Diminished Gods
Some believe that fairies were once important deities, worshiped in pagan times as gods and goddesses of nature. With the coming of Christianity, these spirits were reduced, or tamed, and consequently reduced in stature from powerful beings to the status of folklore.
In Ireland, the Tuatha de Danann were once believed to be the children of the goddess Don, otherworldly beings with supernatural powers. Conquered by the invading Milesians, they took to the hollow hills and became the Daoine Sidh (pronounced Deeny Shee). They battled and mated with the warriors of the Fianna Finn and over the years dwindled in stature. Originally the same size or larger than humans, down through the generations they shrank to the size of children, or smaller.
This theory overlaps with ideas of the vanquished race, driven to live in the hills. As with all beliefs surrounding fairies, the boundaries are blurred and we are left to draw our own conclusions. Suffice to say, belief in supernatural beings, in various forms, who are neither gods, nor strictly speaking ghosts, and who can intervene in human lives is widespread across many ancient cultures and peoples, from the Far East, where they have long played a role in romances and stories, to the ancient Hindu tradition, where they inhabited Earth long before the creation of humanity, to Persia, where the peris lived in enchanted palaces and castles and fought the malevolent forces of the divs.
Nowadays it’s common to think of fairies as small or even tiny winged creatures. However, that hasn’t always been the case. In earlier times, they were often life-sized, or larger. The Irish Sidh were as tall or taller than humans. An Irish “seer,” one for whom fairies are visible, once described opalescent beings of about 14 feet (over 4 meters) in stature and shining beings of about human height, or a little taller.
From the Fates to the Fairies
The word “fairy” has been through nearly as many transformations as beliefs about the creatures themselves. It originates from the Latin root fatum, meaning “destiny” or “fate.” Fata, the plural of fatum, was the name given to the classical Greek and Roman female deities said to be present at a baby’s birth and to determine the future course of that life. These Fata, or Fates, the three daughters of the night, were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho spun the thread of each individual life. Lachesis shaped and twisted the thread. Atropos took her shears and cut the thread at the appointed time. In Spain, they were known as the Hadas, and in France as the Feés. In Albania, the Fatit rode in on butterflies three days after a birth to determine the course of the child’s life.
The belief in the Fates as guardian spirits who watch over us, especially at times of transformation such as birth and death, has endured over time and they have entered into popular fairy tales, such as the story of Cinderella, in the form of fairy godmothers.
From this root, we get the French verb faer, or féer, meaning “to enchant.” From that we get faerie, or féerie, which originally referred to a state of enchantment, but which also came to apply to the “enchanter” as well. By the seventeenth century, a whole host of names, including “fairfolks,” “farie,” “fairie,” “fairye,” “fairy,” and “faery,” seem to have been in use.
Fairy or Faery?
Today “fairy” and “faery” are most commonly used to talk about fairy creatures, and “fairyland” or “faery” or “faerie” to talk about the place where fairies live (which goes by many other names in different cultures too).
Some use “fairy” to refer to the small, winged creatures most associated with the Victorians and flower fairies, and “faery” to talk about the wider group of beings with roots that originate in ancient times and places, and reach out to include nature spirits—mermaids, hobgoblins, brownies, elves, and a whole host of related beings. There is no one “correct” use. Here, “fairy” is used to refer to the many wonderful and varied creatures that make up the diverse fairy world.
Names have always been a slippery issue when it comes to fairies. Out of deference, or fear of causing offense, humans have traditionally referred to them by other names and euphemisms, such as the little people, the good folk, the fair folk, or the good neighbors. There are many names for them in the British Isles alone. The Ad-hene Manx on the Isle of Man, meaning “Themselves,” is a name humans must get right and never take in vain. The Daoine Sidh in Ireland, the Sith in the Scottish Highlands, the piskies in Cornwall—the names go on and on.
Folklore gives us many examples of where finding out a fairy’s true name can bring power over the creature, such as in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, where a girl must guess the name of her mysterious helper to gain power over him and avoid a curse. The same is true in the Cornish and Scottish tales “Tarraway” (or “Duffy and the Devil”) and “Whuppity Stoorie.” Here you will learn the names of many hundreds of fairies.
Many attempts have been made to categorize fairies. Thomas Keightley, the author of The Fairy Mythology (1828), divided the beings into “Fays or Fairies of Romance” (human-sized beings endowed with special powers) and “Elves or Popular Fairies” (diminutive beings). Characteristically, fairies have defied categorization—and you will find them all here.
Where is Fairyland?
Invisible lands across the sea, hollow hills that raise themselves up on legs at full moon, revealing the twinkling lights of the fairy homes within, underwater palaces and castles in the sky, streams, lakes, mountains, forests, woods, trees, and flowers, under a rock or at the bottom of the garden—fairyland, like fairies themselves, comes in many different guises.
In the county of Cornwall alone, descriptions of fairyland and fairy dwellings range from the fantastical to the everyday. In “The Lost Child” in Robert Hunt’s Popular Romances of the West of England (1865), a little boy who follows the sound of exquisite music into the woods describes being led by a beautiful lady into a fabulous palace with glass pillars and glistening multi-colored arches hung with crystals. In contrast, another account states that one of the favorite haunts of the fairies are simply “places frequented by goats.”
From otherworldly palaces to mundane hillsides, fairyland is elusive, remaining always just around the corner—glimpsed briefly, disappearing in the twinkling of an eye.
Celtic tradition abounds with tales of mythical enchanted isles located somewhere across the western sea, visible only briefly to mortal eyes before disappearing again into the mists. Tir Nan Og, Land of the Ever Young, is where the Tuatha de Danann are supposed to have resided since being chased from the mainland by the Milesians. In Manx folklore, it is the Isle of Emhain, Land of the Women. To the Britons, the Isle of Man was a magical land. In “The Magic Legs” in Fairy Tales of the Isle of Man (1963), Dora Broome tells of the mist-hidden island that Mannanon, Son of Lir, could make invisible at will. In Wales, sailors told tales of isles of enchanted green meadows off the coast of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.
The land of Avalon is one of the most famous of the fairy lands across the sea. This is where some believe King Arthur lies sleeping, awaiting the hour when he will return to rule again.
In Old Norse mythology, there are Nine Worlds which are home to the various types of beings, including humans, elves, gods, and goddesses, that make up the Old Norse worldview. These worlds are held in the branches and roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Alfheim is the world of the elves. Asgard is the world of the Aesir tribe of gods and goddesses, located in the sky, invisible to human eyes but linked to the human realm by the rainbow bridge Bifrost. Midgard is the name given to the human world.
“Gard” is derived from the old Germanic idea of innangard and utangard. Literally meaning “inside the fence” and “outside the fence,” the terms applied to the physical or geographical location of a place as well as the mindset of its inhabitants. The human world’s name of Midgard, or “Middle Enclosure,” implied that humankind sat somewhere between the ordered, innangard world of the gods of Asgard, and the chaotic, utangard world of the giants of Jotunheim.
In-between Places
Just as fairies are often connected with thresholds and transitions in human lives, such as birth and death, so too fairy worlds are located at thresholds and borders. Woods and forests that mark the separation of a town or village from the wilderness of nature, seashores and mountaintops at the point between sea and land, land and sky—all of these are in-between places where fairies dwell. Domestic fairies traditionally make the hearth their home, which sits at the point of intersection between the cosy world inside the household and what lurks outside. Twilight, midnight, Samhain (Halloween), the times favored by fairies, are all in-between times, on the cusp of night and day, light and dark, summer and winter.
The Passage of Time in Fairyland
In many accounts of visits to fairyland, time operates differently there from in the human world. In some accounts, it takes on a dreamlike quality, expanding so that a year spent with the fairies is a mere few minutes in the mortal world. One such story is that of the Welsh boy who entered a fairy ring to dance and was transported to a glittering palace in a beautiful garden, in the middle of which was a well in which fish of gold and silver swam. His fairy hosts told him he could live in their realm as long as liked, providing he kept to one rule: he must never drink from the well. After a time, the desire to drink from the well grew until it became so strong, the boy could no longer resist and he cupped his hands and drank. Immediately, a cry shook the garden and he found himself standing back on the chilly hillside among his father’s sheep. Though it had seemed to him that weeks had gone by, hardly an hour of human time had passed.
More common are the tales of time passing so swiftly in fairyland that a person who thinks they have been away for only three days returns to find that 300 years have passed in the mortal realm. In the Japanese story of Urashima Tar, a fisherman who rescued a turtle was rewarded with a visit to the underwater realm of the dragon god, Ryu¯jin. He was a guest at his palace, Ryu¯gu¯-j¯o, but after three days, he asked to return to his village on land to visit his ageing mother. He arrived there only to discover that 300 years had passed. Then he opened a tamatebako, a special box, a gift from the underwater realm, which he had promised to keep shut, and released a cloud of white smoke. Instantly, his back bent, his beard grew long and gray, and old age and death fell upon him.
Adventures in Fairyland
The theme of old age and death coming to those who return from the fairy realm to the mortal one is common. The legends of Oisin and Bran are examples of two heroes who lived to tell the tale of their visits to fairyland. One was strong enough to survive the return to the human realm; the other had a lucky escape back to fairyland.
Oisin and Tir Nan Og
In Irish folklore, the story of Oisin is a famous example of how mere days or months in the fairy realm can add up to years in the human world.
Oisin was the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and a fairy woman of the Sidhe. With fairy blood in him, it was no surprise that he was a great singer, poet, and warrior, and he lived through many great battles. The fairy princess Niamh of the Golden Locks invited him to go with her to Tir Nan Og, the mythical Land of the Ever Young that lay across the sea to the west of Ireland. There they lived happily together for what seemed to him a few months.
Oisin wished to see his father and his people, the Fianna Finn, to tell them that all was well with him. Niamh was reluctant to let him leave, but in the end gave him a white horse to ride back across the sea. She told him not to touch the earth of Ireland, for if he did, he would not be able to return to Tir Nan Og. He promised and rode away across the waves.
When Oisin arrived back in Ireland, however, he found everything changed. The hills seemed small, the forests and woodlands had shrunk, and the great fort of Tara was reduced to nothing more than a hill. There wasn’t even a single voice or face anywhere that he recognized.
In despair, Oisin turned his horse to return to Tir Nan Og, but came across a group of men, who seemed to belong to a smaller, less mighty race than the Fianna Finn. They were struggling to move a stone. Even though they tried with all their might, they could not shift it. Feeling compassion for their weakness and courage, Oisin stopped to help them. Remembering his promise, he didn’t dismount from his white charger, but bent down and lifted the stone with one hand. The men regarded the shining golden warrior with amazement. But at that moment, the saddle slipped and he fell to the ground. The white horse thundered away to the sea. Where the great warrior had fallen, there lay an old man, the weight of hundreds of years heavy upon him.
Unlike many returning from the fairy realm, Oisin did not crumble to dust on mortal soil, however, but lived on and told the new Irish race about the heroic days of the Fianna Finn.
Bran and the Land of Women
The passage of time works in a similar way in Emhain, the Land of Women. It is related in the story of Bran mac Febail, as told by Lady Gregory in Gods and Fighting Men (1904).
One day the Irish king Bran mac Febail heard the sweetest music. It lulled him to sleep and when he awoke he held in his hand a silver branch covered in white blossom. He brought it to the royal house, where a woman appeared in strange clothes and began to sing:
I bring a branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the far island around which are the shining horses of the Son of Lir.
A delight of the eyes is the plain where the hosts hold their games; curragh racing against chariot in the White Silver Plain to the south.
She went on to describe a shining, many-colored land of blossoms, birds, and sweet music, without grief, sorrow, sickness, or death. When she had finished her song, the silver branch leaped from Bran’s hands into hers and she vanished.
Next morning Bran set out with a fleet of curragh boats to row across to the sea to find the Isle of Emhain.
After two days and two nights, he and his men encountered Mannanon, Son of Lir, in his golden chariot. He told Bran he would reach the Land of Women before sunset.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long afterward that they reached the Isle of Emhain, where the chief woman welcomed them and pulled them ashore with a ball of thread. They went to a grand house where there was a bed for every couple and food and drink without end. There Bran and his men lived happily for what seemed to them a year.
Despite the beauty and delights of the Isle of Emhain, one of the company, Nechtan, grew homesick for Ireland and begged to return, just for an hour. The chief woman was loath to let them go and told Bran they must not touch the soil of Ireland and must talk to only their company on the boat. Bran promised, saying he would stay only a short while and return quickly.
They rowed away to Ireland, where the people gathered on the shore asked who they were. Bran asked if they had heard of Bran of Febal, but they replied that no such man was alive now, although their old stories told of a man who had rowed away to the Land of Women many hundreds of years before. On hearing that, Nechtan leaped from the curragh and waded to shore. As soon as his foot touched the soil, he turned to a heap of ash, as if he had been in the earth for hundreds of years.
Cautioned by his fate, the other men stayed aboard the curraghs. Bran rested long enough to tell of his voyage, then turned his fleet around and rowed back to the joys of the Isle of Emhain.
Oissin and Bran were lucky to escape the fate of death on returning to the human world. Like Nechtan, many who return from fairyland crumble to dust on touching human soil. This raises comparisons between fairyland and the Underworld, or the land of the dead.
