that fairies are the spirits of the dead not good enough for heaven, not bad enough for hell. They are shapeshifters and can take the form of beasts or birds, but every time they return to their proper shape, they are a little bit smaller than they were before. Over time, their senses and emotions dull, and they live on the memories of past feelings.
It was said, too [of the Fair Folk], that those who take animal forms get smaller and smaller with every change, till they are finally lost in the earth as muryans (ants) and that they pass winter, for the most part, in underground habitations, entered from cleves or carns. And it is held that many persons who appear to have died entranced are not really dead, but changed into the fairy state.
“The Fairy Dwelling of Selena Moor” in William Bottrell, Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Vol. II, 1873)
Fallen Angels
Folk and religious beliefs, including beliefs about fairies, became intermingled with the coming of Christianity, and in Carmina Gadelica (1900), a collection of charms, incantations, prayers, poems, and songs from Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland gathered by folklorist Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912), there is a vivid account of the belief in the Scottish Highlands and Ireland that fairies are fallen angels.
According to this, when the Angel Michael threw the Hosts of Satan out of Heaven, they were followed by an almost endless stream of angels who had been seduced by Satan’s cunning wiles. Seeing that the Shining Hosts of Heaven were rapidly diminishing, the Son cried: “Father, Father, the City is being emptied!” and God raised his hand and the gates of Heaven closed. The seduced angels stopped, bewildered, and remembered themselves. Some had already descended into Hell, and they became demons. But others were in the sky, on the mountains, in the woods, or in the sea, and they became the fairies of the air, the earth, the forests, the seas, and the rivers.
The Hidden People
In Scandinavia, there is a belief that fairies are the hidden children of Eve. The story goes that after the Fall, Adam and Eve settled down and had many children. One day when God was walking through the world He came to call on Eve and asked her to present her children to Him. Caught unawares, she had time to wash only half of them. Ashamed, she sent the unwashed ones to hide and brought out only the ones she thought presentable. But God wasn’t deceived. “Let those who were hidden from me,” He said, “be hidden from all Mankind.” And this was the beginning of the huldre, the “hidden people.”
In another version of the tale, the huldre were the offspring of Adam and his first wife, Lilith.
According to these stories, fairies were not creatures of another order, like angels, but were half human.
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
