Fairies
FairiesFAIRIES ARE EVERYWHERE!
Fairies are magical creatures, usually very much like human
beings. But they can do many things that humans cannot do. Most
fairies can make themselves invisible. Many can travel in an instant
anywhere they want to go, even very great distances. Some can change
their shapes; they might look like cats, or birds, or dogs, or any other
animal. Some of them live for many hundreds of years; others (Like
with Tinker Bell From Peter Pan) live forever. Many fairies like to play
tricks on human beings; others like to help them. Fairies come in all
sizes and shapes as well. They might be ugly, humpbacked little
creatures, like the trolls or gnomes that the people tell about in
Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. Both trolls and gnomes are supposed
to guard treasures. Trolls live in dark caves, and gnomes make their
homes underground. Some fairies are handsome, for example, the pixies
of Wales, or the goldenhaired white elves of the Scandinavian countries.
Some fairies are giants, others are less than two feet tall. Some have
special shapes. Example are mermaids and mermen, human above the
waist but with the lower part of their bodies like fish. They live in an
underwater world of splendor. Beautiful mermaids often lure sailors to
their destruction, or cause shipwrecks. The Scandinavians believed in a
river spirit that looked like a man above the water and like a horse
below.
Most fairies live in fairyland, where some strange things are
ALWAYS happening. They live together ruled by a king and queen,
whose names are Oberon and Titania. Some people think that the ruler
of Fairyland is Queen Mab.
Not all fairies live in fairyland, however. Some live alone as the
guardians of certain places. The Lorelei of Germany is a beautiful
woman with long golden hair. She stays on a special rock on the right
bank of the Rhine River.
Many kinds of fairies like to play tricks on human beings.
Sometimes they tie knots in the manes of horses at night, and ride them
till the horses are tired out. A horseshoe nailed to the stable door will
keep these fairies away. If the maid is lazy and does not clean the house
carefully, the fairies will pinch her while she sleeps. The pixies of Wales
are especially troublesome to human beings. Some pixies lead travelers
the wrong way. Others call to a lost person in the voice of his friend.
When he follows the voices, he finds nobody there. The pixies like to hid
things in houses, and to blow out candles so that the people of the
houses, and to blow out candles so that the people of the house or left in
the dark. The black elves of Scandinavia play a certain magic Tune.
When it is played, people, and even such things as chairs and tables,
have to dance. Sometimes fairies steal babies from their cradles. Then
they put their own sickly or lame little baby in the empty cradle. These
baby that the fairy leaves behind is called a changeling.
But many fairies help people. The brownies of Scotland each
choose a house to serve. Then at night, while the family sleeps, the
brownie scrubs and cleans. If the people of the house try to repay him,
he will leave the house. They can give him only a bowl of cream and a
bit of white bread or honeycomb. Robin Goodfellow of England was
also a house fairy. In one night he could do the work of ten men. The
Germans told of kobolds, fairies like the brownies. One kobold,
HInzelmann, lived in an old castle, where he scoured the pots and pans,
washed the dishes, and sang to the children. In Ireland the household
fairies were called leprechaun. They were also well-known for their
work as shoemakers. If a person catches a leprechaun, the little fairy
must lead him to treasure. But he will disappear if the person takes his
eyes off him for an instant.
People of North America know most about the fairy lore, or
traditions, of Europe. This is because most of the people of North
America came from Europe. These ancestors passed down to their
children, and to their children�s children, stories about fairies. But
stories about fairies have been found among the Eskimos, the American
Indians, and the Arabs. In places as far apart as India and the Island of
Saamoa in the South Pacific, people tell stories about fairies.