Why 13th Fairy for soap making? Cast your mind back to the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The king and queen of a realm invited twelve fairies to their daughter's baptismal feast. However, there were thirteen fairies in the realm; not a neat number like twelve, but an awkward prime number. (Ah, covid. "It's inconvenient to prepare for pandemics, they're awkward and unpredictable. Let's not bother," said the powers that be, in their wisdom.) Yet the uninvited and inconvenient did arrive.
Eleven invited fairies bestowed their blessings, while the snubbed fairy cursed the child to prick her finger and die, when she came of age. The other thirteenth fairy...the one who waited, and spoke last...mitigated the curse. She declared that the princess should not die but merely fall asleep, until the right circumstances occurred. (Ah, soap. We need not die nor fall ill from an unanticipated threat. Our withdrawal from our former lives requires us to keep socially distant. We must refrain from breathing upon others. And we must wash our hands...with lovely soap that beguiles the senses, and makes our duty a pleasure.)
Abundant soap is a gift from the other Thirteenth Fairy. Let us use it lavishly. Perhaps a handsome vaccine will kiss us awake and we will come of age with a new sensibility. Or perhaps the pandemic will pass, and we will return to our former mindlessness, and forget the pandemic's cost. Can we learn from the tales of old?
Eleven invited fairies bestowed their blessings, while the snubbed fairy cursed the child to prick her finger and die, when she came of age. The other thirteenth fairy...the one who waited, and spoke last...mitigated the curse. She declared that the princess should not die but merely fall asleep, until the right circumstances occurred. (Ah, soap. We need not die nor fall ill from an unanticipated threat. Our withdrawal from our former lives requires us to keep socially distant. We must refrain from breathing upon others. And we must wash our hands...with lovely soap that beguiles the senses, and makes our duty a pleasure.)
Abundant soap is a gift from the other Thirteenth Fairy. Let us use it lavishly. Perhaps a handsome vaccine will kiss us awake and we will come of age with a new sensibility. Or perhaps the pandemic will pass, and we will return to our former mindlessness, and forget the pandemic's cost. Can we learn from the tales of old?
