Fairy

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(Redirected from Faeries)

For other uses, see fairy (disambiguation).

Image:Fairfacefairy.jpg A fairy, or faerie, is a spirit or supernatural being that is found in the legends, folklore, and mythology of many different cultures. They are generally human like in their appearance and have supernatural abilities such as the ability to fly, cast spells and to influence or foresee the future. Although in modern culture they are often depicted as young females of small stature, they originally were of a much different image, tall, angelic beings and short, wizened trolls being some of the commonly mentioned fay. Pixies, Gnomes, leprechauns and boggarts however are generally depicted as males as shown in (Katherine Briggs, 1979) book Abbey Lubbers, Banshees and Boggarts (ISBN 07226 55371) .

1 Etymology
2 Fairies in literature and legend
3 Fairies in art
4 Fairies in modern culture and film
5 See also
6 External links

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Etymology

The words fae and faerie came to English from Old French which came from the Latin word "Fata" which referred to the three mythological personifications of destiny, the Greek Moirae (Roman Parcae, "sparing ones", or Fatae) who were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They were usually described as cold, remorseless old crones or hags (in contrast to the modern physical depiction). The latin word gave modern Italian's fata, Catalan and Portuguese fada and Spanish hada, all of which mean fairy. The Old French fée, had the meaning "enchanter." Thus féerie meant a "state of fée" or "enchantment." Fairies are often depicted enchanting humans, casting illusions to alter their emotions and perceptions so as to make themselves at times alluring, frightening, or invisible. Modern English inherited the two terms "fae" and "fairy," along with all the associations attached to them.

A similar word, "fey," has historically meant "doomed to die," mostly in Scotland, which tied in the with the original meaning of fate. It has now gained the meaning "touched by otherworldly or magical quality; clairvoyant, supernatural." In modern English, the word seems to be conjoining into "fae" as variant spelling. If "fey" derives from "fata," then the word history of the two words is the same.1

Strictly, there should be a distinction between the usage of the two words "fae" and "faerie." "Fae" is a noun that refers to the specific group of otherworldly beings with mystical abilities (either the elves (or equivalent) in mythology or their insect-winged, floral descendants in English folklore), while "faerie" is an adjective meaning "of, like, or associated with fays, their otherworldly home, their activities, and their produced goods and effects." Thus, a leprechaun and a ring of mushrooms are both faerie things (a fairy leprechaun and a fairy ring.), although in modern usage fairy has come to be used as a noun.

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Fairies in literature and legend

Image:Ängsälvor - Nils Blommér 1850.jpg The question as to the essential nature of fairies has been the topic of myths, stories, and scholarly papers for a very long time. Some of the most well-known tales in the English and French traditions were collected in the "colored" fairy books of Scottish man of letters Andrew Lang between 1889 and 1910. These stories depict fairies in somewhat contradictory ways — kindly and dangerous, steadfast and fickle, loving and aloof, simple and unknowable.

In Greek legends fairies are supposed to be beautiful young women who live in the woods and protect the rivers, the mountains and the trees. They all have a white scurf, that if they lose, they are no longer fairies and immortal. Men try to get their scurf away, because they are enchanted by their beauty. Once they take it, they marry them. If the fairie finds her scurf though, she is gone and cannot be found again.

William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream deals extensively with the subject of fairy-folk and their interaction with a group of amateur theatrical players. This work details the spell cast by the mischievous fairy Puck (at the behest of the fairy-king Oberon) on Oberon's wife Titania, who falls in love with the first mortal she casts eyes upon, the unfortunate Bottom, whom Puck has transmogrified into having a donkey's head. Orson Scott Card's Magic Street adds new fairy lore to Shakespeare's story and offers an alternative history of the play.

In his Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland (1892), W. B. Yeats coined the expression "trooping fairies" to refer to those fairies who liked to travel together in groups, related to the sidhe, Christianised remnants of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This is in contrast to the solitary fairies, such as the banshee, leprechaun, or pooka. Typically Yeats's trooping fairies are compared to the elves of English lore.

In the earlier versions of Tolkien's Middle Earth, the creatures later known as Elves were called Fairies.

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Fairies in art

See also Fairy painting Image:I samma ögonblick var hon förvandlad till en underskön liten älva.jpg Fairies have been numerously depicted in books of fairy tales and sometimes as standalone works of art and sculpture. Artists such as Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Myrea Pettit, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Cicely Mary Barker, Amy Brown, Peg Maltby and Arthur Rackham have all created beautiful illustrations of fairies.

The Victorian painter Richard Dadd created paintings of fairy-folk with a sinister and malign tone. Other Victorian artists who depicted fairies include John Atkinson Grimshaw, Joseph Noel Paton, John Anster Fitzgerald and Daniel Maclise. Interest in fairy themed art enjoyed a brief renaissance following the publication of the Cottingley fairies photographs in 1917 and a number of artists turned to painting fairy themes.

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Fairies in modern culture and film

Tinkerbell: Originally from the Peter Pan stories by J.M. Barrie, but more famous for the Disney version. She is also often referred to as a pixie, and leaves a trail of fairy dust (or pixie dust) behind wherever she goes.
Blue Fairy: In Carlo Collodi's tale Pinocchio the wooden boy receives the gift of real life from the Blue Fairy. The story is echoed in Steven Spielberg's 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, in which an android longs to become a real boy.
Green Fairy: Also called La Fée Verte, a nickname for the alcoholic drink absinthe, so named for its green colour and intoxicating and seductive properties. Originally represented as a green woman, later she has been represented as a more traditional green coloured fairy. She was portrayed by Kylie Minogue in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!.
The Legend of Zelda: In this popular video game fairies are helpers to the main character Link (who has a somewhat elfish appearance). In the original games they simply replenished his health or revived him, but in the newer games they have become his life-long companions.
Willo the Wisp: The common image of the beautiful female fairy is parodied in the fat, ugly fairy Mavis Cruet in the cartoon voiced by Kenneth Williams.