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Folk beliefs
One popular belief was that they were the dead, or some
subclass of the dead. The Irish banshee (Irish Gaelic
bean sí or Scottish Gaelic bean shìth, which both mean
"fairy woman") is sometimes described as a ghost.The
Scottish Cauld Lad of Hylton, though described as a
murdered boy, is also described as a household sprite,
like a brownie. One tale recounted a man caught by the
fairies, who found that whenever he looked steadily at
one, the fairy was a dead neighbor of his. This was
among the most common views expressed by those who
believed in fairies, although many of the informants
would express the view with some doubts.
Some hold that the Catholic concept of Purgatory was an
invention to appease converts who believed "The Land of
Fae" was the home of the souls of the dead, said realm
being co-existent with, but separate from, the world of
the living and which could only be seen by those gifted
with an ability known as the "second sight".
Another view held that the fairies were an intelligent
species, distinct from humans and angels.In alchemy in
particular they were regarded as elementals, such as
gnomes and sylphs, as described by Paracelsus.This is
uncommon in folklore, but accounts describing the
fairies as "spirits of the air" have been found
popularly.
A third
belief held that they were a class of "demoted"
angels.One popular story held that when the angels
revolted, God ordered the gates shut; those still in
heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils, and
those caught in between became fairies. Others held that
they had been thrown out of heaven, not being good
enough, but they were not evil enough for hell.This may
explain the tradition that they had to pay a "teind" or
tithe to Hell.
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Legend of Faires
(cont)
As fallen angels,
though not quite devils, they could be seen as subject of the
Devil.A fourth belief was the fairies were devils entirely.
The belief in their angelic nature was less common than that
they were the dead, but still found popularity, especially in
Theosophist circles. Informants who described their nature
sometimes held aspects of both the third and the fourth view, or
observed that the matter was disputed.
A less-common belief was that the fairies were actually humans;
one folktale recounts how a woman had hidden some of her
children from God, and then looked for them in vain, because
they had become the hidden people, the fairies. This is parallel
to a more developed tale, of the origin of the Scandinavian
huldra.
A story of the origin of fairies appears in the 1906 James
Barrie novella Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, an earlier
version of the novel Peter Pan and Wendy. Barrie wrote "When the
first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a
million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the
beginning of fairies."
Many of the Irish tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann refer to these
beings as fairies, though in more ancient times they were
regarded as Goddesses and Gods. The Tuatha Dé were spoken of as
having come from Islands in the north of the world, or, in other
sources, from the sky. After being defeated in a series of
battles with other Otherworldly beings, and then by the
ancestors of the current Irish people, they were said to have
withdrawn to the sídhe (fairy mounds), where they lived on in
popular imagination as "fairies." |