Ancient shadows The Origins of Wizards, Witches and Fairies
Fairies go back thousands of years, argues this persuasive book Nigel Watson
Simon Webb
Pen and Sword Books 2022
Hb, 208pp, £20, ISBN 9781399000079
The appearance and behaviour of wizards, witches and fairies is well established in the western world. They appear in major movies from The Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films right through to Shrek. At an early age we learn about them in fairy tales, and at Hallowe’en children dress up as witches and wizards.
As Simon Webb says, they all inhabit the Magical Realm, a place which has a strong attraction to us. This imaginary land has wild moorlands and primaeval forests, where all manner of terrifying and magical beasts roam. It is a place that has the same rules as our own normal reality: people grow old and die, they cultivate crops, hunt for food and there are rich and poor.
Webb compares our notion of this realm with what it was like in Europe 4,000 years ago in the Bronze Age. This might seem far-fetched, but he argues that a tale such as the throwing of Excalibur into a lake echoes the sacrifice of swords and valuables to the spirits of the water in the Bronze Age. This kind of sacrifice has since changed into the casual tossing of coins into wells for luck.
Likewise, research shows that fairy stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Rumpelstiltskin and Beauty and the Beast have their origins 5,000 and 4,000 years ago. Rumpelstiltskin wants to get hold of a human child; his motives are not clear, but the story echoes the tales of fairies kidnapping human babies and replacing them with their deformed changelings. They are stories that are not fixed in any specific time or place, and have archetypal characters and themes.
Using ancient mythology, folk tales, legends, archaeological findings and genetic research, Webb puts together a strong case that the Yamnaya people who spread out from the Ukraine and took over most of Europe are at the root of many of our modernday behaviours, rituals and beliefs.
For example, before fairies became cute little creatures in popular culture, they were regarded as beings who lived in remote places, who should be respected if you crossed their path. The author argues that when the Yamnaya wiped out indigenous populations of short, dark-skinned farmers, a few marauding tribes of the survivors survived in remote forests and mountains. As the centuries passed this hidden race, who stole babies, tools and food and milked cows dry at night, was feared and preserved in folk memory to this very day.
Webb persuasively shows that horned shamans, witches and wizards were made disreputable by Christianity, and the likes of fairies emasculated by scientific enlightenment and the Industrial Age. Yet, our popular culture and many of our behaviours are still shaped by these ancient shadows.
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