Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
CONTEMPORARY FAIRIES #1
I hope very much, in the coming months, to publish the second part of the Fairy Census. The first 500 fairy encounters covered 20142017 (see FT362:30-37). The second load will cover 2018-2021. If you have any fairy experiences, please send them in.
However, in steeling myself for the necessary hours dealing with Excel spreadsheets and the bizarre,
I have been looking again at the first round. What are contemporary fairies like? I have, for now, focused on the British, Irish and Manx results. On the basis of Fairy Census 1, modern fairies break down into three similarly sized categories: SWFs, Dwomes and O&Ss (‘Odds and Sods’, more on them another day). The SWFs are small-winged fairies. These are benign and beautiful and are usually feminine; and they are bird- or often butterfly-sized. They are curious about human beings and seek them out. The second category are the Dwomes (dwarf-gnomes): if anyone has a better name I’m all ears. Dwomes stand anything from six inches to five feet tall. They are rough in appearance (clothes and body) and they tend to be male. They look as if they tumbled out of a Brian Froud book. They shun human company: they also have a temper in a way that the SWFs do not. There is surprisingly little bleed between the first two categories: in other words, there
THE TRADITIONAL FAIRY WAS AN ELEGANT, ,SHORT, WINGLESS FELLOW WITH MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT HUMANS
are not many larger winged fairies; nor are there many wingless small male fairies.
The big problem for a folklorist, fairyist or fortean is to explain how we got from the traditional fairy to these three macro categories. The traditional fairy, whom we meet in Tudor sources, Georgian sources and even among the Edwardians, was an elegant, short (but not tiny), wingless fellow with mixed feelings about human neighbours and a tendency to vindictiveness. It is almost as if the traditional fairy became two different species – Eloi and Morlocks, in science fiction terms. The elegant and generous side of fairy evolved into wee females and sprouted wings (the SWFs). The Dwomes, instead, inherited the old physical form and some of the less attractive elements of the traditional fairy’s character; but they also dropped a couple of notches on the supernatural social scale. Most importantly, they started getting their clothes from rubbish dumps rather than from Harrods. How do we explain this divergence? Are fairies – say it quietly – no more than a social construct? Are SWFs and Dwomes, as one scientist friend suggested to me, actually the male and the female of the same species!? Or are we just seeing the dæmonic supernatural in its latest attempt to confound us sorry humans – particularly survey takers?
Simon presents Boggart and Banshee: A Supernatural Podcast with Chris Woodyard