On Fairy Stories and Why I Chose This Name for Ylfe LLC

I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible. —J. R. R. Tolkien, On Fairy‑Stories (1939)

When I decided to name my company Ylfe LLC and build a whole platform around the theme of “fairy stories,” I knew I was choosing an archaic, even slightly embarrassing term. It sounds old-fashioned. It sounds a bit pretentious. It risks sounding, if we are blunt, like something many people would dismiss at first glance.

But I chose it nonetheless.

Remaining "Human‑Voiced"

Years ago, while dutifully updating and “optimizing” my LinkedIn profile in preparation for yet another job hunt, I stumbled upon Liz Ryan and her series on something called the human‑voiced résumé. The core idea behind such a thing was simple: be unapologetically human in how you present yourself.

The human‑voiced résumé breaks all the safe, sensible résumé rules. It tells you to use “I,” even though every bit of résumé advice advises against it. It tells you to speak like a person with a heart and a story, not like a bullet‑pointed robot. And most daring of all, it encourages you to say, in effect:

“If you need me to contort myself into a perfect little box, I am not for you, and that is okay.”

You are supposed to be willing to walk away. To say no to the job that does not fit you, and you do not fit it. To trust that there is more life, and more truth, in doing your own thing than in endlessly sanding down your edges. It can be hard to accept that people will reject you for being yourself, but there is nothing to fear in it, because once you find something that does fit, it will click so much better.

That idea stuck with me.

What's in a Name?

When I finally sat down to name my new business, this strangely situated serialized web novel platform I have been dreaming into existence, that idea gave me the impetus to choose something unusual. I could have gone with something sleek, modern, algorithm‑approved. But instead I kept circling back to Tolkien and that deeply archaic, deeply unfashionable phrase: fairy stories.

And then the doubts set in.

Would people think it was too girly?
Would men, especially the ones writing gritty epics, hard sci‑fi, war stories, and survival tales, see the name and immediately assume it was not for them?
Would some metaphorical (or literal) Indiana Jones ever consider publishing his adventures on a site referencing fairy stories?

I also worried about genre confusion. “Fairy stories” looks, at a glance, like a niche fantasy imprint. A cute re‑spelling of the well‑worn term fantasy, chosen just to stand out. The kind of thing a young writer would do to use a more archaic version of a term. To be like “our elves are different.” Of course, I absolutely am that kind of person (using Ylfe instead of elf... can you imagine?), but that doesn't mean I want to come across that way!

But that is not what this is.

Fantasy vs. Fairy Stories: They Are Not the Same

Fantasy, as we use the word now, has become a collection of tropes: elves and dwarves, magic systems and medieval-ish kingdoms, dragons, inns, prophecies. These can be wonderful, but they are genre furniture. You can rearrange them endlessly, but you are still playing in the same living room.

Fairy stories are something else entirely. They can have elves and dragons and spells, but they are not defined by them. “Fairy,” in Tolkien’s sense, is not a creature but a realm: Faërie. The perilous, wonderful, otherworldly place where the ordinary rules bend, where we glimpse something truer than the everyday.

Fairy stories are less about what appears in the story and more about how the story works on you.

The Four Qualities of Fairy Stories

Quality	What it Means	Quick Illustration
Wonder	The capacity to lift the reader above ordinary life into a more awe‑filled vision. Not mere spectacle, but the sense that the world is bigger and richer than expected.	“It may be sufficient to give the reader a sense of the great wonder associated with the idea that something else, something deeper or more magnificent, may lie beyond the ordinary.”
Recovery	A clearer, richer sense of reality that remains after the story ends. A restoration of sight, as though wiping dust from the windows of the mind.	“The main effect of the fairy‑story is that it recovers the imagination, and by extension the mind, from its weariness.”
Escape	A legitimate retreat from the day‑to‑day grind, not escapism in the negative sense. It is the right to step away from prison walls, not a refusal to face reality.	“It is the escape from the world of mundane difficulties, a safe escape that the reader does not feel guilty about.”
Consolation (Eucatastrophe)	The sudden turn from disaster to unexpected joy. The moment when all seems lost and then, astonishingly, is redeemed.	“The fairy‑story is often built on a consolation: a sudden, joyous turn that restores the reader’s faith in a better outcome.”

This is what I mean by fairy stories.

This is what I want the platform to be about.

Why I Chose This Name Anyway

Partly, for a wonderfully frivolous reason: I just like fairies.

I am a 30‑year‑old woman, and I still love them. As a child, I was entranced by winged fae, by the idea of small, bright beings flitting just out of sight. But the more I read, the more I realized how much we have watered them down. The old fae, strange and beautiful and dangerous, hardly appear anymore. And I miss them.

Using “fairy stories” feels like honoring that child-self who loved them and lamented their passing. It is my quiet nod to the old tales where the fae were beings but also a realm. A place and a people with powers to be reckoned with. A promise to myself to make room for that kind of story again.

But there is another reason, and it goes much deeper: into faith. And into what it means to be a creator at all.

The Act of Sub‑Creation

Tolkien believed that human beings are made in the image of God. I agree with him. And for him, that likeness was not just a theological label. It had consequences. If God is a Creator, and we bear His image, then a part of our nature is to create.

Unlike God, we do not create out of nothing. We work with what has been given. We work with soil, with cold steel, with the air we breathe, the night sky, and the earth beneath our feet. But from these humble materials, we can shape something that did not exist before:

new worlds with their own skies and seasons
new lives that strangers can inhabit for a little while
new patterns of meaning that help people see their own world differently

Tolkien called this “sub‑creation,” our reflection of divine creativity in miniature. He saw fairy stories as one of the highest expressions of that gift, because they allow us to weave worlds where truth can be smuggled in under the guise of imagination, where goodness can be made sharp and bright, and where hope can rise out of the darkest pits.

That vision changed the way I thought about writing. It made me realize that when we tell stories that give people courage or consolation, or a glimpse of joy that feels as though it comes from beyond, we are doing something in the image of our Creator, whether we name it that way or not.

So naming my platform after Tolkien’s On Fairy‑Stories is not just a fannish tribute. It is a declaration of what I believe stories can and should be.

Who This Platform Is For

Maybe one day I will change my mind. Maybe one day I will decide it is more important to be palatable to a larger audience. Or maybe I will see that I am driving away too many people, some of whom would have been perfect fits. But the heart behind it will remain the same.

This brings me back to you, as improbable as you may feel here.

If you are a burly man with a beard in Tennessee, cleaning your gun between shifts, and you stumble across a site discussing fairy stories, I want you to know this:

You are absolutely welcome.

I am not building a platform only for soft, pastel tales, although you are welcome to send me every soft, pastel tale you have. I am not only looking for fae courts and flower crowns, though I will happily take them too.

I am looking for a way of telling stories:

Stories that do not leave people in the dust.
Stories that do not revel in nihilism or end in the flat note of “nothing matters.”
Stories that may go very dark, where things genuinely become terrifying, where not everyone gets out alive, but where there is, at the last, a turn toward hope. A light at the end of the tunnel. A hand at the end of the rope.

Modern Fairy Stories: What I Hope You Will Create

Stories that carry wonder, even in a grim city or a spaceship or a war zone.
Stories that offer recovery, by returning the reader to the real world with clearer eyes, renewed imagination, and a sense that the ordinary is richer than it first appeared.
Stories that provide escape, not a shirking of responsibility but a rightful breath of freedom, a step outside the daily grind.
Stories that move toward eucatastrophe, that gasp of unexpected good.
Stories that participate in image‑of‑God creativity, small but true acts of sub‑creation that offer new worlds, new chances, and new mercies.

If that is the kind of story you long to create, whether your protagonist wields a sword, a blaster, a violin, or a kitchen knife, then you are exactly the sort of person I had in mind when I named this place.

Yes, the name is old‑fashioned. Yes, it may puzzle some people. Yes, it may drive away those who never wanted what I am offering.

But if the phrase “fairy stories” stirs something in you, some mixture of longing, defiance, reverence, and delight, then I hope you will take it as an invitation.

Come create with me.

Come build worlds where people can rest a while, be challenged, be changed, and return to their own lives carrying a little more light than they had before.

And if that is the story you are burning to tell, I hope you submit today.