Early modern
fairies does not derive from a single origin; the term is a conflation of disparate elements from
folk belief sources, influenced by literature and speculation. In the folklore of Ireland, the mythic , or 'people of the
fairy hills', have come to a modern meaning somewhat inclusive of fairies. The Scandinavian elves also served as an influence. Folklorists and mythologists have variously depicted fairies as the unworthy dead, the children of
Eve, a kind of
demon, a species independent of humans, an older race of humans, and fallen
angels. The folkloristic or mythological elements combine
Celtic,
Germanic and
Greco-Roman elements. Folklorists have suggested that 'fairies' arose from various earlier beliefs, which lost currency with the advent of Christianity. These disparate explanations are not necessarily incompatible, as 'fairies' may be traced to multiple sources.
Demoted angels A Christian tenet held that fairies were a class of "demoted"
angels. One story described a group of angels revolting, and God ordered the gates of heaven shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became demons, and those caught in between became fairies. Others wrote that some angels, not being godly enough, yet not evil enough for hell, were thrown out of heaven. This concept may explain the tradition of paying a "teind" or
tithe to hell; as fallen angels, although not quite devils, they could be viewed as subjects of Satan. ''
King James I, in his dissertation
Daemonologie, stated the term "faries" referred to illusory spirits (demonic entities) that prophesied to, consorted with, and transported the individuals they served; in medieval times, a witch or sorcerer who had a pact with a
familiar spirit might receive these services. In England's
Theosophist circles of the 19th century, a belief in the "angelic" nature of fairies was reported. Entities referred to as
Devas were said to guide many processes of
nature, such as
evolution of organisms, growth of
plants, etc., many of which resided inside the Sun (Solar
Angels). The more Earthbound Devas included
nature spirits,
elementals, and
fairies, which were described as appearing in the form of colored flames, roughly the size of a human.
Arthur Conan Doyle, in his 1922 book
The Coming of the Fairies;
The Theosophic View of Fairies, reported that eminent theosophist
E. L. Gardner had likened fairies to butterflies, whose function was to provide an essential link between the energy of the sun and the plants of Earth, describing them as having no clean-cut shape ... small, hazy, and somewhat luminous clouds of colour with a brighter sparkish nucleus. "That growth of a plant which we regard as the customary and inevitable result of associating the three factors of sun, seed, and soil would never take place if the fairy builders were absent." For a similar concept in Persian mythology, see
Peri.
Demoted pagan deities At one time it was thought that fairies were initially worshiped as deities, such as
nymphs and tree spirits, and with the burgeoning predominance of the
Christian Church, reverence for these deities carried on, but in a dwindling state of perceived power. Many deprecated deities of older folklore and myth were repurposed as fairies in Victorian fiction (See the works of
W. B. Yeats for examples).
Fairies as demons A recorded Christian belief of the 17th century cast all fairies as demons. This perspective grew more popular with the rise of
Puritanism among the
Reformed Church of England (See:
Anglicanism). The
hobgoblin, once a friendly household spirit, became classed as a wicked goblin. Dealing with fairies was considered a form of witchcraft and punished as such. In
William Shakespeare's ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon, king of the faeries, states that neither he nor his court fears the church bells, which the author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis cast as a politic disassociation from faeries although Lewis makes it clear that he himself does not consider fairies to be demons in his chapter on the topic ("The Longaevi" or "long-livers") from The Discarded Image
. In an era of intellectual and religious upheaval, some Victorian reappraisals of mythology cast deities in general as metaphors for natural events, which was later refuted by other authors (See: The Triumph of the Moon'', by
Ronald Hutton). This contentious thought environment contributed to the modern meaning of 'fairies'.
Spirits of the dead One belief held that fairies were spirits of the dead. This derived from many factors common in various folklore and myths: same or similar tales of both ghosts and fairies; the Irish , origin of their term for fairies, were ancient burial mounds; deemed dangerous to eat food in
Fairyland and
Hades; the dead and fairies depicted as living underground.
Diane Purkiss observed an equating of fairies with the untimely dead who left "unfinished lives". One tale recounted a man caught by the fairies, who found that whenever he looked steadily at a fairy, it appeared as a dead neighbor of his. This theory was among the more common traditions related, although many informants also expressed doubts.
Hidden people There is an outdated theory that fairy folklore evolved from folk memories of a prehistoric race: newcomers superseded a body of earlier human or humanoid peoples, and the memories of this defeated race developed into modern conceptions of fairies. Proponents find support in the
tradition of cold iron as a charm against fairies, viewed as a cultural memory of invaders with iron weapons displacing peoples who had just stone, bone, wood, etc., at their disposal, and were easily defeated. 19th-century archaeologists uncovered underground rooms in the
Orkney islands that resembled the Elfland described in
Childe Rowland, which lent additional support. In folklore, flint arrowheads from the
Stone Age were attributed to the fairies as "
elfshot", while their green clothing and underground homes spoke to a need for camouflage and covert shelter from hostile humans, their magic a necessary skill for combating those with superior weaponry. In a Victorian tenet of evolution, mythic cannibalism among
ogres was attributed to memories of more savage races practicing alongside "superior" races of more refined sensibilities. The most important modern proponent of the 'hidden people' theory was the Scottish folklorist and antiquarian
David MacRitchie.
Elementals A theory that fairies were an intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels. An alchemist,
Paracelsus, classed
gnomes and
sylphs as
elementals, meaning magical entities who personify a particular force of nature and exert powers over these forces. Folklore accounts have described fairies as "spirits of the air". == Characteristics ==