Fairies

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Take the Fair Face of Woman... by Sophie Anderson

A fairy, or faerie, is a spirit or supernatural being that is found in the legends, folklore, and mythology of many different cultures. They are generally human like in their appearance and have supernatural abilities such as the ability to fly, cast spells and to influence or foresee the future. Although in modern culture they are often depicted as young, sometimes winged, females of small stature, they originally were of a much different image: tall, angelic beings and short, wizened trolls being some of the commonly mentioned fay. The small, gauzy-winged fairies that are commonly depicted today did not appear until the 1800s.

1 Etymology
2 Fairies in literature and legend
3 Fairies in art
4 Fairies in modern culture and film
5 See also
6 Bibliography
7 External links

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Etymology

The words fae and faerie came to English from Old French which originated in the Latin word "Fata" which referred to the three mythological personifications of destiny, the Greek Moirae (Roman Parcae, "sparing ones", or Fatae) who were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They were usually described as cold, remorseless old crones or hags (in contrast to the modern physical depiction). The latin word gave modern Italian's fata, Catalan and Portuguese fada and Spanish hada, all of which mean fairy. The Old French fée, had the meaning "enchanter." Thus féerie meant a "state of fée" or "enchantment." Fairies are often depicted enchanting humans, casting illusions to alter their emotions and perceptions so as to make themselves at times alluring, frightening, or invisible. Modern English inherited the two terms "fae" and "fairy," along with all the associations attached to them.

A similar word, "fey," has historically meant "doomed to die," mostly in Scotland, which tied in the with the original meaning of fate. It has now gained the meaning "touched by otherworldly or magical quality; clairvoyant, supernatural." In modern English, the word seems to be conjoining into "fae" as variant spelling. If "fey" derives from "fata," then the word history of the two words is the same.1

Strictly, there should be a distinction between the usage of the two words "fae" and "faerie." "Fae" is a noun that refers to the specific group of otherworldly beings with mystical abilities (either the elves (or equivalent) in mythology or their insect-winged, floral descendants in English folklore), while "faerie" is an adjective meaning "of, like, or associated with fays, their otherworldly home, their activities, and their produced goods and effects." Thus, a leprechaun and a ring of mushrooms are both faerie things (a fairy leprechaun and a fairy ring.), although in modern usage fairy has come to be used as a noun.

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Fairies in literature and legend

Fairies of the meadow, by Nils Blommér

The question as to the essential nature of fairies has been the topic of myths, stories, and scholarly papers for a very long time.

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Practical beliefs

When considered as beings that a person might actually encounter, fairies were noted for their mischief and malice. For instance, "elf-locks" are tangles that are put in the hair of sleepers.

As a consequence, practical considerations of fairies have normally been advice on averting them. Cold iron is the most familiar, but other things are regarded as detrimental to the fairies: wearing clothing inside out, running water, bells (especially church bells), St. John's wort, and four-leaf clovers, among others. While many fairies will confuse travelers on the path, the will o' the wisp can be avoided by not following it. Certain locations, known to be haunts of fairies, are to be avoided; C. S. Lewis reported hearing of a cottage more feared for its reported fairies than its reported ghost. In particular, digging in fairy hills was unwise. Paths that the fairies travel are also wise to avoid. Home-owners have knocked corners from houses because the corner blocked the fairy path, and cottages have been built with the front and back doors in line, so that the owners could, in need, leave them both open and let the fairies troop through all night. Good house-keeping could keep brownies from spiteful actions, and such water hags as Peg Powler and Jenny Greenteeth, prone to drowning people, could be avoided with the body of water they inhabit.

A considerable amount of lore about fairies revolves about changelings and preventing a baby from being thus abducted.

A good number of folk tales about fairies are warnings about the dangers of negliance in this area.

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Fairy tales and legends

Some of the most well-known tales in the English and French traditions were collected in the "colored" fairy books of Scottish man of letters Andrew Lang between 1889 and 1910. These stories depict fairies in somewhat contradictory ways — kindly and dangerous, steadfast and fickle, loving and aloof, simple and unknowable — when, indeed, they depict fairies at all, as fairy tales need not involve any fairies at all. J. R. R. Tolkien described these tales as taking place in Faerie, which describe the creatures in them more accurately. Many stories that feature faires are not generally categorized as fairy tales, as well.

In many legends, the fairies are prone to kidnapping humans, either as babies, leaving changelings in their place, or as young men and women. This can be for a time or forever, and may be more or less dangerous to the kidnapped. In Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight Child Ballad #4, the elf-knight is a Bluebeard figure, and Isabel must trick and kill him to preserve her life. Tam Lin reveals that the title character, though living among the fairies and having fairy powers, was in fact an "earthly knight" and, though his life was pleasant now, he feared that the fairies would pay him as their tiend to hell. Sir Orfeo tells how Sir Orfeo's wife was kidnapped by the King of Faerie and only by trickery and excellent harping ability was he able to win her back. Thomas the Rhymer shows Thomas escaping with less difficulty, but he spends seven years in Faerie. Oisín is harmed not by his stay in Faerie but by his return; when he dismounts, the three centuries that have passed catch up with him, reducing him to an aged man.

A common feature of the fairies is the use of magic to disguise appearance. Fairy gold is notoriously unreliable, appearing as gold when paid, but soon thereafter revealing itself to be leaves, or gingerbread cakes, or a variety of other useless things.

These illusions are also implicit in the tales of fairy ointment. Many tales from the British islands tell of a mortal woman summoned to attend a fairy birth — sometimes attending a mortal, kidnapped woman's childbed. Invariably, the woman is given something for the child's eyes, usually an ointment; though mischance, or sometimes curiosity, she uses it on one or both of her own eyes. At that point, she sees where she is; one midwife realizes that she was not attending a great lady in a fine house but her own runaway maid-servant in a wretched cave. She escapes without making her ability known, but sooner or later betrays that she can see the fairies. She is invariably blinded in the eye where she can, or in both if she used the ointment on both. However, the mercurial and inherently magical nature of the fairy archetype has led to their association and confusion with most other mythical creatures. Dwarves, giants, dragons, unicorns, and the like have at some point been made out to be fairies, if not fae themselves.

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Literature

Fairies were taken up as characters in medieval chansons de gestes and lais, as when Huon of Bordeaux is aided by the fairy king Oberon, and Sir Launfal takes a fairy lover, and is nearly lost when he breaks her prohibition not to speak of her (a prohibition not only fitting fairies' secretive nature, but the ethos of courtly love).

William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream deals extensively with the subject of fairy-folk and their interaction with a group of amateur theatrical players. This work details the spell cast by the mischievous fairy Puck (at the behest of the fairy-king Oberon) on Oberon's wife Titania, who falls in love with the first mortal she casts eyes upon, the unfortunate Bottom, whom Puck has transmogrified into having a donkey's head. Orson Scott Card's Magic Street adds new fairy lore to Shakespeare's story and offers an alternative history of the play.

Shakespeare carefully put in the mouth of his fairies:

PUCK My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,

For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,

And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,

That in crossways and floods have burial,

Already to their wormy beds are gone;

For fear lest day should look their shames upon,

They willfully themselves exile from light

And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.

OBERON But we are spirits of another sort:

I with the morning's love have oft made sport,

This was a wise precaution in the era of witch-hunts, when James I of England, writing a treatise on demonology, included many fairies as types of demons. This encouraged, when fairies were used in literature, a light and fanciful touch, to disassociate them with those spirits.

The fairies became progressively more fanciful, until Andrew Lang, explaining that his collections, mentioned above, were all old fairy tales, complained of Victorian fairy tales:

They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed.

In his Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland (1892), W. B. Yeats coined the expression "trooping fairies" to refer to those fairies who liked to travel together in groups, related to the sidhe, Christianised remnants of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This is in contrast to the solitary fairies, such as the banshee, leprechaun, or pooka. Typically Yeats's trooping fairies are compared to the elves of English lore.

In the earlier versions of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the creatures later known as Elves were called Fairies.

Howevers, this use gave way, which has been a major influence on the use of fairies in fantasy literature. On one hand, Tolkien removed much of the Victorian connotation of elves; delicate, dainty little creatures (often with butterfly wings) are far more likely to be fairies than elves. On the other, Tolkien also humanized elves; terrifying, other-worldly creatures with minds and powers that mortals can not fathom — Margaret Ball's No Earthly Sunne — are also more likely to be fairies than elves, although such works as Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies show the influence of old folklore when dealing with elves.

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Fairies in art

See also Fairy painting

illustration from Alfred Smedberg's The seven wishes in among pixies and trolls by John Bauer

Fairies have been numerously depicted in books of fairy tales and sometimes as standalone works of art and sculpture. Artists such as Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Cicely Mary Barker, and Arthur Rackham have all created beautiful illustrations of fairies.

The Victorian painter Richard Dadd created paintings of fairy-folk with a sinister and malign tone. Other Victorian artists who depicted fairies include John Atkinson Grimshaw, Joseph Noel Paton, John Anster Fitzgerald and Daniel Maclise. Interest in fairy themed art enjoyed a brief renaissance following the publication of the Cottingley fairies photographs in 1917 and a number of artists turned to painting fairy themes.

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Fairies in modern culture and film

Tinkerbell: Originally from the Peter Pan stories by J.M. Barrie, but more famous for the Disney version. She is also often referred to as a pixie, and leaves a trail of fairy dust (or pixie dust) behind wherever she goes.
Blue Fairy: In Carlo Collodi's tale Pinocchio the wooden boy receives the gift of real life from the Blue Fairy.
Green Fairy: Also called La Fée Verte, a nickname for the alcoholic drink absinthe, so named for its green colour and intoxicating and seductive properties. Originally represented as a green woman, later she has been represented as a more traditional green coloured fairy. She was portrayed by Kylie Minogue in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!.
The Legend of Zelda: In this popular video game fairies are helpers to the main character Link (who has a somewhat elfish appearance). In the original games they simply replenished his health or revived him, but in the newer games they have become his life-long companions.
Willo the Wisp: The common image of the beautiful female fairy is parodied in the fat, ugly fairy Mavis Cruet in the cartoon voiced by Kenneth Williams.
Captain Holly Short of the LEP: A fairy character in the Artemius Fowl books By Eoin Colfer, the faries are creatures who have been driven underground by humans.

The Dresden Files, a series of books by Jim Butcher, also include the Fae prominently as recurring characters. Some, such as Queen Mab and Titania hold positions as fae prominently in Shakespearian literature, while others are simply recurring characters.

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Bibliography

Gordon Ashliman, Fairy Lore: A Handbook (Greenwood, 2006)
Brian Froud and Alan Lee, Faeries, (Peacock Press/Bantam, New York, 1978)
L. Henderson and E.J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief (Edinburgh, 2001)
Peter Narvaez, The Good People, New Fairylore Essays (Garland, New York, 1991)
C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964)
Patricia Lysaght, The Banshee: the Irish Supernatural Death Messenger (Glendale Press, Dublin, 1986)
Eva Pocs, Fairies and Witches at the boundary of south-eastern and central Europe FFC no 243 (Helsinki, 1989)
Diane Purkiss, Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairy Stories (Allen Lane, 2000)
Ronan Coghlan, Handbook of Fairies (Capall Bann, 2002)