yes! Storytelling is actually a spell that causes change in the reality around you. People get inspired and want to make these tales a reality. Stories also change people's perspective of the world which will inevitably alter their decisions. I know it looks like cause and effect, but that is actually what a spell does. It causes reactions, whether they are good or bad.

Fairy tales have always been about opening your eyes to that which is not often seen. It takes a willing listener for it to work, but the intention is clear enough. Also I am pretty sure we would have never gone to the moon if we did not have stories since time untold about visiting the sphere.

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Evil

-adjective-

1. Having bad qualities of a natural kind; mischievous; having qualities which tend to injury, or to produce mischief.
Some evil beast hath devoured him. Genesis 37:20.

2. Having bad qualities of a moral kind; wicked; corrupt; perverse; wrong; as evil thoughts; evil deeds; evil speaking; an evil generation.

3. Unfortunate; unhappy; producing sorrow, distress, injury or calamity; as evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days.

-noun-

1. Evil is natural or moral. Natural evil is any thing which produces pain, distress, loss or calamity, or which in any way disturbs the peace, impairs the happiness, or destroys the perfection of natural beings.

Moral evil is any deviation of a moral agent from the rules of conduct prescribed to him by God, or by legitimate human authority; or it is any violation of the plain principles of justice and rectitude.

There are also evils called civil, which affect injuriously the peace or prosperity of a city or state; and political evils, which injure a nation, in its public capacity.

All wickedness, all crimes, all violations of law and right are moral evils. Diseases are natural evils, but they often proceed from moral evils.

2. Misfortune; mischief; injury.
There shall no evil befall thee. Psalms 91:10.
A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself. Proverbs 22:3.

3. Depravity; corruption of heart, or disposition to commit wickedness; malignity.
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil Ecclesiastes 9:3.

4. Malady; as the king's evil or scrophula.

-adverb-

1. Not well; not with justice or propriety; unsuitable.
Evil it beseems thee.

2. Not virtuously; not innocently.

3. Not happily; unfortunately.
It went evil with his house.

4. Injuriously; not kindly.
The Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us.
In composition, evil denoting something bad or wrong, is often contracted to ill.

Commentary: Here is a word that gets thrown around a lot. People like to call anything bad "evil." I know what you must be thinking. Evil is something more specific, right? No, it isn't. Evil is anything that should be good, but isn't. It makes perfect sense that everyone wants to call bad things evil. It is indicative of a world that isn't working the way it was intended. A broken machine is evil. Pain is evil. Death itself is evil. That's why the definitions cover such a broad spectrum.

People can be evil too--what Webster refers to as "moral evil." Humans are supposed to uplift others and bring new things to the world around us. Instead, many of them hurt others, murder, and destroy. That is evil.

But what is the worst possible evil? I'll tell you. It is when someone can readily help another in need and won't. Remember that.

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Sorcerer

-noun-

1. A conjurer; an enchanter; a magician. The Egyptian sorcerers contended with Moses.

Commentary: First thing you'll note is there is nothing specifically maligned about the sorcerer. He could be either good or evil. We often tend to think of them as being on the wrong side of things. Even Webster chooses a more maligned example. This is likely because there was a time when we feared people that could play around with the forces of nature merely through hand gestures and words. Power and humanity often make very dangerous bedfellows.

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Villainous

-adjective-

1. Base; very vile.

2. Wicked; extremely depraved; as a villanous person or wretch.

3. Proceeding from extreme depravity; as a villanous action.

4. Sorry; vile; mischievous; in a familiar sense; as a villanous trick of the eye.
Villanous judgment, in old law, a judgment that casts reproach on the guilty person.

Commentary: I was actually going for the word "Villain (noun)" but the dictionary for some reason redirected me to the adjective version. That's fine. I'll settle for it since this is really about the qualities of a villain.

The word "Villain" often conjures to the mind some sort of great antagonist in a story. We can forget that they do actually exist in real life. There are people who are base, wicked, and vile. There are even those who revel in such qualities. I am not talking about dictators and terrorists; although, there is a place for them. You may have someone in your life that is against you. Go ahead. Call that person a villain. That's what they are. By definition, the word is not limited by class.

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Fiction

-noun-

1. The act of feigning, inventing or imagining; as, by the mere fiction of the mind.

2. That which is feigned, invented or imagined. The story is a fiction
So also was the fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon, taken from the serpent which tempted Eve.

Commentary: The definition suggests that fiction is a falsehood but does not out rightly say it. Fiction is clearly something invented or imagined. What does the imagination have to do with falsities? God imagined the universe, and so it became real. George Lucas imagined Star Wars, and that universe is a very established part of our society now. Scientology was imagined by L.Ron Hubbard, and now it's an established religion. Fiction can become reality real quickly, so be careful what you create in this world. Creation has consequences.

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