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fairies
fairies were thought of as supernatural beings, capable of being helpful and benevolent to humans, or hostile and dangerous, or simply mischievous. Fairy beliefs are of long standing, and over 170 types of fairy have been listed from British sources. Although evidence about fairy beliefs thickens from the 16th cent., most of them were already fixed in the Middle Ages. Fairies were diminutive and could make themselves invisible at will, while fairyland was seen as a timeless realm where the normal problems of human existence were absent. Changelings and fairy lovers were recurrent themes.
The fairies' intermediate position between the human and spirit world had always placed them close to devils. After the Reformation this connection was more readily made and the fairies figured in a number of witchcraft investigations. Belief in the fairies continued among the populace at large, as 19th-cent. folklorists discovered, but belief in them among the educated was long gone by then. Indeed, in that century the supernatural beings of an earlier era were regimented for the purposes of children's story-books. J. A. Sharpe |
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JOHN CANNON. "fairies." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN CANNON. "fairies." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-fairies.html JOHN CANNON. "fairies." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-fairies.html |
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Sidhe
Sidhe the fairy people of Irish folklore, said to live beneath the hills and often identified as the remnant of the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann. The name is Irish, and comes from aos sidhe ‘people of the fairy mound’.
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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Sidhe." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Sidhe." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Sidhe.html ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Sidhe." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Sidhe.html |
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