The fairy tale is about to break upon us, once and still and again. We know what we’re in for and, of course, we also don’t, for fairy tale has more than one method by which to cast a spell. Attending, we’ll have to attend. Tolkien, that philologist turned bard and pantocratur of Middle-earth, called it faërie, that which “holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky, the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”

Indeed, with Tolkien’s press release promising so much, we might as well know this place as the Globe Theatre, the way Shakespeare did.

And that’s why we’ve rushed to get here in time for the curtain. We’re anticipating an apparition of faërie promised, herein, as a series of episodes, all alike, all different. Whether they seem archaic or postmodern, conventional or avant-garde, whether their enchantments are apparent or invisible, in some ways they will all cavort without drawing attention to the sleight of faërie itself, which is a conjuring act that relies at once upon theatrical smoke-and-mirrors and upon deep magic.

We hold, in these initial pages, something of a program, one that contains no advertisements, no hint of coming attractions. Makes no suggestion for where to dine afterward. We’re on our own. But, riffling through, from back to front, with curiosity, impatience, perhaps a sense of entitlement — we’re not children here — what might we have come to expect?

In traditional tales the dramatis personae hail from central casting. We’ve a few moments; let’s steal backstage. Let’s open the door to the green room and peek to see who is waiting. A bevy of beauties, each more fetching, more modest, more loyal, more lovely than the next (no matter from which point you begin scanning the room). A gossiping group of grand dames, as kindly as godmothers or as corrupt as witches, or both by turns. Hags and harridans, huntsmen and hunchbacks. Kings and kings and kings, a congress of kings. Also, a sample of simpletons.