Editing Fairy (section)

== Origins ==
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 {{lang|ga|aes sídhe}}, 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 [[angel]]s.<ref name="Lewis1">{{cite book |author-link=C. S. Lewis |last=Lewis |first=C. S. |year=1994 |title=The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=122 |isbn=0-521-47735-2 }}</ref> The folkloristic or mythological elements combine [[Celtic mythology|Celtic]], [[Germanic mythology|Germanic]] and [[Classical mythology|Greco-Roman]] elements. Folklorists have suggested that 'fairies' arose from various earlier beliefs, which lost currency with the advent of Christianity.<ref name="Yeats-gods">{{cite book |author-link=William Butler Yeats |last=Yeats |first=W. B. |year=1988 |chapter=Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry |title=A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore |publisher=Gramercy |page=1 |isbn=0-517-48904-X }}</ref> 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" [[angel]]s.<ref>Lewis (1994) pp. 135–36.</ref> 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.<ref>Briggs (1976) p. 319.</ref> Others wrote that some angels, not being godly enough, yet not evil enough for hell, were thrown out of heaven.<ref>Yeats (1988) pp. 9–10.</ref> 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.<ref>Briggs (1967) p. 9.</ref>

[[File:James I; Daemonologie, in forme of a dialogue. Title page. Wellcome M0014280.jpg|thumb|right|Title page of a 1603 reprinting of ''[[Daemonologie]]'']]

[[James VI and I|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.<ref>{{cite book |author=King James |title=Daemonologie |date=1597}}</ref>

In England's [[Christian theosophy|Theosophist]] circles of the 19th century, a belief in the "angelic" nature of fairies was reported.<ref name="Evans-Wentz">{{cite book |author-link=W. Y. Evans-Wentz |last=Evans-Wentz |first=W. Y. |orig-year=1966 |year=1990 |title=The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries |location=New York |publisher=Citadel |pages=167, 243, 457 |isbn=0-8065-1160-5 }}</ref> Entities referred to as [[Deva (New Age)|Devas]] were said to guide many processes of [[nature]], such as [[evolution]] of organisms, growth of [[plant]]s, etc., many of which resided inside the Sun (Solar [[Angel#Theosophy|Angels]]). The more Earthbound Devas included ''nature spirits'', ''[[elemental]]s'', and ''fairies'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Hodson |first=Geoffrey |title=Kingdom of the Gods |year= 2003 |isbn=0-7661-8134-0 }}</ref> which were described as appearing in the form of colored flames, roughly the size of a human.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/athens/Olympus/3987/devas2.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040820064159/http://www.geocities.com/athens/Olympus/3987/devas2.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 20, 2004|title=Hodson's Pictures|date=August 20, 2004}}</ref>

[[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.{{Request quotation span|date=March 2025|text= 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."<ref name="Doyle">{{cite book |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/cof/cof11.htm |author-link=Arthur Conan Doyle |last=Doyle |first=Arthur Conan |title=The Coming of the Fairies |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |location=London |year=1922 }}</ref>

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 [[nymph]]s and tree spirits,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Tr-Wa/Trees-in-Mythology.html#b |title=Trees in Mythology |publisher=Mythencyclopedia.com |date=2007-02-19 |access-date=2014-05-11}}</ref> 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.<ref>Lewis (1994) p. 137.</ref> This perspective grew more popular with the rise of [[Puritanism]] among the [[Reformed Church]] of England (See: [[Anglicanism]]).<ref>Briggs (1976) "Origins of fairies" p. 320.</ref> The [[hobgoblin]], once a friendly household spirit, became classed as a wicked goblin.<ref>Briggs (1976) p. 223.</ref> Dealing with fairies was considered a form of witchcraft and punished as such.<ref name="Briggs409-12">Briggs (1976) "Traffic with fairies" and "Trooping fairies" pp. 409–12.</ref> 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<ref>Lewis (1994) p. 138.</ref> 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,<ref>Silver (1999) p. 44.</ref> 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.<ref name="Lewis2">Lewis (1994) p. 136.</ref> This derived from many factors common in various folklore and myths: same or similar tales of both ghosts and fairies; the Irish {{lang|ga|sídhe}}, 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.<ref>Silver (1999) pp. 40–41.</ref> [[Diane Purkiss]] observed an equating of fairies with the untimely dead who left "unfinished lives".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hortulus-journal.com/journal/volume-4-number-1-2008/priest/|title='The king o fairy with his rout': Fairy Magic in the Literature of Late Medieval Britain–By Hannah Priest|date=September 8, 2011}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Briggs67-1">Briggs (1967) p. 15.</ref> This theory was among the more common traditions related, although many informants also expressed doubts.<ref name="Briggs67-2">Briggs (1967) p. 141.</ref>

=== Hidden people ===
[[File:Brock Fairy.jpg|thumb|Illustration of a fairy by [[C. E. Brock]]]]

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 [[Iron in folklore|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|Orkney islands]] that resembled the Elfland described in [[Childe Rowland]],<ref>Yolen, Jane (2000) ''Touch Magic''. p. 49 {{ISBN|0-87483-591-7}}.</ref> which lent additional support. In folklore, flint arrowheads from the [[Stone Age]] were attributed to the fairies as "[[elfshot]]",<ref name="Froud">Froud, Brian and Lee, Alan (1978) ''Faeries''. New York, Peacock Press {{ISBN|0-553-01159-6}}.</ref> 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 [[ogre]]s was attributed to memories of more savage races practicing alongside "superior" races of more refined sensibilities.<ref>Silver (1999) p. 45.</ref> The most important modern proponent of the 'hidden people' theory was the Scottish folklorist and antiquarian [[David MacRitchie]].<ref>''Fians, Fairies and Picts'' (London: Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co 1893)</ref>

=== Elementals ===
A theory that fairies were an intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels.<ref name="Lewis3">Lewis (1994) p. 134.</ref> An alchemist, [[Paracelsus]], classed [[gnome]]s and [[sylph]]s as [[elemental]]s, meaning magical entities who personify a particular force of nature and exert powers over these forces.<ref name="Silver1">Silver (1999) p. 38.</ref> Folklore accounts have described fairies as "spirits of the air".<ref>Briggs (1967) p. 146.</ref>