Fairyhood: legends and beliefs

Polysemia and etymology

The word fairy comes from Latin fata , him even resulting from destiny : destiny. The etymology thus lets think that the fairy related to the destiny, would be equipped with a gift of prediction or with a capacity to influence the destiny. This Latin root, thus returns to a guardian creature , those which lean on the cradle of a newborn to bring magic protection and graces. This definition is a reference to the three Moires, divinities guardians of the Destin, Greek Mythologie (the Parques Roman Mythologie). With the fairy fata , one finds also the traditional prototype of the fairies “matrons”, as in Sleeping Beauty .

The modern term “fairy”, was formerly used also like adjective, such “Fe” or “was faé”, in Former French. One used it for example in connection with a wood faé or of a jewel Fe . The adjective then taking the direction “of enchanted”, touched by a magic. One also uses the verb féer , to enchant or be magic. This employment widened the significance of the fairies; they had the gift to launch fates, the enchantments , illusions able to deteriorate the emotions and perceptions, and were thus equipped with the capacity to appear impressive, terrifying or invisible.

Note that in modern French, in addition to a restrictive use as name, fairy has the female kind grammatical, which accentuates certainly the female characteristic sexuée, of a modern vision of the fairy.

But in other Occidental cultures, fairy is translated by a word without bond with the Latin root fata . For example, cultures Irish or Scandinavian, with the roots sidh or alf , resulting from the Gaëlique or the Norrois. One then notes, that the definition of the nature and the role of the fairies is much less restrictive, as much in by the etymology that in the fairy-like folklore.

This comparison of the translations, makes it possible to bring a more total definition while being based on the identical references between the various folklores:

the fairy is a creature supernatural and magic, often humanoïde and intelligent, related to the forces of nature (or the Other World), and alive in margin of the world of the human ones.

This widened definition of the fairies, then makes it possible to gather around the word " fée" creatures which seem present in all the cultures: The Elf S and Troll S Scandinavians, the Bansheed S Celtic, the Apsara S Indian, the Kitsune S Japanese …

See also: List of the creatures compared with the fairies

Survival of the beliefs

In Europe, the folklore transmitted by oral way (songs, tales) let remain of old pagan beliefs , in spite of the dominant influence of the Christianisme and the Modernité. For this reason it is erroneous to classify the fairies, like creatures “Fantastique S”, term related to a literary style (then cinematographic) which reduces the fairies to simple fictions.

The belief in the existence of such supernatural creatures still remains in certain regions of Europe: for example the Scandinavian countries , or the Iceland - where the layout of a highway was deviated, in order to avoid a place inhabited by the fairies.

In France, ethnological studies of post-war period had raised the subsistence of such beliefs, in particular in shift near elderly. The Brittany and the Alsace, because perhaps of a survival of the regional languages, preserved many traces of the Small People, in their oral tradition and them Toponymie.

One can also connect the fairies, with the beliefs animists of the Japan for creatures and spirits of nature, related to mythology Shinto.

In the modern culture, one can also find the proof of the perenniality of these beliefs (or a resurgence) in the worships neo-druidic neo-paganists or .

Distinctions

Seelie & Unseelie

In the folklore, many classifications were made in connection with the Petit People of the fairies. One of most influential is certainly division between the Court Seelie (or sometimes Cour of the Summer or of the Lights ) and the Court Unseelie (or sometimes Cour of the Winter , or of Darkness ), according to the Scottish folklore . The therme seelie comes from Gaelic and means " bénis" (unseelie= " not bénis").

Others

The other is the distinction between the fairies living “in troop”, and the fairies “solitary”, distinction emitted in particular by William Butler Yeats.

These distinctions are both used to characterize the “fairies”, heard in the direction of all the supernatural creatures; elves, pixies, ogres, trolls… They accentuate the strangeness of the fairies, and differ from a distinction more manichéenne (more modern perhaps), present in the Scandinavian and Scottish folklore, which transposes on the Small People the values of a human morals (Well, Mal), and differentiates them between benevolent” and “malevolent” creatures “.

Katharine Mary Briggs notes that a third distinction can be considered; that of the “domestic” fairies, which live in the human residences.

Japanese folklore

to see Kitsune

Art and literature

The fairy tale

Vision with the the Middle Ages

In the literary tradition, the fairy Mélusine, appearing for example in the Book of Mélusine of Jean of Arras (1392), testifies to the existence of a popular folklore around the fairies, lasting the Middle Ages, perhaps related to old mythologies Celte S.

See also the Fairy Morgane or the Fairy Viviane.

The epic Huon of Bordeaux , then the Romance of Catch draft the portrait of Catch “king de Féerie”.

Vision at the 17th century

Very present in the Western literature as from the 17th century, in the Tale S of Charles Perrault, Madam d' Aulnoy or the Brothers Grimm, they are a heritage of the European Folklore whose these tales are a talented transcription.

the mysterious republic: Elves, fauna, fairies and other similar , delivers writes Robert Kirk in 1691, presents the fairies under one day rather worrying: they are invisible and pernicious beings. Published for the first time in 1815, this work had become almost mythical.

Vision at the 19th century

The folklore of the Small People agrees with the dashes towards the nature of the literary Romantisme, in tale of fantasies. In France, Charles Nodier publishes Trilby or the imp of Argail (1822) and the Fairy with the crumbs (1832).

Danish Hans Christian Andersen becomes famous for his news and his many “fairy tales”; the Ugly Duckling , the Small Siren , the Queen of snows …

The Dictionnaire Bouillet present them in the following way to us at the 19th century:

like fantastic beings, enjoyed a superhuman capacity, but were subjected sometimes to laws odd and humiliating. Sometimes one represents them under the figure of a woman young, beautiful, covered of splendid clothes; sometimes like a wrinkled old woman and glaze of let us haillons and they are sometimes armed with a Magic wand, instrument of their supernatural power. Without being immortal, they have an existence of several thousands of years. One sought their origin in the faunx or fanie of old, which predicted the future and whose first was Fatua or Fauna, the wife of Faunus; one also makes derive their name (in Italian fata ) from destiny, destiny; but the belief in the fairies rather appears to be attached to the religion of the Druide S and to derive from the veneration that the Gaulois had for the Druidesses. At all events, the fairies played a very-large part with the Middle Ages; they occupy a great place in the tales of chivalry.

Modern vision

Today in Occident, the literature and the Cinema of the fantastic seem the source first of a popular vision of the fairies. Let us quote in particular:

the major influence of drawing-animated Walt Disney
the works inspired by Peter Pan
books of J.R.R. Tolkien

See also the categories Book on the fairies

The fairy fata

Description

This fairy is generally described like a creature humanoïde and female. Of variable size, equipped or not with wings (in the back), it always seems to have supernatural capacities, such as for example:

capacity to steal
capacity to launch fates
capacity to know or influence the future

This fairy renvoit with the Guardian creature , those which lean on the cradle of a newborn to bring magic protection and graces, traditional prototype of the fairies “matrons”, as in Sleeping Beauty .

Famous fairies

With the Middle Ages, big families, regions even had their protective fairy:

Mélusine, owner of the house of Lusignan
the fairy Banshee, in Ireland, protective of the Fitz-Gerald (" Banshee " is the name running of origin Gaélique which indicates the Irish equivalent of the fairy)
the fairy of the Ortoli, in Corsica
Morgane, with Reggio
the white Dame of the Avenel, in Scotland
the fairy Urgèle, etc

Several writers, Walokenaër, Alfred Maury, in France, Wolf, Schreiber, in Germany, were devoted to erudite research on the fairies. The psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim proposed a psychoanalytical version fairy tales.

Charles Perrault and Madam d' Aulnoy wrote for the childhood of the Fairy tales which have as a base of antiques traditions.

the fairy Carabosse, witch (popular tales)
Mélusine (popular tales)
the fairy Beautiful Tinker in Peter Pan , called Chock-Tamm in the French translation of work and Fairy Small bell in the cartoon produced by Walt Disney
the fairy of the Lilacs (godmother of Skin of Ass)
the fairy Morgane and the fairy Viviane of the legends arthuriennes
the Bergérange fairy, protective of the hearth
the Blue fairy (or “Turquoise”) in Pinocchio
Titania, the queen of the fairies, presents in the one night Dream of summer of William Shakespeare

In the French language

Expressions

the green fairy : the wormwood.
the fairy electricity : the electricity, carrying technological innovation and improvement of the living conditions (it is also a monumental table of Raoul Dufy).
a good fairy is leaning on its cradle : it has a lucky star, it has chance (reference to the fairy godmother of Sleeping Beauty). A legend says that the fairies lean on all the cradles to give them their gifts for the life.
perfect homemaker : expert of the household.
To have fingers of fairy : to be skilful with its hands.
To live a fairy tale : to see its dreams becoming reality.
a work of fairy : a meticulous work.
the word of Provence fada evokes initially somebody who is had by the fairies.

Saying

“ Each time a child known as " I do not believe in the fées." , there is some share a small fairy which dies ”, James Barrie in Peter Pan
“ One banished the demons and the fairies; Under the reason the choked graces Livrent our hearts to insipidity ” Voltaire, What likes, etc

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