Pictured: a pixie. (Also known as pixy, piskie, piksy, pexy, pigsey, or pigsnye.)
Pixie was originally just the Cornish term for a fairy. The exact etymology is unclear. It's been connected to everything from Picts to Puck. Anna Eliza Bray's A Peep at the Pixies (1854) uses the word for all sorts of fairy beings of varying size and appearance: will o' the wisps, fairy godmothers, brownie-style house elves, and ghostly phantoms. In modern times, pixie is frequently used for the cute, winged flower-type fairy (like pillywiggins). Disney uses "pixie" and "fairy" interchangeably to describe Tinker Bell's species. Marvel comics has a winged, pink-haired heroine named Pixie. However, I have found some websites and posts passionately declaring that pixies are not meant to have wings. Anyway, I decided to take a look at the earliest mentions I could find, to try to nail down as much as I can what a pixie was supposed to look like in folklore. Another creature from English folklore, the colt pixie, takes horse form to lead people astray like a will o' the wisp. "I shall be ready at thine elbow to plaie the parte of Hobgoblin or Collepixie" (The Apophthegmes of Erasmus; trans. Nicolas Udal, c.1564) As early as 1746, in An Exmoor Scolding, "ye teeheeing pixy!" was used as an insult.(Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 16) In 1787, in A provincial glossary: with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions, pixy was simply defined as "fairy" and sourced to Exmoor. It also mentioned the Hampshire term "colt-pixy." The print references to pixies really started to spread in the 1800s. I've mentioned A Peep at the Pixies; there was the English Dialect Dictionary in 1880 and in more detail in 1902; Thomas Keightley's Fairy Mythology (1892); Tales of the Dartmoor Pixies (1890); Brand's popular antiquities of Great Britain (1905). But even as they grew popular in literature, writers were already lamenting that "the age of piskays, like that of chivalry, is gone" (Drew, The History of Cornwall, 1824) "Beautiful fictions of our fathers . . . They are flown before the wand of Science!" (Cabinet of Modern Art, 1829). The general consensus seemed to be that the pixies were little people or elves. In Malvern, as I found it by Timothy Pounce (1858) a character declares that a winged being "could not have been a pixie" (p85). By this period in time, though, people certainly had a concept of winged fairies. In 1867, there is a description of a "pixie court" with wings, in 1921 a poem with a reference to pixie wings, in 1927 a design for a pixie with wings. In 1953, Disney's Peter Pan brought with it Tinker Bell's "pixie dust." It was fairy dust in the original novel. Going back to the older resources on pixies, in Brand's Popular Antiquities, a pixy child is "human in appearance, though dwarfish in size." Other accounts called them "invisibly small." Many were strange-looking, hairy or animal-like, or dressed in rags, though they had a strong affinity with the color green. They sometimes stole children, and loved dancing and music. Pixies were laughing and mischievous; they might have been the souls of unbaptized infants. They liked to tangle horses' manes. Pixy-stools were a kind of mushroom - i.e., the pixies used mushrooms as chairs. Similar fungi were pixy-puffs and pisgy-pows (pixies' feet). To be pixy-led was to be led astray by mischievous spirits. To pixy was to glean leftover apples and walnuts after the harvest. (Report and Transactions - The Devonshire Association, 1875) All together, these descriptions paint an interesting picture. Really, to ask whether pixies should be shown with wings, is to ask whether fairies in general should be winged. I don't think anyone has nailed down the actual point at which people actually began to think of fairies as winged. Right now the earliest I know of is the illustrations for the 1798 edition of The Rape of the Lock. (See also Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog.)
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I have a few pages, including "The Little Folk," "List of Fairies," and "The Denham Tracts," related to fairy lore. They're a work in progress. I've found that sources are often hard to sort through. A small superstition from one area can easily bloat and transform into a supposedly famous Europe-wide tradition. Mistakes are repeated as fact until the real facts are forgotten. For one example: hyter sprites are mentioned in a few encyclopedias as small fairies with sand-colored skin and green eyes, who are protective of children and, most notably, can transform into sand martins. The most well-known source for these was Katherine Briggs' Encyclopedia of Faeries (1973), based on an account by folklorist Ruth Tongue. In 1984, Daniel Allen Rabuzzi wrote an article, “In Pursuit of Norfolk's Hyter Sprites," trying to chase down the original tradition. When he interviewed natives of Norfolk, he found no tradition of little werebird fairies. Instead, the phrase hyter, hikey or highty sprite was an idiom or nickname, most frequently used for a bogeyman ("Don't go out after dark or the hikey sprites will get you!") Everyone imagined them differently. One account described them as human-sized, batlike, threatening figures. Also, it turns out that although Ruth Tongue was a wonderful storyteller, she may have straight-up invented a lot of the stories she "collected." A class of fae similar to hyter sprites are "pillywiggins," tiny spring flower fairies in English and Welsh folklore. They have wings and antennae like insects. Though protective of their garden habitats, they are peaceful creatures who (unlike most fairies) don't bother much with humans or pranks. They live in groups, ride on bees, and their queen is named Ariel. At least, that's what you'd gather from the handful of books that mention them.
I should mention that many of these books are terrible at citations. Many of them don't cite anything, they just have one giant bibliography with no way to tell what came from where. Dubois's book is rife with misspellings, and Bane's with mistakes and misattributions. It looks like Dubois and McCoy were both elaborating on the brief description of Fairies & Elves, with very fanciful entries of their own. I have not found any supporting evidence for McCoy's "Queen Ariel." Here, McCoy actually seems to have cribbed from Shakespeare's Tempest (1610). McCoy's pillywiggins are bee-riding spring fairies, and her Queen Ariel "often rides bats, and is blonde and very seductive. She wears a thin, transparent garment of white, sleeps in a bed of cowslip, and can control the winds. She cannot speak, but communicates in beautiful song." Compare The Tempest, where a spirit named Ariel sings, Where the bee sucks, there suck I. In a cowslip’s bell I lie. There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. Still, later writers cited Dubois' and McCoy's work as folklore fact. Bane's encyclopedia of folklore and mythology has an entry on pillywiggins based on McCoy's description. Pillywiggin queen Ariel appears in the novels Buttercup Baby by Karen Fox (2001) and Alexander of Teagos by Paula Porter (2010). In 1986, a UK-published My Little Pony comic featured pillywiggins as non-winged flower fairies. It was apparently written for Wayne and Claire of Hanham, Bristol. There is an extensive article on pillywiggins on the French Wikipedia. But these are supposed to be English fairies - why is there more on them in French than in English? Even the talk page raises questions about this, besides pointing out that all sources are very recent and do not point to pillywiggins being a part of tradition. The most recent edit, by Tsaag Valren on June 6, 2011 says, "...after a week of research, seeing that I could find nothing more, I asked Pierre Dubois himself how he got his sources. He told me broadly that he wrote from popular English songs and discussions. As for the other works on the fairies, in general they repeat themselves: pillywiggin is the fairy of flowers, and not much more!" Although they've gained a tiny foothold into literature, I have yet to find the word pillywiggin recorded in anything before the 1970s. This is in stark contrast to other British and Welsh fairies such as pixies and brownies, which were first described hundreds of years ago, and which have variations in many different places. There could certainly be an oral tradition of pillywiggins going way back, but in that area of the world, it seems unlikely that it would have escaped notice. I can only track the name itself back to Arrowsmith's Field Guide to the Little People. It mentions pillywiggins briefly, in a list of other tiny fairies, and says they're from Dorset. My research into Dorset folklore has not yet discovered any mention of pillywiggins. Arrowsmith's bibliography lacks details, so it's hard to say where she found this information. She also mentions Ruth Tongue's hyter sprites, which as already noted, have a shaky basis in folklore. However, there are plenty of traditions of fairies being related to oak trees and plants including bluebells, thyme and foxgloves. Oak trees have magical qualities in British lore, and there's an old poem with the line "Puck is busy in these oakes." Many other plants were named for fairies. Foxgloves in particular are often connected to fairies and witches. For instance, the Welsh ellyllon are “pigmy elves” who wear foxgloves on their hands. The idea of miniature fairies goes at least as far back as the description of the one-inch-tall portunes in Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperiale, around the year 1210. Around 1595, A Midsummer Night's Dream gave us fairies who have power over nature, crawl into acorn cups and hang the dew in flowers. In 1835, Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina emerged from a flowerbud and later encountered flower spirits with fly's wings. In the first half of the 20th century, Cicely Mary Barker's illustrations and Queen Mary's interests truly popularized the idea of tiny, benevolent flower fairies. As it happens, Pillywiggin does sound a lot like another fairy name: Pigwiggin or Pigwidgeon. You might recognize this word as the name of a pet owl in the Harry Potter series. It is a name for a tiny, insignificant creature. There are lots of different theories on its etymology, but Pigwiggin became famous as the name of a fairy knight in the 1627 poem Nymphidia. From there, pigwidgeon emerged as an obscure name for a miniature fairy or dwarf. The English Parnassus (1657, Josua Poole) includes a list of Oberon and Mab's courtiers, including "Periwiggin, Periwinckle, Puck." This is based on Nymphidia with some misspellings. This textual error could be an important clue. Maybe pillywiggin, like periwiggin, is just a misspelling of Pigwiggin. From there, it was picked up by other researchers and took on a life of its own. I will say that Pillywiggin is a fun name, and I don't really mind using it for the modern flower fairy. For the moment, my search has come to an end, but I will be keeping an eye out for further clues. If you have any insight on this subject, let me know! Further reading
Part 2: What are Pillywiggins? Revisited Part 3: Pillywiggins in Pop Culture Part 4: Pillywiggins, Etymology, and ... Knitting? Part 5: Diamonds and Opals: Two Romances Featuring Pillywiggins Part 6: Pillywiggins: An Amended Theory In a lot of modern stories, iron is fairies' kryptonite. Their silver bullet. All the hero has to do is whip out a cast-iron skillet, and evil sprites cower.
It's often explained as iron having natural anti-magic qualities, or symbolizing the march of industrialization and the fading of magic. Or any other of a billion explanations. For further confusion, it's not just iron. It's "cold" iron. The phrase can be baffling to modern readers, and for maximum confusion there actually is such a thing as cold-wrought iron. However, cold-wrought iron is newer than the phrase "cold iron," which in this case is poetic. "Cold steel" is the modern equivalent and simply means a weapon that to draws blood (Current Literature, 1891). Where did this originate? It's just one of those folkways that can never be sourced to any one person, and always seems to have been "well, everyone knows it." However, you can trace it back through history to an xtent. In Robert Herrick's "Another charme for stables" (1648), the reader is told to hang up metal hooks and shears to protect their horses from being ridden at night by witches. In 1691, Robert Kirk wrote that "The Tramontanes, to this day, put bread, the Bible, or a piece of iron, in womens bed" to prevent newborn children from being stolen by fairies; and "they commonly report, that all uncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much as by cold Iron." So the phrase and the tradition date back at least to the 1600's. The iron seems to be more popular than the bread as a popular way to repel fairies. I guess it's just not as exciting to send your hero into battle wielding a baguette. The superstition of leaving iron in the bed to prevent fairies kidnapping expectant mothers continued over the centuries. Thus, the way to protect children from being replaced by changelings was usually to leave open scissors, a knife, fire tongs, or a similar object near their cradle. Around 1850, in Northern mythology by Benjamin Thorpe, a story is related where a smith sees a troll kidnapping a pregnant woman. Since the smith is working at his forge, he uses a piece of red-hot iron to frighten off the troll. In other stories in the same volume, trolls and huldra seem to have no trouble with iron. And, like, most people don't want to be chased with red-hot iron. That's not just a magical creature thing. However, there is also a mention of a Danish tradition that "On the eve of Maundy Thursday the country folks cast axes and iron wedges on the sown fields, and fasten steel on all their doors, that the witches may not injure them." In the Ozarks, there were many traditions surrounding iron nails. They could be nailed into someone's footprint - either to hurt an enemy, or a witch. They could be used to prevent disease, or they could be driven into a doorframe, which was particularly effective in protecting (again) pregnant women from evil. These practices were recorded around 1947. So these superstitious practices surrounding iron are surprisingly long-lived. Right into the 20th century! On the other hand, they also go back further than I originally realized. In Natural History, Book XXXIV, Chapter 44, Pliny the Elder mentioned that iron was used both in medicine and in preventative magic. "Iron is employed in medicine for other purposes besides that of making incisions. For if a circle is traced with iron, or a pointed weapon is carried three times round them, it will preserve both infant and adult from all noxious influences: if nails, too, that have been extracted from a tomb, are driven into the threshold of a door, they will prevent night-mare." There is much more about iron and magnets besides this, but this quote alone establishes a history for iron as having magical protective properties. And that was around 79 AD! So at first, it was simply that iron could protect and heal people. Actually, some of the superstitions in Pliny - like iron having healing properties, or the idea of driving nails into a door - were still pretty current in the Ozarks almost 1900 years later. It's easy to see how it could go from "iron protects from evil" to "iron protects from sickness, evil spirits, witches, and fairies" which were all kind of interchangeable at that point. Many of the superstitions center around vulnerable groups, like pregnant women and small infants. A Victorian theory is that the first iron found was from meteorites, which would give it an otherworldly and sacred meaning as something that had fallen from the heavens. However, that's speculation. Iron is a hard and durable metal with the possibility of becoming magnetized. There are beliefs about it and evidence of it being used in amulets and charms for about as long as iron has existed. It was seen as pure or impure by different groups. There were quite a few superstitions surrounding blacksmiths, as well; blacksmiths having healing abilities or, in Scotland, being allowed to perform marriages; and there were gods who were smiths, like the Greek Hephaestus. There are more esoteric explanations, like iron being seen as the lifeforce of the earth, or associated with lifeforce because blood smells like iron. There are superstitions associated with every substance known to humankind. There are some negative superstitions associated with iron, too. This one just happens to be the most well-known. Further Reading
Those strange, benevolent fairies who show up to give advice or magical artifacts. When did they start to appear in fairy tales? How many people have them? What are their powers? Where did they come from? Let's start with the most well-known - Sleeping Beauty's and Cinderella's. Fairies attend Sleeping Beauty's christening and give her gifts such as beauty and a sweet singing voice. An angry fairy, however, dispenses a curse. The most famous is Cinderella's fairy godmother, who appears with magical clothing and a coach just when Cinderella needs them. Both of these stories with their attendant fairies were first published by Charles Perrault in 1697. The older Sleeping Beauty story, Sun, Moon and Talia, had no fairies or magic. As for Cinderella, the Grimms' Aschenputtel had the heroine aided by the ghost of her dead mother. The Chinese Ye Xian has the ghost of a pet fish which was originally a guardian spirit sent by her deceased mother, and the Scottish Rashin-Coatie has a red calf. There are plenty of tales where the hero is aided by a fairy or other magical creature, but Charles Perrault and probably also Madame D'Aulnoy popularized the fairy godmother. In 1697, they both put out books of fairytales in which such beings were heavily featured. D’Aulnoy wrote "Finette Cendron," "Princess Rosette," and "Princess Mayblossom," as well as “The Blue Bird” and “The White Doe,” where the villain has a fairy godmother. The trope of the fairy godmother became more and more common during the era of literary French tales such as "Prince Fatal and Prince Fortune" or "Princess Camion" (1743), where they typically show up at births and give prophecies. The relationship reflects a Catholic environment. In medieval times, the godparents served an important role in the child's life, including their religious education. Although fairy godmothers didn't become a widespread thing until Perrault and D'Aulnoy, their roots do go back into legends and myth. In medieval romances, the "fays" frequently preside over births and give out gifts and prophecies. Six fays arrive to bestow heroic qualities on the newborn Ogier the Dane. The final one, Morgain picks him as her future husband. A similar scene, also with Morgain, appears in the Enfances Garin de Montglane. In the 13th century Huon de Bordeaux, Oberon was cursed by a fairy at his christening. In the stories of Merlin, a man named Dionas is the godson of the goddess Diane. Diane gives his daughter Niniane a destiny as a great sorceress. In 1621, Tom Thumb has "the Queene of Fayres" as "his kind Midwife, & good Godmother." She helps at his birth, and throughout his life provides him with magical aid and tools - including fancy clothing and impractical footwear. Marian Roalfe Cox collected 345 variants of Cinderella. In her collection, fairy godmothers appear in Peau d'ane (Perrault 1697), Finette Aschenbrodel (1845), the Russian Zamarashka (1860), Hubac's Peau d'Ane (1874), Baissac's Story of Peau d'Ane (1888), Catarina (1892), and The White Goat. In the Basque tale of Ass'-Skin (1877), there is a human godmother who gives the heroine advice. In both "Marie Robe de Bois" and "Le Pays des Brides" (1892), the heroine has a "sorceress-godmother." In "The Young Countess and the Water-Nymph" (1852), a water-nymph agrees to stand godmother to the child of her friend the countess. In "Ditu Migniulellu" (1881), the word godmother is not used, but fairies do show up at the girl's birth to dispense gifts, and one returns to help her get to the ball. In "Terra Camina" (1892), there is a christening and a godmother with magical powers. However, it's hard to tell whether she's a fairy or not. The Estonian tale of Rebuliina (1895) describes the christening in detail. The godmother is mysterious and is never identified, but clearly has magical powers. There are countless stories where fairies aid the heroine, but the ones I've mentioned are specifically godmothers or have a connection to the heroine beginning at her birth. These magical godmothers are not like typical fairies, which are not creatures you would want around your newborn baby. Indeed, many types of fairies and spirits flee church bells and would never be seen at a christening. They're more likely to steal an infant than bless it, and babies aren't safe until they've been baptized. In contrast, fairy godmothers are wise women, typically benevolent, focused only on furthering their godchild's lot in life. (They still have a capacity for evil, as seen with Oberon or Sleeping Beauty.) When the Cinderella figure is aided by the ghost of her mother, it has a hint of ancestor-worship. In a different direction, I think there's a version where Buddha steps in. Fairy godmothers, who preside over births and prophesy the newborn's fate, are descended from the Fates of mythology - like the Roman Parcae, Greek Mourae, and Norse Norns. The Mourae appear shortly after Meleager's birth to prophesy his death. The Prose Edda says that besides the three main norns Urd, Skuld and Verdandi, "there are yet more norns, namely those who come to every man when he is born, to shape his life". There are other mythologies featuring similar figures. Pi-Hsia Yüan-Chün was a Chinese goddess of childbirth; she had two attendants, one of whom brought children and the other who gave them good eyesight. Latvian folklore tells of a birth goddess named Lauma, and fairies known as Laumė that foretell a newborn's future. The Albanian Fatit or Miren, butterfly-riding fairies, approach the cradle three days after the baby's birth to determine its fate. The story of the fairy godmother puts these myths into a Christian context. It formalizes the relationship between the child and the spirit overseeing her birth, and brings them closer together, explaining why the fairy's so invested. Going from the other direction, it plays up godparents. The godmother steps in for the deceased mother and provides guidance, but this approach turns her from a mere advice-giver into an incredibly powerful guardian. I haven't found anything on fairy godfathers. Well, except Godfather Death, a very different kind of story, where a very different mythical being takes the role of godparent. My next blog post will be up on Monday, but this YouTube video just popped up and I found it pretty relevant to my subject. Enjoy. One of the most memorable scenes from Peter Pan is his first meeting with Wendy, where he loses his shadow and she sews it back on for him.
In the book, the shadow is pulled off when Nana catches it and the closing window severs it. It's treated like a physical object; it's "quite an ordinary shadow" and Mrs. Darling rolls it and puts it in a drawer. This fits with the book's whimsical tone, particularly the scene where she first attempts to hang it outside, only to see that it "looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house." In the Disney adaptation and the later 2003 adaptation, Peter's shadow is alive. It is a mischievous, active creature that Peter has to chase and catch. This is clearly a choice to make the scene more exciting for the medium of film. Upon being reattached, it goes back to normal and is never mentioned again. In the show Once Upon a Time, the Shadow is an demonic being that serves Peter Pan. In Peter and the Shadow Thieves, a children's sci-fi novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, where a being called Lord Ombra enslaves people by stealing their shadows. However, these more recent adaptations - which seem to draw more on the film versions with the living shadow - may miss the point behind Barrie's reasoning. Peter's shadow is what first draws him to Wendy. His origin story is that he left his home while the window was open. He returned returned to find that the window was shut and his mother had forgotten him. His encounter with Wendy, a new mother figure, repeats these elements in reverse. On his first visit, the closing window traps his shadow. When he returns to retrieve it, he is able to enter the house and spend time with Wendy. They are parted when he forgets her, and at this point she becomes a mother in the biological sense. There are plenty of literary references to the shadow becoming separated from the body. In The Wonderful Story of Peter Schlemihl, published in 1814 to general popularity, a man sells his shadow to the devil only to find that he is now shunned by society. In Hans Christian Andersen's "The Shadow," when a man's shadow is detached, it takes on a life of its own and eventually usurps his identity. In Oscar Wilde's "The Fisherman and His Soul," which reads like a response to both "The Shadow" and "The Little Mermaid," the shadow is the body of the soul. In Jewish lore, demons are believed to have no shadows. The shadow is an extension of oneself, symbolic of the soul, and without one, a person is lacking or not human. The opening chapters of Peter Pan have the only mention of shadows in the book. However, in the "Fairy Notes" containing Barrie's ideas, shadows show up multiple times. Note 210 reads, "Shadow of girl--P expected to find it cold--it's warm! Then she's not dead, &c." 206 mentions the idea that a warm shadow indicates that the owner is healthy, but the shadow's limp indicates that the owner has hurt her foot. This lends itself to the idea that the shadow is the double of the body and can indicate whether the soul still resides there. Barrie also considered using shadows as psychopomps. In the final version, Peter Pan is briefly mentioned as a psychopomp: "when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened." Note 95 says, "Girl suffering from want of her shadow - shadow also suffers, dwindles, &c," and Note 97, "Suppose you cd hurt Peter by hurting his shadow, &c, (as in Indian fairytale)." So Barrie took some inspiration from folklore and other literature. Note 99: "shadow is quivering {therefore} original is suffering somewhere." James Frazer's The Golden Bough (1922) explains how the shadow is viewed as a kind of voodoo doll; the same in the "Indian fairytale" Barrie mentions. Someone could hurt Peter by hurting his shadow. This explains his urgency in regaining it. [Edit 7/10/21: The "Indian fairytale" may be a legend referred to in The Golden Bough. In a section about superstitions that shadows are vulnerable, there is this : “After Sankara had destroyed the Buddhists in India, it is said that he journeyed to Nepaul, where he had some difference of opinion with the Grand Lama. To prove his supernatural powers, he soared into the air. But as he mounted up the Grand Lama, perceiving his shadow swaying and wavering on the ground, struck his knife into it and down fell Sankara and broke his neck.” Note that Sankara is flying like Peter Pan when he meets his demise. Another version, however, does not give the same implication that the knife causes Sankara to fall.] On another note: Barrie's fairies are creatures of light. The nocturnal fairies in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens are "bewilderingly bright." Upon her introduction in Peter Pan, we learn that Tinker Bell's light "was not really a light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly," but when she lies dying, "her light was growing fainter; and he knew that if it went out she would be no more." Onstage, she was portrayed by shining a light. So these otherworldly beings are creatures of light. In folklore, fairies were connected to the souls of the dead and their realm to the underworld. In contrast to these glowing beings, the dark shadow identifies Peter as both a living being and someone with a soul. Peter is a psychopomp himself, only on the verge of being human. He tells Hook that he is "a little bird that has broken out of the egg," hearkening back to Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, where human babies are originally birds and Peter learns to fly from birds. But he still has a shadow, and this mark of humanity is the thing that leads him briefly away from the otherworldly realm of death and back to a family. In the end, he leaves that family, but continues a cycle of return where he takes Wendy's descendants one by one to Neverland. Neverland is an indulgence of childhood, the manifestation of the children's imagination. Their games and daydreams shape it; Wendy's imaginary pet wolf lives there. Even when they live there, their food is make-believe. Actually, this book presents kind of a horrible picture of children. They are innocent, but also heartless and don't care about anything. Arrogant, self-absorbed Peter is the most obvious example, but the Darling children abandon their parents without a second thought. It's Wendy's growing maturity that causes them to go home. SOURCES
Fairy Tale: A True Story is available on Netflix now. It’s based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies, which I’m fascinated by, so I gave it a watch, skipping through some scenes because it was late. I enjoyed it more than I expected. It is indeed based on a true story. Starting in 1917, two cousins in Cottingley, England, named Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, produced photographs of themselves with what appeared to be real, live fairies. It’s strange to think that these photographs convinced so many. Even with the camera quality, their gnomes and sprites look flat and sharp-edged, like paper cutouts . . . which, of course, they were. Elsie’s father picked up on this, but somehow the “proof” of real fairies became huge news. This was mainly thanks to one of their most prominent champions, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, the creator of Sherlock Holmes was totally on board with it. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Frances and Elsie admitted that it had all been faked. The delicate, dancing figures were copied from picture books onto cardboard and supported with hatpins. They still maintained, however, that they had really seen fairies. The film, which came out in 1997, wholly embraces the idea of the real live fairies. They are constantly flittering around. However, this makes the film somewhat disturbing on another note, because so much of it is about faith and belief in things unseen, in a higher power. It opens with a performance of Peter Pan, with the lead character crying, "Clap if you believe in fairies!" The audience of children applauds and cheers. One character is having a crisis of faith and searching for hope after her son's death; characters talk about belief again and again. And then it all turns out to be real. Yay!! But the “true story” it’s based on was a hoax. The filmmakers most definitely knew that it was a hoax. The end result is that the film feels like a mockery. That said, we never actually see the girls take a photo. And in one of the final scenes of the movie, juxtaposed with two other cases revealing hoaxes, a reporter discovers the paper fairies on their hatpins, in exactly the poses from the photo. However, the scene then turns around, and the supernatural takes back over. A ghost appears and frightens him away. The movie later ends with fairies filling the family's house and even the skeptical father finally being convinced. Perhaps the filmmakers were trying to portray the girls in the most positive light. Frances and Elsie always said, even after confessing to the hoax, that they really had seen fairies. Still, I don’t think it’s right to market this to children as "A True Story," with taglines like "Believe!" because it cheapens the truth. It's like saying "You can believe in this thing! Well, in this case, the proof turned out to be a bald-faced lie, but you should still believe in the thing because it's a happy thing that brings you joy!" And the fairies feel like a marketing ploy. That's right - there were books and a doll line. "Fairies of Cottingley Glen." But at least it was well-researched. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a spiritualist who by all accounts wanted to believe. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was an alcoholic who suffered from epilepsy and depression, and spent the latter part of his life in a mental institution. While there, he filled sketchbooks with elaborate, fantastical artwork of elves and fairies. The movie touches briefly on this and it makes Doyle's motivations much more understandable. There was one scene that I actually stopped and rewound because the girls are walking through the woods calling the names of the fairies, and they’re all names from real folklore. A cast list reveals the names of even more fairies.
I've read about the Cottingley Fairies before, on the Internet and in The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World, by Mary Losure. This book is written for children, but is a great read and incredibly well-researched. However, like the movie, it still clings to the idea that the girls really did see fairies, and they faked the photos because . . . um . . . they saw fairies.
Back to the movie. There’s beautiful scenery, the effects have aged surprisingly well, and I found myself enjoying it overall. Still, I was still bothered by that whole faith/fakery complex, and also the feeling that the fairies were real so that the moviemakers could sell toys. I would have much preferred to see the movie simply reveal that yes, the fairies were faked, and leave it at that, with maybe a faint hint at real supernatural events rather than full-blown "FAIRIES ARE REAL AND THEY'RE IN YOUR HOUSE." Even better, it'd be nice to see the girls actually taking the photos. (I must say, I never expected to see Dame Habetrot or the Shellycoat marketed as cute, big-eyed Barbies with fluorescent hair. The Shellycoat!) In many stories, brownies are helpful little sprites who are eager to work and clean for human families. However, if clothes are left out, the brownie vanishes, never to be heard from again. And they'll usually announce this in rhyme. But why? The explanation varies by story. Some brownies are thrilled to find their new clothes. In fact, it seems to go to their head a little. In the German story of The Elves and the Shoemaker, the elves sing, "Now we are boys so fine to see, Why should we longer cobblers be?" In a similar tale, the household fairy's cry is, "Pixie fine, Pixie gay, Pixie now will run away." More often, though, it is simply a taboo and even the best way to drive off an unwanted brownie. "Here’s a cloak and here’s a hood! The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good!" Another rhyme goes, “Gie Brownie coat, gie Brownie sark, Ye'se get nae mair o' Brownie's wark!” In some variations they'll leave if you pay them anything – food counts too. Keightley's Fairy Mythology explains that Brownies do their work out of generosity and are greatly turned off by anything that would look like payment or a bribe. (And in some places, like Berwickshire, England, it's less voluntary and they simply cannot take payment, being appointed by God to be the pro bono "servants of mankind".) However, they’ll accept gifts that are given discreetly. Clothes or fancy food are too much, but a simple bowl of cream and honeycomb left quietly somewhere out of the way will be gladly accepted. He gives an example of a woman making an outfit for her brownie and making the mistake of calling out to let him know it’s there. This prompts him to say, “A new mantle and a new hood; Poor Brownie! ye'll ne'er do mair gude!” Often the implication is that the brownie is deeply insulted by the gift - as with Puck, who would "chafe exceedingly" at the compassion of those who laid out clothes alongside the milk and bread he preferred. "What have we here? Hemton hamten, here will I never more tread nor stampen." Alternately, in The mad Pranks and merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow, a maid makes the mistake of leaving him a waistcoat instead of food. Big problem. Because thou layest me himpen hampen I will neither bolt nor stampen: 'Tis not your garments, new or old, That Robin loves: I feel no cold. Had you left me milk or cream, You should have had a pleasing dream: Because you left no drop or crum, Robin never more will come. (Keightley 288) In "hempen hampen," hemp would be the coarse cloth that the clothes are made from. This may link to another variant, where the brownie is fine with the idea of clothes - it's the shoddy material that offends him. In a Lincolnshire version, the brownie announces, “Had you given me linen gear, I would have served you many a year.” Another explanation is that giving him clothes says you’ve seen him. You would have to wait up late at night and spy on him to know what he's wearing. He's happy with his rags, thank you very much. On the other hand, in a tale from the Scottish Highlands, the brownie welcomed the idea of clothes and would regularly make bargains with the house-servants. The agreement was for him to do the winter’s threshing in exchange for a coat and hood that he liked. However, when they laid out the clothes ahead of time, and he grabbed them and took off, with the words “Brownie has got a cowl and coat, and never more will work a jot" (Keightley). Most of these are either gleeful and self-satisfied, or insulted and angry. However, in one story the brownie sounds quite sad. On the Isle of Man, the story is that a brownielike creature called the Phynnodderee helped in moving some stones. The grateful owner left some clothes for him in the glen where he lived. Upon finding them, the Phynnodderee cried, Cap for the head, alas, poor head! Coat for the back, alas, poor back! Breeches for the breech, alas, poor breech! If these be all thine, thine cannot be the merry glen of Rushen. (Keightley) This has stuck around in popular culture. In the Harry Potter series, house elves can be freed from servitude by a gift of clothing. A summary of reasons why:
SOURCES
Actually, this started out as "Why does Peter Pan have pointed ears?" That was fairly easy. It was Disney’s creative choice to depict him that way. The pointed ears, a trait shared with the fairy Tinker Bell, emphasized the character’s magical and otherworldly nature. The two also wear green – a color traditionally given to fairy clothing. Any other sources showing Peter Pan with pointed ears seem clearly drawn from Disney. So . . . pointy ears are a marker of an otherworldly nature, common to elves and fairies. When did that happen? Here, elves and fairies are basically synonymous, as in Shakespeare. A lot of sources automatically point to Tolkien as the one who popularized the pointy-eared elf; however, Tolkien never described his elves in-depth. In fact, in the fandom, opinions are divided on whether his elves’ ears are really intended to be pointy at all. In some of his letters, he did say that their ears were “leaf-shaped” and that a hobbit’s ears were "ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'" (Letters, 35 (27), Annotated Hobbit, 10); however, in that second case, it's possible he was referring not to his elves but to the little Santa-style elves of contemporary imagination, who already had pointy ears. Either way, Tolkien was by no means the first or most famous user of pointy-eared elves. So then where does the trend really begin? As far as I can tell, it starts with satyrs. There were many animal-human hybrid monsters in Greek and Roman myth. Silenus, part man and part donkey, was depicted with a donkey's pointed ears. Satyrs had goats' ears and legs. Later, as Christianity rose to power, these kinds of magical creatures were demonized, and pointed ears and hooves became the attributes of the devil. And fairies were also at odds with Christianity. Creatures who could be frightened away with holy symbols or the sound of church bells. I think the most important bridge here is none other than Robin Goodfellow, or Puck. Puck was a fairy being, but often the line between Puck and Devil was blurred. An early woodcut from Robin Goodfellow: His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests (1629) shows Puck as a faun, resembling the gods Pan and Priapus. Looking at Puck's donkey ears here, it’s easy to see how they could develop over the years into Tinker Bell’s ears. (Incidentally, Peter Pan does have similarities with the god Pan. The name, for one. And the panpipes.) See also Peter Paul Rubens's 1616 version of Silenus and the Satyrs here. In 1789, a more innocent and childlike Puck appeared in a painting by Joshua Reynolds. The goat legs are gone, but the pointy ears remain. A Midsummer Night's Dream is the source for a lot of fairy paintings. Joseph Noel Paton painted a few - one, in 1849, was the Quarrel of Oberon and Titania. It's a huge and detailed scene, showing many wildly varied fairies. Some have little butterfly wings. Oberon and Titania appear human in shape, but godlike. Of their smaller subjects, some bear butterfly wings, and I think at least one has pointed ears. This kind of variety in size and appearance is par for the course in this era. Still, in folklore and fairytales, there aren't many mentions of fairy ears. You'll get dwarves with long beards or ladies of extraordinary beauty or trolls with huge noses, but ears are rare. When they do show up, they are not quite the delicate pointed ears of Tinker Bell. In A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West by Anna Eliza Bray [1854], the fairy called Pixy Gathon is described with “very large ears, hairy and long, resembling those of a donkey.” He also has a tail. This is pretty close to Puck and Pan. Back to the Greeks for a moment. The sculpture of the Resting Satyr was attributed to Praxiteles, who lived in the 4th century BC. The nude figure appears entirely human except for its pointed, goat-like ears. Why do I bring this up? Because it might shed some light on why fairies are shown with pointed ears. In 1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne based his work The Marble Faun on this sculpture and described it thus: "These are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of animals. Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. . . . The pointed and furry ears . . . are the sole indications of his wild, forest nature." So the inhuman ears are the main clue to the beautiful creature’s true, otherworldly nature. Hawthorne's book seems to have been pretty well-known at the time. Perhaps this lent itself to a growing trend of oddly-eared creations. During the Victorian era, fairies become a popular subject in art. Some fairy artists in the 1800s were John Anster Fitzgerald, Richard Dadd, and Richard Doyle. However, there seem to be classes of fairies. There are the tall, humanoid fairies with flowing hair, like Oberon and Titania. Then there are the Pucks, the tiny, grotesque and pointy-eared gnomes. Pointed ears are an attribute of more wild and inhuman creatures - ranging from comically grotesque to monstrous. Check out Dadd's "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke." 1882 - Walter Crane's illustration of The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm. Later editions will also have pointy-eared elves - like the 1911 translation with illustrations by Charles Folkard. 1884: Andrew Lang’s Princess Nobody with illustrations by Richard Doyle. Some of the fairy creatures bear ears that are large and elongated , but not exactly pointy. In English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs, published in 1890, there are two mentions of pointy-eared fairies. In "Fairy Ointment," some fairies are apparently human-sized and very beautiful, with clothing of "white silk" or "silvery gauze." However, the smaller fairies or pixies are “flat-nosed imps with pointed ears" and "long and hairy paws.” In "The Cauld Lad of Hylton," a brownie is described as “half man, half goblin, with pointed ears and hairy hide.” In both cases, the pointy ears come with a hairy appearance, increasing the similarity to a wild beast. 1899: The first comic strip of The Brownies by Palmer Cox is published. This series, which stars small, pudgy brownies with slightly pointed ears, becomes incredibly popular and even gets a camera named after it. 1901 illustration from Queen Mab's Fairy Realm, a collection of stories edited by George Newnes and illustrated by Arthur Packham. Notice the two different types of fairy shown here. Rackham (1867 – 1939) illustrated tons and tons of fairytale books, and is another huge influence on how fairies are viewed. His fairies vary in the ear department; some pointy, some not so. Many, usually the grotesque ones, have pointed ears. His illustrations for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens are of particular note here. In 1902, the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum was published. Mary Cowles Clark drew the illustrations, which included little fairy creatures with antennae and large, elongated ears. (A human-sized nymph with long flowing hair does not have particularly pointy ears.) 1906: Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is of course a central character. Here, he is the size of a small child, and carefully described as "a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face." A Puck costume also includes the ears - so now, in text, we get the idea that this is a defining trait of this character. (Anything in text is particularly interesting, because while the pointy-ears thing is now popping up everywhere in art, it's been hard to find textual evidence.) In a 1909 article from the Manchester Guardian, quoted here, brownies are “little men with big eyes and long ears.” Florence Harrison was another artist who drew many fairies for fairytale books. In books such as the 1912 Elfin Song, her brownies, elves and banshees had quite large and pointed ears. They look very Rackham-esque. 1912: Swedish magazine Among Gnomes and Trolls #6 - one of many illustrations by John Bauer shows a pair of trolls with long ears. However, a small fairy with long golden hair has her ears hidden. In 1922, Norman Rockwell drew Santa Claus surrounded by tiny, pointy-eared elves. Flower Fairies of the Spring (1923) was the first of many books by by Cicely Mary Barker. Her fairies resemble Tinker Bell in that they are small and winged. They frequently have their ears covered by hair or hats. However, when their ears are exposed, as shown here in the Acorn Fairy picture from Flower Fairies of the Autumn, they are definitely small and pointed. Mopsa the Fairy (1869) by Jean Ingelow has fairies of varying sizes who start as tiny infants. There's no textual mention of their ears, which seem to be covered by their hair in the original illustrations. However, in a 1927 edition, Dorothy P. Lathrop's illustrations give the baby fairies large, pointed ears. 1933: A Bunch of Wild Flowers, by Ida Rental Outhwaite, has different varieties of fairies. Notice that again, the smaller, cartooned one has large ears, while the more realistic fairy has her ears covered by her hair. 1935: Goldie the elf in Disney’s “Midas” short has round ears. So pointy ears still aren't ubiquitous. 1937: Tolkien publishes The Hobbit. 1939: In illustrations for Enid Blyton's series The Faraway Tree series, the fairies are clearly point-eared. A brownie character is named Big Ears. 1953: Walt Disney produces Peter Pan and I think from this point you can just solidly say that fairies are going to be little and sparkly with wings and, most importantly, pointy ears. Especially because Tinker Bell quickly becomes a mascot for Disney. (The pointy ears were Disney's initiative even in Tink's case. In the original book Barrie makes no mention of them that I can find, and in the illustrations she is too small to tell what her ears look like.) 1954: Hi again, Tolkien. (By the time he's written the Fellowship of the Ring, he's actually moved farther away from fairies and folklore, and has created his own brand of elf. But that's a whole different subject.) In 1967, on the Star Trek episode "This Side of Paradise," Kirk tells Spock, "You're an overgrown jackrabbit, an elf with a hyperactive thyroid." In 1968, the Keebler Elves were created. And in 1977, in the novel The Sword of Shannara, elves have “strange pointed ears.” By this point, pointy ears have become typical attributes of elves and fairies. So why did this trait become popular? Pointed ears are a quick way of showing that a character is not entirely human. They’re also easy to draw or to create in costumes. Personally, I'd point to Disney's Tinker Bell as well as Rackham's illustrations and Barker's Flower Fairies as the ones who really popularized the modern idea of the fairy. The pointed ears lead back to brownies and hobgoblins like Puck, and through Puck to Greek satyrs. Ultimately, this trait is a way to show that a being is nonhuman - perhaps wild or monstrous like an animal, but always otherworldly. Sources and further reading
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Researching folktales and fairies, with a focus on common tale types. Archives
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