FAIRY (Fr. fee, faerie; Prov. facia; Sp. hada; Ital. fata; med. Lat. fatare, to enchant, from Lat. fatum, fate, destiny)

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 134 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: EUD-FAT

FAIRY (Fr. fee, faerie; Prov. facia; Sp. hada; Ital. fata; med. Lat. fatare, to enchant, from Lat. fatum, fate, destiny) , the common term for a supposed race of supernatural beings who magically intermeddle in human affairs. Of all the

minor

creatures of mythology the fairies are the most beautiful, the most numerous, the most memorable in literature. Like all organic growths, whether of nature or of the fancy, they are not the immediate product of one country or of one time; they have a pedigree, and the question of their ancestry and

affiliation

AFFILIATION (from Lat. ad filiare, to adopt as a son)

is one of wide bearing. But mixture and connexion of races have in this as in many other cases so changed the

original

ORIGINAL

folk-product that it is difficult to disengage and separate the different strains that have gone to the making or moulding of the result as we have it.
It is not in literature, however ancient, that we must look for the early forms of the fairy belief. Many of Homer's heroes have fairy lemans, called nymphs, fairies taken up into a higher region of poetry and religion; and the fairy leman is notable in the story of Athamas and his cloud bride Nephele, but this character is as familiar to the unpoetical Eskimo, and to the Red Indians, with their bird-bride and beaver-bride (see A. Lang's Custom and Myth, " The Story of Cupid and Psyche "). The Gandharvas of Sanskrit poetry are also fairies.
One of the most interesting facts about fairies is the wide distribution and long persistence of the belief in them. They are the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

factor in surviving Irish superstition. Here they dwell in the raths," old earth-forts, or earthen bases of later palisaded dwellings of the Norman period, and in the subterranean houses, common also in Scotland. They are an organized people, often called " the army," and their life corresponds to human life in all particulars. They carry off children, leaving changeling substitutes, transport men and women into fairyland, and are generally the causes of all mysterious phenomena. Whirls of dust are caused by the fairy marching army, as by the being called Kutchi in the Dieri tribe of Australia. In 1907, in northern Ireland, a farmer's

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

was troubled with flying stones (see POLTERGEIST). The neighbours said that the fairies caused the phenomenon, as the man had swept his chimney with a bough of holly, and the holly is " a gentle tree," dear to the fairies. The fairy changeling belief also exists in some districts of Argyll, and a fairy boy dwelt long in a small farm-

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

in Glencoe, now unoccupied.
In Ireland and the west Highlands neolithic arrow-heads and flint chips are still fairy weapons. They are dipped in water, which is given to ailing cattle and human beings as a sovereign remedy for diseases. The writer knows of " a little lassie in green " who is a fairy and, according to the percipients, haunts the banks of the Mukomar pool on tha Lochy. In Glencoe is a fairy hill where the fairy music, vocal and instrumental, is heard in still weather. In the Highlands, however, there is much more

interest

INTEREST

in second sight than in fairies, while in Ireland the reverse is the case. The best book on Celtic fairy

lore

LORE
LORE, AMBROISE DE (1396-1446)

is still that of the minister of Aberfoyle, the Rev. Mr Kirk (ob. 1692). His

work

WORK

on The

Secret

SECRET (Lat. secretum, hidden, concealed)

Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, left in MS. and incomplete (the remainder is in the Laing

End of Article: FAIRY (Fr. fee, faerie; Prov. facia; Sp. hada; Ital. fata; med. Lat. fatare, to enchant, from Lat. fatum, fate, destiny)

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