What is a Fairy?
2024-08-06
Today, there seems to be a divide on what people think of when someone says “fairy.” Some people will picture a tiny humanoid girl with translucent bug-like wings, while others, perhaps thanks to a surge in young adult fiction, will picture something more like a Tolkien elf. Those are the height of a regular human, but with pointed ears and some magical ability.
Historically, though, it is more complicated.
“The term “fairy’ now covers a large area, the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian elves, the daoine sidhe of the Highlands, the tuatha de danann of Ireland, the tylwyth teg of Wales, the seelie court and the unseelie court, the wee folk, and good neighbours and many others. The trooping fairies and the solitary fairies are included in it, the fairies of human or more than human size, the three-loot fairies and the tiny fairies; the domestic fairies and those that are wild and alien to man; the subterranean fairies and the water fairies that haunt lochs, streams or the sea.”
A Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs (Published in 1976)
Yes, a pixie is a fairy, but not all fairies are pixies. Yes, some fairies look human-like, but not all fairies are human-like. In folklore, fairies are varied, unique, and sometimes kind or sometimes not. To put it simply, it is a category for certain mythological creatures.
“The Fairies, according to the Scoto-Celtic belief, are a race of beings, the counterparts of mankind in person, occupations, and pleasures, but unsubstantial and unreal, ordinarily invisible, noiseless in their motions, and having their dwellings underground, in hills and green mounds of rock or earth.”
Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland by John Gregorson Campbell (Published in 1900)
With such a large variety of creatures under the title of “fairy,” it should be no surprise to you that even the size of fairies can be greatly varried. Some are human sized, horse sized, or even small enough to fit through a keyhole.
“In the Highlands the names sithche and daoine sìth are given to all these different sizes alike, little men, elfin youth, elfin dame, and elfin hag, all of whom are not mythical beings of different classes or kinds, but one and the same race, having the same characteristics and dress, living on the same food, staying in the same dwellings, associated in the same actions, and kept away by the same means. The easiest solution of the anomaly is that the fairies had the power of making themselves large or small at pleasure”
Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland by John Gregorson Campbell (Published in 1900)
“Size of the fairies, the fairy people are good and bad, beautiful and hideous, stately and comical, but one of the greatest of their many variations is that of size. This variation is sometimes within the control of the fairies; by shape-shifting they can monstrously enlarge themselves or shrink into midgets of their own volition, but this is not always so.”
A Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs (Published in 1976)
To keep you from getting too confused, I will try to put it bluntly. A pixie is a fairy, but so is a broonie and mermaid. So when someone says they are interested in fairy folklore, know that they are interested in a complex amount customs, terms, tales, and more.
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