Princess Merida's Wisps

Fairy Light, Wind Fairy by Katanerial
Licensed under Creative Commons

I got to see the movie Brave twice over the summer.  It was a great film.  In it, Princess Merida encounters wisps, which are light fairies.  The wisps led Merida on a difficult path.  Eventually, it did get her to where she needed to be.  My interpretation is that the wisps knew that they were leading the princess onto a difficult journey.  They did so anyway, in hopes that she would eventually arrive at the right place.

The portrayal of the wisps in Brave was spiritually relevant to me.  Here's what they reminded me of:

1. Fairies do tend to lead us humans down difficult paths.  Just as how they led Merida down a path that she believed would help her, but actually made things much more difficult for her for a time.
2. Sometimes its difficult to find fairies, especially when we feel we need them the most.  In the film, the princess must find the wisps again in order to get the help she required, due to the circumstances of following the wisps in the first place.
3. It often does require the help of someone else to help us find fairies.  It was Merida's mother who was able to help her find the wisps again and to get the help Merida needed.
4. Fairies mean well, though it may be difficult to see that at times.  The journey was rough, but Merida really needed to travel that way to get to where she needed to go.

I'm quite grateful that I was able to see this film when I did.  It was actually quite influential in helping me find my fairies.  One of the reasons I did choose fairies was because I really like the ways they are often portrayed in such fairy tales.