Festival of enchantment

The fairies are having their festival this weekend! I've had it up on our blog for a while but forgot to put it up here. Those of you that saw what Taliesin's tribe did at the Mediaeval fayre won't want to miss this weekend, being held at Riversands close to Johannesburg. You'll find an up to date facebook event with all the times, prices and all you need to know. I'm getting involved in a bit of mediaeval fighting again which is becoming very interesting, motivating and challenging all at the same time.

There's a Midsummer festival of enchantment website as well at www.festivalofenchantment.co.za

I can't wait

Theories on the origin of fairies

Some people hold that fairies are a class of "demoted" angels. One popular story held that when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils, and those caught in between became fairies. Or it is said that they have been thrown out of heaven, not being good enough, but they are not evil enough for hell. This may explain the tradition that they have to pay a tithe to Hell. As fallen angels, though not quite devils, they could be seen as a subject of the Devil. There is a similar concept in Persian mythology,which concerns the peris, a fairy like creature referred to as a fallen angel.

Another belief is that fairies were demons. This belief became much more popular with the growth of Puritanism. The hobgoblin, once a friendly household spirit, became a wicked goblin. Dealing with fairies was in some cases considered a form of witchcraft and punished as such in this era. Disassociating himself from such evils may be why Oberon, the king of fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream, carefully observed that neither he nor his court feared the church bells. The belief in their angelic nature was less common than that they were the dead, but still found popularity, especially in Theosophist circles.

A less-common belief is that fairies are actually humans; one folktale recounts how a woman had hidden some of her children from God, and then looked for them in vain, because they had become the hidden people, the fairies. This is parallel to a more developed tale, of the origin of the Scandinavian huldra, an extremely beautiful female creature with a penchant for kidnapping male colliers or farm boys and who has a cow's tail.

 They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die. I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.
William Shakespeare
The Merry Wives of Windsor.

More stuff about fairies

Various animals have also been described as fairies. Sometimes this is the result of shape shifting on part of the fairy, as in the case of the selkie (seal people); others, like the kelpie, appear to stay more constant in form

One popular belief was that they were the dead, or some subclass of the dead.  The Irish banshee (Irish Gaelic bean sí or Scottish Gaelic bean shìth, which both mean "fairy woman") is often described as a ghost. The northern English Cauld Lad of Hylton, though described as a murdered boy, is also described as a household sprite like a brownie or much of the time a barghest, or elf. One tale recounted a man caught by the fairies, who found that whenever he looked steadily at one, the fairy was a dead neighbor of his. This was among the most common views expressed by those who believed in fairies, although many of the informants would express the view with some doubts.

Another view held is that the fairies are an intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels. In alchemy in particular they were regarded as elementals, such as gnomes and sylphs, as described by Paracelsus. This is uncommon in folklore, but accounts describing the fairies as "spirits of the air" have been found quite frequently.

Some more basic facts about fairies

Although in modern culture fairies are often depicted as young, sometimes winged humanoids of small stature, they were originally depicted much differently: tall, radiant, angelic beings or short, wizened trolls being some of the commonly mentioned forms. Diminutive fairies of one kind or another have been recorded for centuries, but these occur alongside the human-sized beings which have been depicted as ranging in size from very tiny up to the size of a human child. Even with these small fairies, however, their small size may be magically assumed rather than being a constant.
Wings, while common in Victorian and later artworks of fairies, are very rare in folklore; even very small fairies flew with magic, not with wings, sometimes flying on ragwort stems or on the backs of birds. Nowadays, fairies are often depicted with ordinary insect wings or butterfly wings.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
Albert Einstein

Introduction to fairies

Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers. Their origins are less clear in folklore, being variously described as dead, or as some form of demon, or a species completely independent of humans or angels. Folklorists have suggested that their actual origin lies in a conquered race living in hiding, or maybe in religious beliefs that lost currency with the advent of Christianity. These explanations are not necessarily incompatible, and they may be traceable to many sources.

Much of the folklore about fairies revolves around protection from their mischief, by such means as cold iron (iron is like poison to fairies, and they will not go near it) or charms of rowan and herbs, or avoiding offense by avoiding locations known to be used by fairies. In particular, folklore describes how to prevent the fairies from stealing babies and substituting changelings, and abducting older people as well. Many folktales are told of fairies, and they appear as characters in stories from medieval tales of chivalry, to Victorian fairy tales, and up to the present day in modern literature.