In the same line as the page on fairy food, here’s a list of things fairies wear. Further down the page are Transportation, Musical Instruments and Homes. Many of these examples are from the early 17th century, when the "tiny fairy" came into vogue and authors began to focus on miniature societies. I try to also touch on older folklore. I've also included the work of J.M. Barrie, very influential on modern depictions of fairies.
Clothes
Fairytales
Fairies love the colors white, green, and red, and to a lesser extent blue. In modern depictions, the Leprechaun constantly wears green. Some fae wear burlap and heavy or rough cotton, while others wear fine fabrics.
Still others wear rags or go completely naked - most in this category are brownies and house spirits, such as the elves in the story of the Elves and the Cobbler. This class of fairy is helpful but will vanish if anyone gives them clothing, even if it is given out of gratitude. Perhaps the fairies see this gift as a disgusting bribe and will only accept simple and discreet gifts. Or perhaps their new duds go to their heads, leaving them too stuck-up to continue working.
In the English tale of the "Fairy Ointment" as recorded by Anna Eliza Bray, the fairies initially look like ordinary humans. When a midwife sees through their illusion, she sees a fairy woman as a beautiful lady in white, and a baby swaddled in "silvery gauze." Bray wrote elsewhere that fairies clothing "never varies, it is always green" (p. 173).
In Folk Tales of the North Country (1944), a duergar wears a lambskin coat, moleskin trousers and shoes, and a hat made of moss and a feather.
In the romance of Thomas the Rhymer, the fairy queen's wardrobe is described in detail. More simply, in the ballad, the fairy queen wears a grass-green silk dress and a velvet mantel, and her horse's mane is braided with silver bells.
In the Mabinogion, the court of Gwyn ap Nudd wears red and blue.
Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song by R. H. Cromek (1810) declared that fairies wear "long fleeces of yellow hair flowing over their shoulders, and tucked above their brows with combs of gold. a mantle of green cloth, inlaid with wild flowers, reached to their middle;- green pantaloons, buttoned with bobs of silk, and sandals of silver, formed their under dress. On their shoulders hung quivers of adder slough, stored with pernicious arrows; and bows, fashioned from the rib of man . . . tipped with gold, ready bent for warfare, were slung by their sides. Thus accoutred they mounted on steeds, whose hoofs would not print the new plowed land, nor dash the dew from the cup of a hare-bell."
Flower clothing
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, from sometime in the 1590s, the elves wear coats made from bat's wings.
They often use cobwebs and thistledown as fabric. You’ve probably seen many pictures of tiny pixies clad in plant litter, such as flowers for dresses and acorn caps for hats.
Many of these outfits are completely impractical - with tears or rain in place of fabric, or using petals and leaves that would quickly wilt or dry stiffly.
In Tom Thumb, first known version printed in 1621, the Queen of Fairies gives Tom an oak leaf hat, a shirt of cobweb, a doublet of thistledown, stockings of apple rind, and shoes of mouse's skin. Later this is replaced with a butterfly-wing shirt and chicken-hide boots. He uses a needle for a sword, and rides a mouse.
In Nymphidia, after the knight Pigwiggen has an affair with Mab – sending her, among other things, a bracelet of ants’ eyes – Oberon suits up for war. His helmet is a beetle’s head with a horsehair for a plume. His spear is made of a horsefly’s tongue and his rapier is a hornet’s sting. His shield is a cockleshell and his coat of mail is made from a fish’s scale. In Michael Drayton's other poem "A Fairy Wedding," the wedding dress of a fairy named Tita is carefully described. Her hair is decorated with golden seeds and the rainbow-colored wings of Spanish flies. Her dress is embroidered with pansies, pinks, primroses, and rosemary leaves, as well as silkworm silk, and her train is of snakeskin. Her buskins are ladybug wings, too.
In William Browne's poems, Oberon wears a suit of speckled gillyflower. His hat is a helmet of lily, his neck-ruff is a daisy. His suit’s points (tagged laces used for tying any part of the dress) are of lady-grass tagged with titmouse beaks. His belt is of trout skin and his boots of squirrel hide, and his cloak is made of flowers.
Meanwhile, an elf servant who serves the wine (dew) wears a suit of woven rushes, a monkshood flower for a hat, and a spiderweb cloak.
The poem "Oberon’s Clothing" goes through the entire wardrobe. His shirt is shining white cobweb. They offer him a waistcoat made of a troutfly’s gilded wing, but he’s afraid it’ll make him sweat, so they bring him one even more impossibly light, woven of downy hair shaven from a eunuch’s chin. The outside of the doublet is of fine grass, with silver laces made of snails’ tracks. The buttons are sparkling and flaming adders’ eyes, and it’s lined with white poppy. His breeches are woven of Jason’s golden fleece, but are finer than spiderweb. He wears a rich mantle of gossamer, studded with morning dew diamonds, and his cap is made of ladies-love, wreathed with a girl’s tears like pearls, and for a feather, the purple hair of Nisus (a king in Greek mythology whose strand of purple hair was the source of his power).
Oberon’s boots, or buskins, are made of ladybugs’ wings lined with violets. His belt is of myrtle leaves and cowslips, stringed with daisy buds, and he carries a bugle.
In "The Pastime, and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies in Fairy-land, the Center of the Earth," from Poems, and fancies written by the Right Honourable, the Lady Margaret Newcastle (1653), Queen Mab wears garments made of sunlight.
In the Peter Pan books, Peter is described as wearing clothes made of tree sap and skeleton leaves, which are the remains of leaves after softer tissues have decayed. They’re not green, but white with transparent parts. Tink wears something similar. In the play, Peter's outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. Most of his original stage costumes were red, changing to green in the 1920’s.
Fairies in Peter Pan's world masquerade as flowers, dressing to match them. They wear white when lilies are in season, blue for bluebells, etc., and their favorites are colorful flowers like crocus and hyacinth, but they consider tulips garish. Ordinary fairies are pretty, but high-born fairies at a ball dress so colorfully and beautifully that they are blinding to look at. The fashion is apparently for ladies to wear long trains, and we see one fairy girl dressed in golden rain, with a rich diamond necklace. Married fairies wear wedding rings around their waists, and gentlemen have uniforms. They wear silver slippers.
Fairies love the colors white, green, and red, and to a lesser extent blue. In modern depictions, the Leprechaun constantly wears green. Some fae wear burlap and heavy or rough cotton, while others wear fine fabrics.
Still others wear rags or go completely naked - most in this category are brownies and house spirits, such as the elves in the story of the Elves and the Cobbler. This class of fairy is helpful but will vanish if anyone gives them clothing, even if it is given out of gratitude. Perhaps the fairies see this gift as a disgusting bribe and will only accept simple and discreet gifts. Or perhaps their new duds go to their heads, leaving them too stuck-up to continue working.
In the English tale of the "Fairy Ointment" as recorded by Anna Eliza Bray, the fairies initially look like ordinary humans. When a midwife sees through their illusion, she sees a fairy woman as a beautiful lady in white, and a baby swaddled in "silvery gauze." Bray wrote elsewhere that fairies clothing "never varies, it is always green" (p. 173).
- Anna Eliza Bray, Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire on the Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1838), pp. 183-88. Read online.
In Folk Tales of the North Country (1944), a duergar wears a lambskin coat, moleskin trousers and shoes, and a hat made of moss and a feather.
In the romance of Thomas the Rhymer, the fairy queen's wardrobe is described in detail. More simply, in the ballad, the fairy queen wears a grass-green silk dress and a velvet mantel, and her horse's mane is braided with silver bells.
In the Mabinogion, the court of Gwyn ap Nudd wears red and blue.
Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song by R. H. Cromek (1810) declared that fairies wear "long fleeces of yellow hair flowing over their shoulders, and tucked above their brows with combs of gold. a mantle of green cloth, inlaid with wild flowers, reached to their middle;- green pantaloons, buttoned with bobs of silk, and sandals of silver, formed their under dress. On their shoulders hung quivers of adder slough, stored with pernicious arrows; and bows, fashioned from the rib of man . . . tipped with gold, ready bent for warfare, were slung by their sides. Thus accoutred they mounted on steeds, whose hoofs would not print the new plowed land, nor dash the dew from the cup of a hare-bell."
Flower clothing
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, from sometime in the 1590s, the elves wear coats made from bat's wings.
They often use cobwebs and thistledown as fabric. You’ve probably seen many pictures of tiny pixies clad in plant litter, such as flowers for dresses and acorn caps for hats.
Many of these outfits are completely impractical - with tears or rain in place of fabric, or using petals and leaves that would quickly wilt or dry stiffly.
In Tom Thumb, first known version printed in 1621, the Queen of Fairies gives Tom an oak leaf hat, a shirt of cobweb, a doublet of thistledown, stockings of apple rind, and shoes of mouse's skin. Later this is replaced with a butterfly-wing shirt and chicken-hide boots. He uses a needle for a sword, and rides a mouse.
In Nymphidia, after the knight Pigwiggen has an affair with Mab – sending her, among other things, a bracelet of ants’ eyes – Oberon suits up for war. His helmet is a beetle’s head with a horsehair for a plume. His spear is made of a horsefly’s tongue and his rapier is a hornet’s sting. His shield is a cockleshell and his coat of mail is made from a fish’s scale. In Michael Drayton's other poem "A Fairy Wedding," the wedding dress of a fairy named Tita is carefully described. Her hair is decorated with golden seeds and the rainbow-colored wings of Spanish flies. Her dress is embroidered with pansies, pinks, primroses, and rosemary leaves, as well as silkworm silk, and her train is of snakeskin. Her buskins are ladybug wings, too.
In William Browne's poems, Oberon wears a suit of speckled gillyflower. His hat is a helmet of lily, his neck-ruff is a daisy. His suit’s points (tagged laces used for tying any part of the dress) are of lady-grass tagged with titmouse beaks. His belt is of trout skin and his boots of squirrel hide, and his cloak is made of flowers.
Meanwhile, an elf servant who serves the wine (dew) wears a suit of woven rushes, a monkshood flower for a hat, and a spiderweb cloak.
The poem "Oberon’s Clothing" goes through the entire wardrobe. His shirt is shining white cobweb. They offer him a waistcoat made of a troutfly’s gilded wing, but he’s afraid it’ll make him sweat, so they bring him one even more impossibly light, woven of downy hair shaven from a eunuch’s chin. The outside of the doublet is of fine grass, with silver laces made of snails’ tracks. The buttons are sparkling and flaming adders’ eyes, and it’s lined with white poppy. His breeches are woven of Jason’s golden fleece, but are finer than spiderweb. He wears a rich mantle of gossamer, studded with morning dew diamonds, and his cap is made of ladies-love, wreathed with a girl’s tears like pearls, and for a feather, the purple hair of Nisus (a king in Greek mythology whose strand of purple hair was the source of his power).
Oberon’s boots, or buskins, are made of ladybugs’ wings lined with violets. His belt is of myrtle leaves and cowslips, stringed with daisy buds, and he carries a bugle.
- "A Description of the Kings of Fayries Clothes, brought to him on New-Yeares day in the morning, 1626, by his Queenes Chambermaids"
- Google Books
In "The Pastime, and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies in Fairy-land, the Center of the Earth," from Poems, and fancies written by the Right Honourable, the Lady Margaret Newcastle (1653), Queen Mab wears garments made of sunlight.
In the Peter Pan books, Peter is described as wearing clothes made of tree sap and skeleton leaves, which are the remains of leaves after softer tissues have decayed. They’re not green, but white with transparent parts. Tink wears something similar. In the play, Peter's outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. Most of his original stage costumes were red, changing to green in the 1920’s.
Fairies in Peter Pan's world masquerade as flowers, dressing to match them. They wear white when lilies are in season, blue for bluebells, etc., and their favorites are colorful flowers like crocus and hyacinth, but they consider tulips garish. Ordinary fairies are pretty, but high-born fairies at a ball dress so colorfully and beautifully that they are blinding to look at. The fashion is apparently for ladies to wear long trains, and we see one fairy girl dressed in golden rain, with a rich diamond necklace. Married fairies wear wedding rings around their waists, and gentlemen have uniforms. They wear silver slippers.
Transportation
In folklore, fairies are most often seen riding. Human-scale fairies might ride normal-scale horses. Smaller fairies tended to fly by using plant stalks. As they gradually shrank, there became more of a focus on flying with insect wings or riding on tiny animals.
Tiny Horses
In "The Death of Fergus mac Leide," from an Irish manuscript, Iubdan is the king of the fairy folk. His golden horse, which has a crimson mane and green legs (classic fairy colors), is mistaken for a hare by bystanders. However, it is still able to carry a full-grown human on its back.
In the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis told the story of Elidorus, who encountered a race of pigmies. These Welsh fairies owned "horses and greyhounds adapted to their size."
In Chapter 6 of A Pleasant Treatise of Witches (1673), a woman encounters a fairy who, on horseback, "exceeded not a foots length in height." Later, he and all his attendants appear on her dinner table. They and their horses are so small that they can easily march "round the brims of a large dish of white-broth."
Inanimate Objects
In folklore, fairies are often seen riding on plants, or on horses created from plants - typically plant stalks, straws, or other long straight plants. They might call out magic chants such as "Horse and hattock!" or "Boram, boram, boram." There's overlap with witches; I would say this is where we ultimately got the image of witches riding on broomsticks. Fairies and witches also sail in eggshells, an image that evokes extremely miniature or nonsensical beings.
However, in some versions the plants seem to actually transform. In Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), the fairies "steal hempen stalks from the fields where they grow, to convert them into horses." 13th-century bishop William of Auvergne wrote in De Universo of demons turning reeds or canes into magical steeds.
In Ireland, ragwort is known as fairies' horses.
Insects
In Romeo and Juliet, Mab’s chariot is an empty hazelnut, with wagonspokes of spiders’ legs, the cover the wings of grasshoppers, the traces spiderweb, her collars of moonshine. Her whip is made from a cricket's bone. The chariot is drawn by "atomies."
In Nymphidia, Mab's coach is drawn by gnats, fairies ride on a grasshopper, and a tiny knight struggles to climb onto his gigantic earwig steed.
In Newcastle's Pastimes (1653), Queen Mab rides in a nutshell coach, with a lining of adders’ skin. It is pulled by six crickets. While hunting, she rides a grasshopper and uses a wasp to go hawking.
Similarly, Browne's Oberon uses "wagtayles" for hawks. His "coursers" are squirrels, weasels, rats, and rabbits.
Other Animals
In the 12th century, Walter Map wrote the book "De nugis curialium" (Of the trifles of courtiers). One of the stories is that of King Herla, who encounters a pigmy king no bigger than an ape. This dwarf king has goat feet, and rides on "a huge goat." He is explicitly compared to the Greek god Pan.
The fairytale character Tom Thumb is clearly a fairy in his oldest appearances. He used mice in place of horses in the oldest surviving version, from 1621. A later version from around 1700 added a scene where he rode on a butterfly. Other thumblings from around the world are not always so clearly tied to fairies, but they do get similarly creative. Der Angule and Bitaram, from India, rode on cats. The French Terra-Camin rode a rooster, and the Bukovinian Hazel-nut Child on a stork. The Danish Svend Tomling used a tiny pig and Siberian Niraidak had a small deer.
In A Second Manx Scrapbook, by W. W. Gill, we read of a shepherdess who encountered a fairy animal. With her flock near "Chibbert y Wirra, the holy well of Saint Mary," she noticed an unfamiliar lamb among her animals. This lamb was "wearing a little red saddle and having a red bridle about its head and face." When she touched it, her arm was paralyzed for life. Red clothing is common for fairies, and their livestock are commonly described with red and white markings. You could read the Manx story to mean that the lamb had red markings on its face and back. However, you could also read it as meaning that the lamb was harnessed as a riding animal for a tiny rider. This lends extra context to the shepherdess's plight.
What about corgis as the steeds of Welsh fairy folk? This picturesque legend originated in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Corgis, which originated in Wales, first gained the recognition of the English Kennel Club in the 1920s. But there were two distinct types of corgis - Pembroke and Cardigan. As the differences became more important, British dog breeders nicknamed the Pembroke's unique back markings "fairy saddles." Around 1946, well-known dog-breeder Anne G. Biddlecombe of Dorset wrote the poem "Corgi Fantasy." This poem imagined how the fairies might ride corgis and use them to draw carriages. It was an instant hit, republished frequently in magazines and journals. Today, the idea of fairies mounted on corgis has grown popular, but is often misattributed to Welsh myth.
Tiny Horses
In "The Death of Fergus mac Leide," from an Irish manuscript, Iubdan is the king of the fairy folk. His golden horse, which has a crimson mane and green legs (classic fairy colors), is mistaken for a hare by bystanders. However, it is still able to carry a full-grown human on its back.
In the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis told the story of Elidorus, who encountered a race of pigmies. These Welsh fairies owned "horses and greyhounds adapted to their size."
- Giraldus Cambrensis, The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin Through Wales,1191. Trans. David Price, 1912. pg. 69.
In Chapter 6 of A Pleasant Treatise of Witches (1673), a woman encounters a fairy who, on horseback, "exceeded not a foots length in height." Later, he and all his attendants appear on her dinner table. They and their horses are so small that they can easily march "round the brims of a large dish of white-broth."
Inanimate Objects
In folklore, fairies are often seen riding on plants, or on horses created from plants - typically plant stalks, straws, or other long straight plants. They might call out magic chants such as "Horse and hattock!" or "Boram, boram, boram." There's overlap with witches; I would say this is where we ultimately got the image of witches riding on broomsticks. Fairies and witches also sail in eggshells, an image that evokes extremely miniature or nonsensical beings.
- Blog post: Witches, Fairies, Eggshells and Sieves
However, in some versions the plants seem to actually transform. In Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), the fairies "steal hempen stalks from the fields where they grow, to convert them into horses." 13th-century bishop William of Auvergne wrote in De Universo of demons turning reeds or canes into magical steeds.
In Ireland, ragwort is known as fairies' horses.
Insects
In Romeo and Juliet, Mab’s chariot is an empty hazelnut, with wagonspokes of spiders’ legs, the cover the wings of grasshoppers, the traces spiderweb, her collars of moonshine. Her whip is made from a cricket's bone. The chariot is drawn by "atomies."
In Nymphidia, Mab's coach is drawn by gnats, fairies ride on a grasshopper, and a tiny knight struggles to climb onto his gigantic earwig steed.
In Newcastle's Pastimes (1653), Queen Mab rides in a nutshell coach, with a lining of adders’ skin. It is pulled by six crickets. While hunting, she rides a grasshopper and uses a wasp to go hawking.
Similarly, Browne's Oberon uses "wagtayles" for hawks. His "coursers" are squirrels, weasels, rats, and rabbits.
Other Animals
In the 12th century, Walter Map wrote the book "De nugis curialium" (Of the trifles of courtiers). One of the stories is that of King Herla, who encounters a pigmy king no bigger than an ape. This dwarf king has goat feet, and rides on "a huge goat." He is explicitly compared to the Greek god Pan.
The fairytale character Tom Thumb is clearly a fairy in his oldest appearances. He used mice in place of horses in the oldest surviving version, from 1621. A later version from around 1700 added a scene where he rode on a butterfly. Other thumblings from around the world are not always so clearly tied to fairies, but they do get similarly creative. Der Angule and Bitaram, from India, rode on cats. The French Terra-Camin rode a rooster, and the Bukovinian Hazel-nut Child on a stork. The Danish Svend Tomling used a tiny pig and Siberian Niraidak had a small deer.
In A Second Manx Scrapbook, by W. W. Gill, we read of a shepherdess who encountered a fairy animal. With her flock near "Chibbert y Wirra, the holy well of Saint Mary," she noticed an unfamiliar lamb among her animals. This lamb was "wearing a little red saddle and having a red bridle about its head and face." When she touched it, her arm was paralyzed for life. Red clothing is common for fairies, and their livestock are commonly described with red and white markings. You could read the Manx story to mean that the lamb had red markings on its face and back. However, you could also read it as meaning that the lamb was harnessed as a riding animal for a tiny rider. This lends extra context to the shepherdess's plight.
What about corgis as the steeds of Welsh fairy folk? This picturesque legend originated in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Corgis, which originated in Wales, first gained the recognition of the English Kennel Club in the 1920s. But there were two distinct types of corgis - Pembroke and Cardigan. As the differences became more important, British dog breeders nicknamed the Pembroke's unique back markings "fairy saddles." Around 1946, well-known dog-breeder Anne G. Biddlecombe of Dorset wrote the poem "Corgi Fantasy." This poem imagined how the fairies might ride corgis and use them to draw carriages. It was an instant hit, republished frequently in magazines and journals. Today, the idea of fairies mounted on corgis has grown popular, but is often misattributed to Welsh myth.
- Blog post: "Did fairies really ride corgis?"
Musical Instruments
Fairies are known for their literally spellbinding dancing and music. Pipes and fiddles are the most common instruments. However, in fairy poems, their instruments tend to be a little wilder.
In Oberon's Feast, music is provided by grasshoppers, crickets, flies and gnats.
In William Browne's poems, the hautboys are made of sieves or dwarf rushes, and the bass is made of a chibole/chipple or small green onion. The tabor is a hazel-nut with heads of bat-wing and the snares from silver strings. A stiffened lamprey's skin is used for a flute.
In Prince Brightkin, the fairy Klingoling, chief lutanist, directs a choir of songbirds.
In Robin Goodfellow, Tom Thumb plays the drum or the bagpipe. His bagpipes are made of a wren’s quill and the skin of a Greenland louse.
In Oberon's Feast, music is provided by grasshoppers, crickets, flies and gnats.
In William Browne's poems, the hautboys are made of sieves or dwarf rushes, and the bass is made of a chibole/chipple or small green onion. The tabor is a hazel-nut with heads of bat-wing and the snares from silver strings. A stiffened lamprey's skin is used for a flute.
In Prince Brightkin, the fairy Klingoling, chief lutanist, directs a choir of songbirds.
In Robin Goodfellow, Tom Thumb plays the drum or the bagpipe. His bagpipes are made of a wren’s quill and the skin of a Greenland louse.
Homes
Traditionally, fairies are said to live underground, in mounds or caverns. However, they often gather outside for dances and celebrations. Fairy homes are usually described as extravagant palaces with huge feasts (which, of course, should not be eaten by visitors).
In Nymphidia, the fairy palace is built of spiders' legs, with cats' eyes for windows and bat skins for shingles.
Robert Herrick devotes his poem "Oberon's Palace" to this. The ground is paved with toadstones, toenails, and the teeth of children and squirrels. The room is hung with snakeskins and has friezes of peacock feathers and flies’ wings. Lights: glowworms eyes, fish-scales, cats’ eyes, phosphorescent wood. This leaves the palace mostly dim and reflecting natural light. Mab sleeps on a bed of six dandelions, with birth cauls for sheets. There is a coverlet of gossamer and a rug of carded wool. Cobweb curtains, decorated with tears, hang from the roof.
In a Midsummer Night's Dream, the elves make candles from the "waxen thighs" of bumblebees
In William Browne's poems, a mushroom makes a table for the king's dining room, with white rose leaves for a tablecloth. The trenchers are made from fish scales and each bottle of wine is a cherrystone with a seed pearl for a cork. The glasses are made from ice. The door to this room is mother-of-pearl, hinged and nailed with gold. There are tapestries on the wall and a carpet made of moss.
In Newcastle's "Pastime," Mab's palace is built from snail shells, with hangings made of rainbow and walls of sweet-smelling, clear amber. Her bed is carved from a cherrystone, with sheets of dove's eyes skin, a pillow of violent bud, and hangings of butterfly's wings. The doors are made of glass and locked with silver pins.
In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, fairies (who live in Kensington Gardens) use mushrooms for chairs. They also tell time by using dandelion clocks. This is a children's game where they tell the time by the number of puffs needed to blow the fluff off a dandelion. Winter cherries are laterns, white tulips are cradles, skeleton leaves are used to weave summer curtains. Tablecloths are seasonal and made from whatever flower is blooming.
In this story, fairy houses can only be seen at night, when they light up blue, green and red. The palace is built of colorful glass, which is beautiful but unfortunately see-through. They make walkways with ribbons or worsted, and their lights are glowworms.
Tinker Bell's room in Peter Pan has echoes of this. She has a small nook in the wall of the Lost Boys' home, partitioned by a curtain. It has a very expensive and snobby feel. She has a Puss-in-boots mirror, one of only three surviving pieces. The couch or bed is a "genuine Queen Mab, with club legs," and for bedspreads she uses whatever fruit blossoms are blooming. There's a reversible Pie-crust washstand, a chandelier from Tiddlywinks, a "authentic Charming the Sixth" chest of drawers, and the carpets are from "the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin."
Puss-in-boots, Queen Mab, and Charming are all very clear fairy-tale references. However, Queen Mab is also a reference to real-life Queen Anne style furniture, and Charming the Sixth to Louis XIV furniture.
Tiddlywinks was a popular game (though not involving chandeliers). This is a reference to the Tiffany lamp, with its colorful patterned glass shade.
Margery and Robin were characters in a children's story by Maria Edgeworth, published in the 1800s.
"Pie-Crust" indicates that the washstand has a crimped edge like a pie's crust - "piecrust tables" are a real thing. However, as it's capitalized here, that probably makes it a brand name like the others. Reversible would mean that each side is made of a different material.
Read about the history of the miniature flower fairy here.
Page last updated 5/22/2020.
In Nymphidia, the fairy palace is built of spiders' legs, with cats' eyes for windows and bat skins for shingles.
Robert Herrick devotes his poem "Oberon's Palace" to this. The ground is paved with toadstones, toenails, and the teeth of children and squirrels. The room is hung with snakeskins and has friezes of peacock feathers and flies’ wings. Lights: glowworms eyes, fish-scales, cats’ eyes, phosphorescent wood. This leaves the palace mostly dim and reflecting natural light. Mab sleeps on a bed of six dandelions, with birth cauls for sheets. There is a coverlet of gossamer and a rug of carded wool. Cobweb curtains, decorated with tears, hang from the roof.
In a Midsummer Night's Dream, the elves make candles from the "waxen thighs" of bumblebees
In William Browne's poems, a mushroom makes a table for the king's dining room, with white rose leaves for a tablecloth. The trenchers are made from fish scales and each bottle of wine is a cherrystone with a seed pearl for a cork. The glasses are made from ice. The door to this room is mother-of-pearl, hinged and nailed with gold. There are tapestries on the wall and a carpet made of moss.
In Newcastle's "Pastime," Mab's palace is built from snail shells, with hangings made of rainbow and walls of sweet-smelling, clear amber. Her bed is carved from a cherrystone, with sheets of dove's eyes skin, a pillow of violent bud, and hangings of butterfly's wings. The doors are made of glass and locked with silver pins.
In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, fairies (who live in Kensington Gardens) use mushrooms for chairs. They also tell time by using dandelion clocks. This is a children's game where they tell the time by the number of puffs needed to blow the fluff off a dandelion. Winter cherries are laterns, white tulips are cradles, skeleton leaves are used to weave summer curtains. Tablecloths are seasonal and made from whatever flower is blooming.
In this story, fairy houses can only be seen at night, when they light up blue, green and red. The palace is built of colorful glass, which is beautiful but unfortunately see-through. They make walkways with ribbons or worsted, and their lights are glowworms.
Tinker Bell's room in Peter Pan has echoes of this. She has a small nook in the wall of the Lost Boys' home, partitioned by a curtain. It has a very expensive and snobby feel. She has a Puss-in-boots mirror, one of only three surviving pieces. The couch or bed is a "genuine Queen Mab, with club legs," and for bedspreads she uses whatever fruit blossoms are blooming. There's a reversible Pie-crust washstand, a chandelier from Tiddlywinks, a "authentic Charming the Sixth" chest of drawers, and the carpets are from "the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin."
Puss-in-boots, Queen Mab, and Charming are all very clear fairy-tale references. However, Queen Mab is also a reference to real-life Queen Anne style furniture, and Charming the Sixth to Louis XIV furniture.
Tiddlywinks was a popular game (though not involving chandeliers). This is a reference to the Tiffany lamp, with its colorful patterned glass shade.
Margery and Robin were characters in a children's story by Maria Edgeworth, published in the 1800s.
"Pie-Crust" indicates that the washstand has a crimped edge like a pie's crust - "piecrust tables" are a real thing. However, as it's capitalized here, that probably makes it a brand name like the others. Reversible would mean that each side is made of a different material.
Read about the history of the miniature flower fairy here.
Page last updated 5/22/2020.
