Table of Contents
Introduction
The
connection between humans, fairies, and deities
Fairy
Classifications
Humans who
become fairies
Fairies are
nature spirits
Wells,
Springs and Pools
Trees,
Forests, Glens and Plants
Fairies are
animals
Mountains,
Rocks, and Lands
Forces of
nature
House,
Hearth, and Field
Fairies are
the gods of the past
Fairies as
their own class of spirits
Common
fairy traits
Analysisi
of the fairies in fairy tales
Rumpelstiltskin
and Analysis
Briar Rose
Analysis of
Briar Rose
Puss in
Boots
Analysis of
Puss in Boots
The
Spindle, the Shuttle and the Needle
Analysis of The Spindle, the shuttle and the Needle
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Introduction to understanding
fairies
Fairies are the whispers in the dark forest, gleeful laughs, playful
songs on moonlit nights They are the breeze that dances through the
trees, the fear we feel on dark nights or in shadowy forests.
Fairies lend their good names to perhaps the most powerful of tales,
yet these tales have never been about them. Indeed, fairies are often
no more than stock characters that move the story along. Fairy scholar
Diane Purkiss points out that fairies are, in and of themselves, more
of a story element than actual characters. (Purkiss, 2007) As such,
fairies are neither the protagonists nor the characters that drive the
tales to which they lend their names. Rather, fairies tend to be an
element much like a sunny day or diseases that plague a village.
Fairies set the stage for the story by manipulating their surroundings.
They are the trial to be overcome or the ones who raise up heroes to
save us from dragons as they did with Saint George, Merlin, Lancelot,
and Zeus.
In ancient tradition, it was the fairies who controlled everything.
However in most stories they seem to do so without an understandable
purpose or motivation. Fairies bring the storms that destroy our homes
as well as the rains that saves our crops. Fairies helped produce the
animals that feed our children while also attracting the wolves which
devour them. They appear seemingly from no where to give a sword or a
secret power, some insight to make the world a better place, or to
spread plagues and death before disappearing once more without a trace.
Yet unlike many religions of today the magical beings, the fairies were
believed by ancient Europeans to have a very real set of emotions and
it was on these emotions that human fate rested. So while the
motivations of forces of nature and the fairies within fairy tales may
seem to be incomprehensible people once believed that they could
interact with these forces of nature and fairies, that their happiness
and safety depended on pleasing the fairies while they avoided
offending them. So humans had strongly held beliefs about the
motivations and personality of fairies. Humans in ancient Europe
believed that they could dance and sing songs with them to please them,
make sacrifices to please them and if necessary that they could scare
them away. So as surely as any religious scholar in the modern day
tries to discern the nature of the beings which they believe control
our lives people once tried to discern the nature of fairies and they
tried to pass this knowledge along in fairy tales.
What’s strange is that almost all the analysis of fairy tales
leaves
this important part of belief out of the stories, as if the religious
and superstitious beliefs held about the fairies in fairy tales are not
important to understanding their meaning or to understanding life in
ancient times. Yet this belief in fairies surrounded everything people
did in the ancient world so people had very clear beliefs about
fairies, very clear understandings of why they did what they did. Even
if it’s rarely explicitly stated, the fairies’
motivation
is there just beneath the surface. We just have to look.
“Grimm’s Fairies” seeks to uncover the
motivation of
the fairies in Europe's fairy tales. To understand their nature and
emotions as it was understood by the Europeans of the last five or six
thousand years. This contrasts with modern literature where fairies as
characters have been mutilated to the point where they are no longer
comparable with the original fairy beliefs.
This is unlike the usual linear investigation as the journey to
understand fairies is more like navigating a maze within a labyrinth.
It is a puzzle whose pieces are scattered widely among stories,
superstitions, traditions, and folk beliefs. A maze with no definite
end, one that always offers something more to see. After all, it is the
nature of fairies to be something that occurs beyond our understanding.
Despite their seemingly inexplicable quirks, however, there is some
underlying connection between humans and fairies.
There is always something that draws us toward each other. There is a
reason people believed that fairies inflicted disease on us on day and
then helped us the next. There is also a reason they traded secrets in
exchange for lustful encounters, or raise the gods as their children
just as they did Zeus. The more I probed into their secret world, the
more I realized that humans believed that they and fairies were
intertwined – perhaps much closer than anyone in the modern
age
has ever suspected. |