The Witch and the Fairy

Witches and fairies have been associated in the popular mind since the earliest times. Often the same attributes adhered to both groups: the practice of sorcery, the ability to appear and disappear at will, shape-shifting, the preparation of magic salves, the stealing of children, dancing in circles, and having wild nocturnal parties.

There is no dearth of theories about the origin of fairies. Some researchers claim they represent the remains (in the communal unconscious) of a race of dwarf people who really did live underground in earth burrows and were gradually driven into hiding by Central European invaders from Mediterranean regions. Others see both witches and fairies as worshipers of the Old Religion of the Mother Goddess and the Horned God. And still others see them as psychological or social projections.

Whatever their origins, fairies tend to come in two varieties: Goblins are generally evil, and delight in plaguing humans; Hobgoblins are helpful spirits who assist country folk in their labors.

Some of the confusion about fairies is merely linguistic, for they are also known as “the Good People” or “the Gentry” (the latter is specifically Irish). Pixies, Piskies, and Pisgies are all Cornish variants for fairies. Brownies are hobgoblins in the north of England and in the Scottish lowlands, while the Deeny Shee are the heroic fairies of Ireland. The Dracs are the French medieval fairies of the Rhone region.

Portunes are the tiny English trooping fairies who march into houses at night and roast frogs over fires. Frids (or Frideans) dwell under rocks and crave milk and bread from humans. Bogie Beasts are mischievous goblins who roam the British Isles. The cousin who emigrated to America changed his name to the Bogeyman. (“Bog” is the word for “god” in old Norse—yet another illustration that old gods become new demons.) Fées are merely French fairies—female ones, that is. And Fenoderee are the Brownies from Manx. Leprechauns are Irish, stingy, solitary, and sometimes accomplished shoemakers. Spriggans are gigantic Cornish goblins, mostly mischievous and inclined to haunt ruins. Woodwives are Scandinavian wood spirits, harmless to humans. And Yarthkins are Lincolnshire earth spirits, who can become testy unless appeased. Trolls are grotesque Scandinavian dwarfs with a distressing tendency to turn to stone if caught by daylight. As for Gnomes, they have recently done a massive public relations campaign to present themselves as wholly benevolent earth spirits, who practice ecology and healing, eat natural foods, are expert at veterinary medicine, and generally serve humans invisibly and selflessly. If gnomes are so wonderful, why the massive campaign? Do the gnomes, perhaps, have something to hide—invisible and small as they are?

The fairies’ world overlaps with our own in places, but the entrances are hidden and hard to find. In Fairyland, time passes differently from time in our world, and a traveler to that realm may find that in what seems the blink of an eye, many years have passed on earth. Fairies have the power of invisibility and the power to metamorphose into different forms. They are healers and mischief-makers, domestic helpers and hexers.

Witches often confessed that they consorted with fairies. They spoke of glimpsing the Queen of the Fairies at their Sabbats and of dancing with the denizens of Fairyland. The association with witches shows that the suspicion of evil always clung to the fairies. Dangerous on land, they were even more dangerous at sea, where they commandeered eggshells as boats and attempted to sink sailing ships with magical storms.

In both the witch and the fairy it is easy to see the projection of human wishes (to be powerful through magic, to be invisible, to fly through the air, to control weather and fertility). But the witch was used as a scapegoat in most societies, while the fairy flew free. The witch died for our sins and the fairy expressed our wish to get away with murder! (Also, fairies were somewhat harder to catch.)