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Fairies

In British mythology fairies and druids are intimately con­nected, since druids were magicians and had commerce with spirits who afterwards figure in folklore as fairies. At King Arthur’s court it is almost impossible to distinguish between fairies (fays, Fr. fee) and human beings. Arthur’s sister is called Morgan La Fee, yet she is queen of an earthly kingdom, being the wife of Uriens or Vrience of Gore. Merlin is at one and the same time a fairy and a human being, because of his birth, and probably the some applies to Nimue.

Shakespeare’s fairies puzzle commentators today, but there is no need to assume that they do not reflect beliefs held in this country in the early Middle Ages. They form definite communities ruled by a king and queen. Oberon is their king, Titania their queen. There is a fairy court, Puck is one of their ministers or pages, Mab is the fairy midwife, Leprechaun, the fairy shoemaker, Ariel is a fairy enslaved by a witch, etc.

Fairies are usually very small. Most are described as little, if at all, above one foot in height, some being much smaller, comparable in size with insects according to some poetic descriptions. The very smallest are called pigwidgeons.

They have supernatural powers. Usually they are invisible. Those people having second sight could see them,’ and others on special occasions. Even then they could vanish away if they wished. They also had the power, like oriental jinn, of transporting themselves very rapidly from one place to another.

They behave as human beings having a strong inferiority com­plex, which is in harmony with the view that they represent dis­placed persons belonging to a race that formerly owned the land, but had been ousted by newcomers. The Shakespearian fairies are essentially airy creatures. Their quarrels affect the atmosphere, and may cause fog or tempests, on the other hand when they are pleased they cause more agreeable phenomena, such as the deposit of dew. The Fata Morgana is the name given to a sort of mirage which is seen under certain circumstances in the straits of Messina, between Sicily and the mainland of Italy, and on rare occasions elsewhere. Images of the landscape appear in the sky upside down. This is said to be due to a fairy of the same name, who is none other than the aforementioned Morgan La Fee.

Fairies feed on fruit and fight against insects, snails and frogs, parts of which they also eat. Fairy butter (also called witches’ butter) is a gelatinous fungus of the genus Exidia. Fairies use toadstools as seats or tables. Fairy utensils are not often seen. Flints used by Stone Age Men were thought sometimes to have been used by fairies as arrowheads in shooting at cattle. They were called elf-bolts. Occasionally fairies leave articles which come into the possession of human beings. Such was the painted goblet, left by fairies on St. Cuthbert’s wall in the garden of Edenhall, Cumber­land. It was taken into the family of Sir Christopher Musgrave, Bart., who lived there, and was called the Luck of Edenhall. Accord­ing to superstition all luck will pass from this family if ever it be lost or broken.

Fairies dance on the greensward. Occasionally rings are seen on the grass, where the latter is darker and more luxuriant. These fairy rings are supposed to mark the path of fairies, when they dance in circles. Really they are due to the outward spread of fungi from a central point and sometimes the fungi themselves are seen in circles and there may be bare or brown patches where the fungus has competed successfully with the roots of the grass. When the fungi die down they enrich the soil along a circular line of growth. They are chiefly caused by fungi of the genus Marasinius in this country.

The dances of fairies and their other celebrations were always believed to have taken place by night. When the cock crows they vanish. We can compare this with the nocturnal activities of witches, to be described later. Fairies were thought by some to worship the moon. The name Titania was given in classical times to Diana. She and her followers lived in the country as huntresses, but their life was somewhat akin to that of the fairies. Fairies were said to be fond of hunting.

Fairies visit women in childbirth, and there are many stories of good or evil spells cast on individuals at their birth by fairies, presents from fairies, also of fairy godmothers, who help in a magical fashion as in the story of Cinderella. They sometimes bless the bridal bed, but sometimes fall in love with mortals. If they do, the union is usually unfortunate, although children may be produced.

When annoyed fairies make milk turn sour, blight the corn and sometimes throw pots and furniture about. Thus they are identified with witches and poltergeists, to be described later. They would also nip people unawares, usually on the toes. Worst of all they some­times steal away unbaptized children, leaving changelings in their place. The latter were fond of music and dancing, but were other­wise inferior, being fractious in behavior or stupid, and sometimes had a voracious appetite. Whether the changeling was itself a fairy child, or comes from elsewhere is not clear.’

Fairy-money has several significations: (i) certain places were supposed to belong to fairies; a farmer could not take over such land without leaving a piece of money, which was supposed to have been taken away by the fays; (ii) money was sometimes left with human beings by fairies, after they had gone away it sometimes turned to leaves or other worthless material (this was an old trick of the witches); (iii) the fairies evidently had a currency of their own; according to Brand’ this consisted of “orbicular sparry bodies” as found on the banks of the Tyne, Newcastle, and now in the Leverian Museum.

Fairies could sometimes cause disease. An affection involving a hardening of the side of the body was known in the Middle Ages as the elf-cake. It could be cured by taking rootstock of the gladen (Iris) in white wine.

In Hampshire and Dorset the name colepexy (= coltpixy) is given to a mischievous fairy appearing in the form of a horse. The fossils known as belemnites are called cole pixies’ fingers and fossil sea-urchins cole pixies’ heads.

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