An epic poem written by Edmund Spenser and published starting in 1590. ‘The Faerie Queene’ is the tale of Arthur and his knights and a variety of adventures and quests they go on, including their interactions with the Fairy realm and the Fairy Queen Gloriana, who is a literary invention of Spenser’s. The poem is largely allegorical and possibly intended to reflect the real world politics of the time, with Gloriana acting as a stand in for Queen Elizabeth and Fairy for Elizabethan England.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ‘the Wife of Bath’s Tale’ 14th century:
“In the days of King Arthur, Britain was full of fairies. The elf queen danced in meadows with her companions. This is what I read, anyway. Now, no one sees elves any more, because of the prayers of friars. These friars search all over the land, blessing every building and house, with the result that there are no more fairies. Where elves used to walk, the friar himself now goes at all times of the day, saying his prayers. Women can walk anywhere they want without fearing anyone but the friar, who will only dishonour them, rather than beget demon children upon them.”
Excerpt from ‘Farewell, Rewards, and Fairies’ by Bishop Richard Corbet, 16th century:
“By which we note the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were ‘Ave Mary’s’,
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.”
Brownies are somewhat unusual among the wider groupings of fairies because they prefer to live with or near humans, either in human homes or in mills, although some have also been connected to bodies of water like ponds. Brownies in mills come out at night and work in the mill, not always in a way that helps the human owners, while Brownies in homes come out while the human inhabitants are sleeping and clean. Overall Brownies have a good reputation as helpful spirits, however, in older folklore they were seen as ambiguous beings and potentially dangerous particularly to those outside their chosen family, although even that family could be on the receiving end of the Brownie’s destructive temper if it was angered.
In descriptions Brownies are usually, as the name implies, a nut-brown color and are said to dress in rags. This style of dress may be a preference as stories tell of the unfortunate results of well-meaning humans offering their resident Brownie a new set of clothes. In best case scenarios the Brownie snatches up the clothing and leaves forever, sometimes singing happily that the new clothes mean that they will not work anymore; worst case scenarios the helpful Brownie is so offended it transforms into a malicious Boggart. This may be because the Brownie is bound to service and can only be released with purposeful payment, or because they are mortally offended by any implication that they are serving humans.
When Brownies appear in folklore the focus is usually on their role around human homes or farms, and secondarily their place at mills. Around a home they are known to do chores while on a farm they will help bring in crops and tend to the livestock. In one story centered on a mill, a human girl goes to grind wheat after dusk only to find the mill occupied by a Brownie who she douses with boiling water when he gets too amorous with her; he flees to his mother but later dies of his burns.
Brownies must be paid surreptitiously for their work, with food being left out for them but never directly given to them. A household with a Brownie would be expected to leave a bowl of milk and small loaf of bread or cake out once a week to show their gratitude for the Brownie’s efforts. This food and drink should be left without verbal thanks and not directly as a gift, but placed carefully where the faerie would find it to avoid any chance of offending them. In this we see a juxtaposition of careful preparation and seemingly casual placement, with the housewife ensuring the Brownie’s continued effort for the household this way
Besides leaving if given clothes there are a few other things that will force a Brownie to leave a location. Several accounts of Brownies attached to homes describe the faeries being driven off by well-intentioned efforts to baptize them or reading from the Christian Bible in their presence, two things these faeries apparently cannot tolerate. Farm-oriented Brownies will become destructive and leave if the quality of their work is insulted or more generally if a person speaks ill of them.
The Lady of Shalott (1832)
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
Round about Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
The sunbeam showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O’er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening whispers, ‘ ‘Tis the fairy,
Lady of Shalott.’
The little isle is all inrail’d
With a rose-fence, and overtrail’d
With roses: by the marge unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken sail’d,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
The Lady of Shalott.
Part II
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
She lives with little joy or fear.
Over the water, running near,
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
Before her hangs a mirror clear,
Reflecting tower’d Camelot.
And as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower’d Camelot:
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, came from Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead
Came two young lovers lately wed;
‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
The Lady of Shalott.
Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flam’d upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down from Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down from Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over green Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down from Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
‘Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:’
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom
She made three paces thro’ the room
She saw the water-flower bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.
Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Outside the isle a shallow boat
Beneath a willow lay afloat,
Below the carven stern she wrote,
The Lady of Shalott.
A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight,
All raimented in snowy white
That loosely flew (her zone in sight
Clasp’d with one blinding diamond bright)
Her wide eyes fix’d on Camelot,
Though the squally east-wind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.
With a steady stony glance—
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance—
She look’d down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day:
She loos’d the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boathead wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her deathsong,
The Lady of Shalott.
A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darken’d wholly,
And her smooth face sharpen’d slowly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot:
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden wall and gallery,
A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Deadcold, between the houses high,
Dead into tower’d Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the planked wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
They cross’d themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
The wellfed wits at Camelot.
‘The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not,—this is I,
The Lady of Shalott.’
The name ‘goblin’ may derive from the Greek ‘kobalos’, which means ‘villain’ (or ‘rogue’). Its Latin name is ‘cobalus’ while its French name is ‘gobelin’ and in German tales, this being is ‘cobalt’. Today, the creature is widely known under its English name: ‘goblin’ and this name characterizse evil and malicious spirits.
They are small (dwarfish) and grotesque, about the size of a fairy tale dwarf, however, giant goblins, whose height can reach two meters are mentioned in the mythology of the Germanic peoples. Goblins have unusually big ears and noses, dark skin and yellow very filthy teeth.
Goblins prefer to dwell in caves, rock crevices and roots of ancient trees located in isolated places and hardly accessible mountain regions. They can even enter houses or disturb people by knocking on doors and walls and then immediately disappear. They smash pots, pull sleeping people out of bed, pulling pajamas off of them and make noises while moving furniture at night. Unfamiliar with the peoples’ concept of ethics and morality, the goblins do bad things just for fun.
Small, malicious creatures resembling demons, goblins are known for their greed and tempers. They first appeared by the name of “goblin” around the Middle Ages in Europe, but can be found with varying details to their personalities in the tales of many countries. For example, the redcap of Anglo-Scottish folklore gets his red chapeau from dipping it in the blood of those he has killed.
There is also a rare occurrence of a friendly goblin in the thirteenth-century Latin book Gesta Romanorum, which has a tale titled “How, in a certain part of England, thirsty hunters were given refreshment by a benevolent goblin,” the plot of which is rather self-explanatory. Goblins vary in size and shape and are said to be easily distracted by the promise or sight of gold. They can also be terrible tempters, as in Christina Rossetti’s haunting and erotically charged poem “Goblin Market,” where they lure victims to their doom with luscious, irresistible fruit.
Sidhe are the more modern versions of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the fairy race of Old Ireland who were great masters of magic and appeared in early Celtic mythic tales such as Tochmarc Étaíne. After being conquered by the Sons of Mil (ancestors of the Irish people), the Tuatha Dé Danann retreated underground and dwindled into the still unearthly beautiful (but diminished) sidhe. The word “sidhe” originally referred to the fairy mounds where these beings lived. Tad Williams’s Sithi race from his epic fantasy trilogy Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, is akin to the sidhe.
In folk belief and practice, the sidhe are often appeased with offerings, and care is taken to avoid angering or insulting them. Often they are not named directly, but rather spoken of as “The Good Neighbors”, “The Fair Folk”, or simply “The Folk”. The most common names for them, aos sí, aes sídhe, daoine sídhe (singular duine sídhe) and daoine sìth mean, literally, “people of the mounds” (referring to the sídhe). The sidhe are generally described as stunningly beautiful, though they can also be terrible and hideous.
Sidhe are seen as fierce guardians of their abodes—whether a fairy hill, a fairy ring, a special tree (often a hawthorn) or a particular loch or wood. It is believed that infringing on these spaces will cause the sidhe to retaliate in an effort to remove the people or objects that invaded their homes. Many of these tales contribute to the changeling myth in west European folklore, with the sidhe kidnapping trespassers or replacing their children with changelings as a punishment for transgressing.
The sidhe are often connected to certain times of year and hours; as the Gaelic Otherworld is believed to come closer to the mortal world at the times of dusk and dawn, the sidhe correspondingly become easier to encounter. Some festivals such as Samhain, Beltane and Midsummer are also associated with the sidhe.
Pixies are the whimsical and tiny fairy creatures often depicted in Victorian fairy paintings and the popular work of artist Cicely Mary Barker.
Pixies do often have wings, and love dancing and playing games. They’re also fond of flowers and gardens. Pixies are often drawn to laughter, children, and merrymaking. Tinker Bell from J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is a pixie.
Glamour is an archaic word for the magic of the Fae. Glamour can make curious onlookers see what they wish that person to see or not see what they do not wish that person to see with this ability. It can also hide the true whereabouts of a faery, so one could say it’s a survival skill in addition to being magical. So, when someones says, “Looks can be deceiving.” You may want to make a important mental note of that.
Glamour is a Fae-wide ability, how the ability is used is up to the individual. However in most cases, Fae use the ability to modify their appearance with glamour i.e. eye color, hair color, and shapeshifting to appear as animals or other creatures. Even so, please do not think that every faery is wearing nothing but glamour to hide their hideous faces and bodies. Simply not true. Plenty of fae are naturally ravishing people, and there are plenty of fae who are much less attractive.
Faerie glamour, than any other means of alteration is being-specific. Some people wonder about if glamour is more of an hypnosis effect. Well no, that’s not something tied to glamour specifically. When using glamour no one is really being hypnotized to the point where the person can’t look away, because the person most certainly can. It more eye-trickery and confusion than anything. It’s to hinder the person from seeing what is true. Fae really do not put on that much glamour as people would like to think. So, think about that before you can look right through the disguise and paint us ugly or all beautiful.
Scottish folklore divides the realm of Faerie and its fairy denizens into two categories: Seelie and Unseelie.
Seelie fairies, whose name stems from the same Scottish root word “silly,” meaning “happy,” are good-natured and generally associated with lightness, goodness, and benevolence to humans. It’s still wise to be cautious with a Seelie fairy, as some may play pranks and sometimes aren’t aware of the chaos they can cause. Unseelie fairies are more darkly inclined, appearing at night and wreaking havoc seemingly indiscriminately among mortals and their fellow fairies. They can sometimes grow fond of a human and treat him or her with kindness, but generally they are up to no good.
So be warned: The creature of moss and oak leaves that peers around a forest tree on your morning walk could be friend or foe, and the glitter-winged, dust-trailing sprite of your dreams might actually have razor-sharp teeth.
Mark Bere Peterson’s Counterculture, Urban Legends, Paganism & Witchcraft 