What’s with the ‘other crowd?’

In July 2004 I wrote an article for Smallholder Magazine on the subject of Robin Goodfellow and the Mischievous Fairyfolk. It was predominantly about the history of fairies in England.

This would have given readers a hint at my interest in the subject, which I admit has grown a great deal over the last few years.

In June this year I spent a weekend in Derbyshire exploring fairies and fairy traditions in the company of the Irish fairy and folklore collector Eddie Lenihan.

Eddie is Ireland's foremost expert on the fairies, or as he prefers to call them 'the other crowd'. Years of listening to the old people, particularly in his home county of Clare, have given Eddie many, many hours of recordings of first hand accounts of fairy sightings and experiences, of which some are outlined in his book 'Meeting the Other Crowd'.

Eddie's conviction that we do not meddle with 'the little people' is such that he gained worldwide fame for saving a fairy bush from destruction when a bypass was scheduled to be built around his home town of Ennis. Eddie explained that this stunted hawthorn bush was the meeting place for the fairies of Munster, where they gathered before going on to do battle with the fairies of Connaught. The bypass was diverted at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to accommodate the bush. Unfortunately Eddie was unable to stop the council clearing trees at a nearby ring-fort as part of the bypass plans. He does not like to discuss the consequences of this action.

Eddie's accounts from the old people of people who had encounters with the fairies are numerous. So strong is the belief (and indeed the experiences) of many rural people that they stay home on the night of All Hallow's Eve (October 31st) for fear of confrontations when 'the veil' between this world and that of the 'little people' is thin. But he acknowledges the fact that many of the younger generation dismiss the old beliefs and superstitions and wonders what might happen to the 'other crowd' in the future.

This got me thinking about what happened to our fairies. Have we in England transferred our beliefs elsewhere or marginalised them? I would like here to explore these questions but before I do this I should tell you more about the Fairies.

What are fairies?

The English word 'fairy' derives from the Latin fata, meaning 'fate' linking with the classical Greek Fates, who were believed to control the fate and destiny of the human race.

A fairy, or faerie, is a supernatural being or spirit and is found in the folklore, legends and mythology of many different cultures. They generally seem to be human in appearance though are often described as child-sized, but looking like elderly adults, often with beards. However they seem to be able to shape-shift and can appear in many different forms. The Irish informants note nothing remarkable about their appearance however sightings elsewhere often have them wearing clothes in earthy colours made from natural materials, and old fashioned garments such as jerkins, and breeches.

Wings are rarely reported in fairy sightings despite the general public perception of them. These characteristics seem to have appeared alongside the growth in popularity of 'fairy stories' in the 1800s. However the fairies do seem to be able to move in a magical way, and they have also been reported as flying.

Various theories have been put forward as to what or who the fairies are- 1. Souls of the pagan or un-baptised dead caught in the nether-world, neither good enough to go to Heaven nor bad enough to go to hell; 2. Fallen Angels -when Lucifer fell from Heaven all those loyal to him went with him, and God bade the followers to stay where they had fallen, in earth, air, fire or water; 3. Nature Spirits of the elements; 4. Small Humans that inhabited parts of the world in Neolithic and Bronze ages, who when modern people arrived, retreated into the forests or under the hills.

5. Creatures from another planet, another dimension or a parallel universe Whereas there are only a limited number of theories about the origins of fairies, the variety of names the 'little people' have been given are numerous and include elves, pixies, gnomes, brownies, and hobgoblins*. However many country people particularly in Ireland, prefer, in case the names give offence, to call them the Good People or the Gentry.

Where are fairies found?

The most common location associated with fairies are hills and mountains, and natural or man-made mounds, though some are linked to groups of rocks, standing stones, stone crosses and other stone features as well as caves, mines and tunnels. In Ireland many of the 'little people' have been found in prehistoric ring forts and particularly near whitethorn bushes and these sites are still left untouched by local farmers. Fairies have also been linked with woods and individual trees as well as watery habitats such as wells or springs, lakes, rivers or streams.

What do fairies do?

Analysis of stories shows that the fairies get involved in many activities which have parallels in the human world. Their favourite pastime is almost certainly dancing, with music coming close behind, sometimes performed by the fairies themselves, most commonly at night. In Ireland the fairies seem to play a lot of Hurling and sometimes require human intervention to referee matches. The fairies have also been seen carrying out many domestic tasks and in a number of cases this has been to help humans. They also attend markets and fairs and tend their fairy cattle. There are numerous accounts from the 'Celtic' countries of fairies being associated with animals.

Fairies, particularly in Celtic lands have been known to abduct humans, and in the case of women, sometimes compel them to act as midwives at fairy births. Tales are told in many places of a mortal woman who is summoned to attend a fairy birth. The woman is given ointment to rub on the eyes of the newborn which she uses on one of her own eyes. At this point, the midwife realizes that the ointment enables her to see the fairy world where things are different than her own reality. The woman is rewarded for her work and leaves the house, but later betrays that she can see the fairies and is blinded in the eye on which she used the ointment.

A number of people who have spent time with the fairies have brought back fairy objects, particularly drinking cups, as proof of their experience. But things stolen from the fairies, or coins given in payment (fairy gold), usually disappear or turn into leaves quite quickly. The fairies have also been known to bestow gifts such as healing or prophecy upon humans who have helped them but if these gifts are abused, they are taken away.

Fairies would also steal human babies and substitute them with changelings. As protection against this, mothers would hang a pair of open scissors above a cradle as not only were the scissors of iron, which would repel the fairies, but when open they formed a cross which was also a protective symbol. It was believed that if a changeling was held over the fire the fairies would grab it back and the human baby would be returned to its cradle.

There was widespread use of many other charms and rituals to protect against the fairies, such as wearing clothing inside out, running water and church bells. Eddie Lenihan has found that red things, salt and dirt can be added to the list.

What happened to the fairies?

It seems that as time went by the belief and fear of the fairies seems to have changed in England to be transferred to a fear of witches and the devil and manifestations of fairy into that of the witches familiar. The change in religion to the new Church of England left no room for the old belief but encouraged a pre-occupation with the good and evil. Charms against fairies became those used to counteract evil from other sources.

By the late 1800s fairy stories had become the stuff for children which reached its height with the publication of Peter Pan in the early 1900s. Images of the fairies had changed to being tiny creatures with pretty gauze wings and the subject of many paintings. But in rural areas people still told and some probably still believed in, the tales of the fairies and many folklorists realising this, travelled around the country collecting the stories.

A search of the internet today shows a resurgence of interest in fairies, especially of the winged kind, fairy dressing up clothes, fairy collectibles, fairy books and stories, even fairy divination cards. They are everywhere!

Has science anything to say about fairies?

There are theories that people interpret unusual phenomena according to their own and the culture and that 'visions' of fairies could be linked with temporal lobe dissociation. Many of the sensations induced by temporal lobe stimulation are very like the experiences people have when taking some types of plants and drugs There is also a theory that the temporal lobe can be stimulated by electrical energy, perhaps at the site of geological fault lines where coloured light phenomena are seen.

There have also been attempts to link various supernatural apparitions to UFOs. Themes that are found in fairy lore have been found in narratives of alien abduction which have evolved since the 1940s. There could also be an association between fairy mounds and space ships.

A more esoteric view is that fairies are manifestations of some kind of other being but that they take the form we find easiest to interpret.

Whatever the explanation, whether fairies live in a parallel universe, underground, in another dimension, or on other planets they are hard to ignore.

*For more information see Katharine Briggs' 'A Dictionary of Fairies'