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Many, many years ago, before there was radio or television, the authentic rite of passage into the outer world consisted of receiving your first library card. On that auspicious day, I knew exactly what I would do—the same as my older friends had done. And so I rushed to the library and took out the Red Fairy Book. By the end of the week, I had been through the Red, the Green, the Yellow, and the Blue Fairy Books.
It did not take long to recognize a familiar, repetitive theme that ran through so many of the stories. It concerned three brothers who were charged by the king to solve a difficult problem or bring back some magic talisman. The successful brother was awarded the hand of the beautiful princess in marriage and was next in line to ascend the throne. The results were always predictable. The oldest brother, a practical but unimaginative dolt, returned first. He had the wrong answer. He was given short shrift and then faded completely from the picture. The middle brother fared somewhat better, but not much. The youngest brother, however, was always the successful one—not at all, mind you, by virtue of his native ability but in consequence of some act of kindness from which he became the beneficiary of magical intervention by a toad, a gnome, a genie, or a fairy godmother in disguise.
I found this scenario most appealing. It suited me just fine because I was the youngest of three children and, much as my two