Living: In All Seasons, Toys Are Us

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THE MECHANICAL MARVEL. Aaron's rod, which turned into a snake before Pharaoh, was an archetype of the inanimate object made to move like a living creature. In 400 B.C., Archytas of Tarentum devised a wooden pigeon that flew. To commemorate Louis XII's visit to Milan in 1509, Leonardo da Vinci invented a welcoming mechanical lion that could walk toward the throne, stop, then open its chest, spilling out fleurs-de-lis, symbols of the French court, to delight the King. In the next century Descartes built a mechanical figure of a child and displayed it on a sea voyage. By the time of the French Revolution, automatons had been designed to play instruments, sketch and write. There was even an automaton said to win at chess, but this was false advertising. Below the chessboard a boy had been concealed: the first Decepticon.

Later versions are found among the Transformers, high-tech creations capable of changing from space shuttles into swooping birds, from robots into car carriers. But for all the modern elaboration, they are still employed in the classic war of right (Autobots) vs. wrong (those Decepticons). These toy characters, and many others given the Transformers' success, now come with ready-made hagiologies -- which critics believe are vapid as well as constricting to the imagination and which most manufacturers believe sell a lot of product.

THE MIRACLE POWER. In Tales from the Arabian Nights, wishful travelers went by carpet, or journeyed on flying horses or tied to the feet of great birds. An entire island, Laputa, flew in Gulliver's Travels, and Cyrano de Bergerac went to the moon using a magnet. But in the industrial society, fantasy demanded an underpinning of gears and logic. The ideal was H.G. Wells' futuristic Time Machine, an invention that still thrives in the imaginations of toymakers.

In the legend accompanying this year's hot game, Lazer Tag, the heroine can travel through the centuries, backward and forward, like a boat on a river. ( Children who wish to take the longer journey -- from one identity to another -- can watch their toys do it the old-fashioned way in MASK. Ancient civilizations assumed animal and ghost faces when they wished to evoke exotic powers and spirits from the underworld. In the acronym for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, the principals are futuristic, but the rules belong to the past. MASK Leader Matt Trakker (both "compassionate" and "macho") dons different facial covers to undo his enemies. The motto of the game is "Illusion is the ultimate weapon," a phrase with which any primitive tribe would concur.

THE WAIF. The helpless and the small are favorites of tale tellers: the Grimm brothers' Cinderella who cleaned up after her vain stepsisters, Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl who froze barefoot in the snow. Dickens sentimentalized the waif as Little Nell, and for that matter, as young Oliver Twist. From rag dolls to Charlie Chaplin's little tramp, from Bambi to E.T., the waif has inspired scores of pathetic souls.