"That tragedy from which she rescues him gratuitously for the sake of their mutual welfare."

Once upon a time there was a bad man who ruled the kingdom, and the people were unhappy. Just when everything seemed lost a knight in shining armour arrived, the kingdom was saved and we all lived… well most of us did. Who is this mysterious new character in our lives? What are the chances that in the wake of his arrival, we all live happily ever after? Are we possibly getting a bit old to believe fairy stories?

In this week's episode I look at one of the oldest fairy tales in English folklore, that first found its way into the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, recorded almost a thousand years ago. In a previous episode I talked about the ways in which we become disappointed very quickly with our new leaders, today we're taking a step further back as we investigate what happens in the build up to getting rid of the bad guy and replacing them with the knight in shining armour.

The reason these stories remain so popular is because they still resonate for us in the 21st century, It’s not difficult to see ourselves in each of the main characters in this story. You and I and almost everyone is the poor beautiful young princess, yes even me, a 67-year-old white bloke with hairy legs and an occasional weight problem.

The bad ruler, or ugly sister, or wicked stepmother represents a person we know who seems to have too much control over our lives. The knight in shining armour, in the fantasy that is this story, is the handsome young Amazon driver, here to deliver that control back to us.

Yes it’s a story, as believable as the fairies at the bottom of the garden who tell it. In reality more often than not it’s the lesser evil who still controls our lives but in a slightly less controlling way.

There are many ways in which Shakespeare approaches the story - there's the person who thinks they're the knight when they're clearly knot (sorry), sometimes there's more than one knight battling for the honour of the title, sometimes we just like the idea of a knight, other times there really is a knight but they don't win, and then there's the world where there's no such thing.

Is it all a bunch of fairy stories, a waste of time? Well, occasionally we really do all live happily ever after.

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