This is just a quick plug for a posting on my separate music blog, BroadcastBarnsley. I’ve written a discussion of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin, bringing out some of the fairy and Tolkien themes I read in the lyrics. Read the posting here.
Have a look too at my posting on faery influences in the music of Marc Bolan, a contemporary of Led Zep.
For fuller details of my writing on music, cinema, the arts and other topics, please see my website.
There are many types of fairy creature, but what are conventionally imagined when we think of fairies are what have been called the communal, mound or sometimes trooping fairies. Many of the other, solitary fairies, have a tendency to be antagonistic to humans- if not downright fatal. Folk lore evidence also indicate that there is a broad dichotomy within the communal fairies between good and evil.
This distinction can be traced back to the earliest times. In the Viking Age the Scandinavians spoke of two classes of elf inhabiting Alfheim (literally ‘elfhome’- that is, fairy land). These were the liosalfar (the fair or light elves) and the dockalfar (the dark elves). The latter lived underground and were said to be ‘blacker than pitch.’ Their temperaments reflected their colouring. There are also references to svartalfar (another species of ‘dark elf’ going by the name alone- svart = swarthy) but these appear in fact to be dwarves rather than elves.
These elves, or alfar, are still a significant and vibrant element in Scandinavian folk belief.
In much later Scottish fairy lore a clear distinction is recognised between the seelie and unseelie courts. The seelie court comprises the kindly, benevolent fairies who help the the elderly and the poor, assist the hard working, comfort the distressed and reward good deeds. These ‘guid fairies’ can, nonetheless, act vindictively against humans if they feel that they have been slighted.
Secondly, there is the unseelie court, which is made up of the host of the unsanctified dead. They catch stray humans and make them fire elf shots at other people or at cattle. These ‘wicked wichts’ inflict harm unprovoked and will carry off unbaptised children. They might harshly shave men they caught and the particularly resented those who dressed in the fairy colour of green. Some of the solitary and deadly Scottish fairy beasts seem to be numbered amongst the unseelie court.
John Rhys said that the Welsh tylwyth teg could be both good and bad. Investigating the beliefs of the area north west of Snowdon, he was told that around Nant y Bettws the fairies “were thieves without their like.” They would steal milk, cheese and butter from farms and would pick pockets at the local markets. Alongside them, though, there lived another branch of the ‘fair family’ who were distinctly more beautiful and who always treated their human neighbours with honesty and goodness (Celtic folklore p.83).
In England there is some small trace of such a tradition, though it is only to be found in a couple of allusions in literature. The Reverend Thomas Jackson, in A treatise concerning the original of unbelief (1625), wrote this (although he ascribed all such tales to satanic delusion):
“Thus are Fayries, from difference of events ascribed to them, divided into good and bad, when as it is but one and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both…”
His indication of two differing temperaments is also reflected in George Gascoigne’s The Buggbears published in 1565:
“… the white and read fearye… some lovely and amyable, some felowly and friendly, some constant, some mutable, of hylls, wodes and dales, of waters and brookes, we coonyng in that art can ken them by their lookes.”
Lewis Spence (Fairy tradition in Britain p.130) derives the British division into good and bad fairies from the distinction made in Ireland between the Tuatha de Danaan and the Fomorians. It seems to me more likely that the influence of the Norse myths as recorded in Gylfaginning above was just as strong, if not more significant. Perhaps the Gaelic and Norse strands combined in Scotland, resulting in the persistence of belief in the two distinct courts or tribes.
The other point to stress is that all fairies are potentially mischievous or malicious. Some only act in this manner; others will be well-disposed most of the time but may be swift to be offended or irritated. Plainly caution and good manners are required in any dealings with the supernatural, as I have warned before (see previous posts and my book British Fairies).
Following my recent remarks upon the authentic origins of Dobby and the other house-elves of the Harry Potter series, in this post I’m offering a few more thoughts and comments upon some of Joanne Rowling’s words and characters.
We’ll start with Muggles, non-magic folk. There are several websites out there offering perfectly reasonable theories as to where she derived this from. One site, for example, proposes a word with a very long pedigree that has meant tail, young woman and, more recently, ‘joint.’ None of these have any magical or supernatural connotations, plainly.
However, it is well known that Rowling did thorough research whilst writing the Potter series. Perhaps she came across this tale from the West of Scotland, recorded by J. G. Campbell and also printed by Lewis Spence. A boy who was believed to be a changeling was sent by one household to seek the loan of a corn sieve from neighbours. He met the son of that household, who was also a fairy changeling. The latter told him to make his request in ‘honest language’ (i.e. fairy speak) as they thought they were alone together. The child sent on the errand therefore said:
“The muggle maggle wants the loan of the black luggle laggle, to take the maggle from the grain.”
If his first words describe his ‘mother’ back at home, then perhaps we see her being identified as a ‘muggle (that is, human or non-fairy) woman/ housewife.’ This little story doesn’t have much at all to tell us about fairy language, but it might suggest a source for Rowling’s usage.
As for boggarts, we are on much firmer ground here. The boggart is a well known type of British fairy creature. It is one of a larger class known by a variety of related names- bogies, bogles and bugs. Boggarts are probably amongst the more pleasant of the breed. They are all solitary fairies, but boggarts tend to live like brownies in close proximity to human households. Unlike brownies, they don’t seem to do much work around the farmstead but rather occupy themselves by being a nuisance, making noises and causing disturbance much like a poltergeist. Rowling’s boggarts are shape-shifters and, on the whole, more malevolent. She seems to have borrowed these characteristics, but not the name, from the boggarts close relatives. Bogies range in behaviour from mischievous through frightening to downright dangerous. They can change their appearance and often torment humans. Bogles are evil goblins, although at least one is known to focus upon punishing petty criminals. Bogg beasts are also a malicious kind of goblin, almost a demon in behaviour. As readers will have seen, J. K. Rowling used traditional fairy characteristics, but preferred to apply the boggart name to the particular creature she imagined.
In The prisoner of Azkaban in Harry Potter’s third year at Hogwarts his class learns about hinky-punks in their ‘Defence against the dark arts’ lessons with Remus Lupin. These creatures are again borrowings by J. K. Rowling from authentic British tradition. They are a form of will-of-the-wisp found around the Somerset/ Devon borders and they will lead night-time travellers astray, sometimes luring them into bogs and ponds. The hinky-punk is believed to have only one leg and one eye.
In his new book, The witch, Ronald Hutton argues for a close link between local cunning folk (what he prefers to call ‘service magicians’ who assist their local communities) and the fairies, who frequently taught these individuals their healing powers. He cites numerous examples, most of witch come from Scottish witch trials (there is only a handful of English examples).
As I have mentioned when discussing witches and fairies, I am troubled by the fact that this evidence is from one very unique source or environment. What is the folklore evidence of fairy healing other than that linked to witchcraft? There seems to be very little. I can think of only a handful of instances even remotely resembling what the accused healers described:
And that’s pretty much it. There is some evidence of magical healing powers, therefore, but next to none of passing on these abilities to humans. If we take out the literary instances, we have a very sparse list indeed: we are left with the ointment from Blackpool, the Cornish tale concerning a mermaid rather than a fairy and the story of the fairy mother teaching her children at Myddfai (all of which have unique elements to them) along with the examples of healing at wells and caves (none of which contain any suggestion that the resident sprite ever showed any inclination to pass on its knowledge of cures). Usually, fairies are associated with harming humans, with blighting livestock and with bringing ill-fortune (see too chapter 20 of my British fairies).
The other notable feature of the witch cases is that the healing power claimed to have been acquired from the fairies was frequently specifically an ability to cure fairy blights. Unlike the range of ills cured by fairy wells and such like, the fairies only passed on remedies to harm caused by their own actions. This is odd, not to say traitorous, behaviour on the fairies’ part. Once again it makes me suncomfortable about these claims. Why then was it that the suspect witches mentioned this beneficial gift?
There are 23 cases of witchcraft listed by Hutton. Of these half involve claims by the healers of fairy teaching. He notes too that about 80% of the defendants are women. He speculates whether women were more likely to identify with supernatural helpers, whether they were more likely to be taken to court or whether they were most likely to be local magicians. We cannot answer these questions, sadly. It is notable that these cases peaked in the early modern period and were in decline by the eighteenth century, by which time magicians were believed to learn not from the fairies but from books and from the masters.
There were incontestably ‘wise wives’ in Scotland, dynion hysbys in Wales and ‘cunning folk’ in England who acted generally as healers within their communities and who sometimes offered to treat those who had been ‘blasted’ or blighted by the fairies (or whose livestock had). It is far from apparent to what extent these individuals claimed to have acquired their abilities or treatments as the result of some special compact with ‘the good neighbours.’
Looking at the cases themselves, it is striking that, as well as claiming supernaturally derived knowledge, the alleged witches also often gave accounts of being visited in their homes by fairies (sometimes even by the fairy queen herself) or, alternatively, they might visit the fairies under their hills. These contacts often occurred at night and they not infrequently led to long term sexual relationships. In these regular and deliberate contacts, the witchcraft suspects were unusually honoured. The witch cases may be abnormal because of the insistence by the human partner upon these regular and intimate contacts over an extended period. I wonder, in fact, if this may indicate something significant about this handful of defendants.
It seems to me that there may be two explanations for the statements made by the suspected witches. The first may be that there was something distinctive about the individual claimants themselves. They have departed from fairy-lore conventions in making themselves ‘stars of the show’ by claiming these special associations. Might they have ended up under arrest and accused by their neighbours because they had a tendency to boast, even because they had some sort of mental health problem that attracted attention in their villages and small towns? Claims of fairy favour and love might equally have been a way of claiming some sort of status in their communities and, as noted, most of the accused were women who may well have felt economically and socially disadvantaged within the strictures of a strictly Presbyterian, hierarchical and patriarchal society.
As stated, these cases are at odds with the overall trend of recorded fairy belief, which ought to make us cautious about the claims. Given that our ‘good neighbours’ were known for their proclivity for afflicting humans, it was presumably not a great leap of imagination to propose that, with the proper propitiations and knowledge, the fairies could help take off those curses. It is interesting, too, that only a few ventured to lay claim to such powers; they constitute a minority of a minority, from whose accounts it may not be safe to conclude that it was widely believed that fairies passed on whatever medical skills they possessed to humankind.
The explanation outlined in the last couple of paragraphs may at least explain some of the elaboration in these accounts. My second proposed explanation for the claims to fairy-taught powers is a great deal simpler and may be far more probable. Many of the cures used by these healers (drinking water in which ‘elf-arrows’ had been immersed, magic circles, use of metal blades) were very far from new; they can be traced right back to Anglo-Saxon cures for elf afflictions. They appear therefore to be traditional cures handed down over generations. If this is correct, the accused witches plainly learned their craft from someone else- a relative or skilled teacher. Alleging that the fairies taught them their knowledge protected the real, living sources of their remedies. Once they were in the hands of the authorities, the accused probably realised that their prospects of acquittal were limited; what could be more understandable then than to try to protect family members and others from the same fate? The fairies were never going to be arrested and burned. This may be a far better explanation of these anomalous claims.
I still highly recommend The Witch for its survey of witch lore and fairy lore over the last millennium. I have returned to the theme of fairy cures in a much later post, looking at the actual plants and practices used.
To be clear at the outset, this posting is not about fairies fluttering from flower to flower on their gauzy wings. In the dialect of northern England, and certainly south Yorkshire where I grew up, a flit is a move of home. Common enough with humans, it is, surprisingly, something for which fairy kind is also known, contradicting preconceptions of their timeless presence in particular localities, under certain distinctive fairy hills, in groves or near standing stones.
Our best and most picturesque account comes from the Rev. Robert Kirk in the Secret Commonwealth. In chapter 2 he describes how:
“They remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of the Year, so traversing till Doomsday, being imputent and [impotent of?] staying in one Place, and finding some Ease by so purning [journeying] and changing Habitations. Their chamælion-lyke Bodies swim in the Air near the Earth with Bag and Bagadge; and at such revolution of Time, Seers, or Men of the second sight, (Fæmales being seldome so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters with them, even on High Ways; who therefoir uswally shune to travell abroad at these four Seasons of the Year…”
Aside from the wandering tendency of the sidh folk, what is noticeable too is that they seem tied to the points in the human calendar when leases tended to expire (although it might fairly be remarked that these themselves mark the major seasonal festivals of the year- the solstices and equinoxes. Secondly, there is the quaintly appealing image of the fairies floating along with their luggage. Given their magical powers, you might suppose there were easier ways to move house.
This constant motion may, perhaps, explain some of the fairies’ notorious elusiveness. Over and above a natural preference for change, there are a few other reasons why fairies might change their residences:
These rather aberrational accounts make fairies seem much like us: their tenancies expire, their neighbours get on their nerves and, rather than sorting out the problem where they are, they move on. It humanises and domesticates them as well, in several of the cases, as stressing their inextricable links with humankind.
Perhaps the other aspect of these reports is to instil in us an expectation and acceptance that fairies may remove themselves from our locale. For many hundreds of years it has been said that ‘fairies used to be seen round here- but no longer.’ Herein lies the reason: they have not ceased to exist, they have simply moved elsewhere. The explanation helps sustain the belief; we don’t see them anymore, but someone else does now and- perhaps- some others might move into our neighbourhood soon if we’re lucky.
An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries, which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.
British Fairies 