Fae Are Fairies?

2024-08-06

Not long ago, I came across a video of someone explaining about historical fairies, and how historical fairies were often quite a lot more scary than the ones today. This is true and something I have chatted about as well.

However, almost every single comment on that video was lecturing that what the creator was talking about was actually fae, not fairies. Some went on to say that there is even a difference between all the different fay spellings.

Keep in mind, this person was talking about fairies in a historical folklore context. For that, fairy was not a term for one creature that looked or acted one specific way, but instead a category for many different creatures.

“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)

This was just one word to cover the many different terms for the same thing. Keep in mind, many different areas will have their own words for fairies, and they might not be one you recognize.

Sith, sithich, fairy, fairies; ‘siodha,’ ‘siodhach,’ fay, fairy; ‘bean sith,’ ‘sitheag,’ female fairy, ‘sitheach,’ ‘sifir,’ ‘sifire,’ ‘sifreach,’ male fairy. The fairies entered largely into the lives and folklore of the Highland people. They lived in the green knolls and round hillocks, and only occasionally appeared to mortal eyes.

Carmina Gadelica, Volume 2, by Alexander Carmicheal, [1900]

The separation of fae from faries is entirely a modern practice, and you can tell this just from the names of certain fairies. For example, sith is one of many words for a fairy in Scotland(sidhe in Ireland) and you can find it in the names of many folkloric creatures. The Baobhan-Sith(vampire-like), and the cait-sith (a cat creature) are just two examples of this.

The word fairies’ is late in origin; the earlier noun is FAYS, which now has an archaic and rather affected sound.

A Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs (Published in 1976)

One point I just want to make is that just because a folklore is different from what you were told does not make it wrong. Even the word fay being used as it is today is not technically wrong; words and folklore do change overtime.

However, when people race to the comments sections to police the words “fairy” and “fay,” they are trying to force their own beliefs on others, and are actively telling cultures that their folklore and folktales are wrong. I hope you can understand why this makes me uncomfortable to see.

Both the historical use and the modern use of fairy and fae can both be right at the same time.