How humans understand their faery neighbours has evolved over the centuries—and is still evolving. In this book I draw upon the rich and extensive folklore of the whole of the British Isles to formulate as detailed a picture as possible of the Good Folk inhabiting this land.
The British view of the Good Folk is a complex amalgam of elements, the core being brought by successive invaders of these shores, to which have been added concepts derived from classical and continental culture. Our perspective and our reactions have shifted as time has passed, but there’s a fundamental body of knowledge that has remained constant for at least a millennium. In this chapter, I sketch out how our understanding of the Good Folk has deepened and become richer over our many centuries of contact.
Anglo-Saxon Elves
When Saxon immigrants arrived on British shores in the sixth century, they brought with them an established body of belief on faeries and elves. Here I outline the core elements of that mythology, before it interacted with existing insular British ideas.
Saxon Sources
We get an idea of what our Saxon ancestors believed from several sources. There are their own literary productions—poems, stories and medical texts—which provide valuable information. There are contemporary Norse texts which examine the Viking pantheon. Lastly, we may compare more recent Scandinavian—especially Danish—folk beliefs with English faery stories; where they share elements, it’s reasonable to suggest that these derive from an early, common mythology believed by the Saxons and Danes in their common homeland, and probably by all the continental Germanic tribes.
Viking myth is a good starting point for us, as it gives a clear statement of Northern European ideas about the elves. In the early 1200s in Iceland, scholar Snorri Sturluson compiled the so-called Prose Edda, a record of the Norse myths and legends. The story Gylfaginning describes the heavens and the many splendid places there:
There is one place that is called Alfheim [the home of the elves]. There live the folk called light-elves, while the dark-elves live down in the ground. They are unlike them in appearance, and even more unlike them in nature. Light-elves are fairer than the sun to look at, but dark-elves are blacker than pitch.
The Vikings differentiated between the light elves living in the sky and the dark elves living underground. In much later British belief, we come across stories of Elfame from Lowland Scotland. It seems inescapable that this local version of an underground faeryland—the elf-hame or “elf-home”—is a direct remnant from the earliest English and Norse legends. As we’ll see later, this place is conceived as a subterranean kingdom where the good faeries, the so-called “seelie court,” reside.
As for the division of Anglo-Saxon Faery into light and dark, or good and bad, elves, there are several later references to ghostly “white fae” in later English folklore, and one echo that may be particularly significant. Being interrogated on charges of witchcraft in 1566, John Walsh of Netherbury in Dorset told his inquisitors “that there be iii kinds of faeries—white, green and black. Whereof the blacke faeries is the worst …” If the colours reflect more than mere taste in clothes, and are symbolic of their natures, there could be here another survival of the light/dark opposition. It’s also worth noting the Old English term aelfscyne (very roughly, “elf-shining”), which was applied to women in a couple of texts. The word seems to imply something like “elf-beautiful” or even “enchantingly bright”; perhaps in this suggestion of light or radiance there is a further hint of the light and dark elf dichotomy.6
Elvish Ways
From the limited evidence it may be possible to sketch out a basic Anglo-Saxon mythology of an elf-home, divided between the good (light) elves and the bad (dark) elves. Beyond that, it’s not safe to go. Luckily, although we can’t be sure exactly where the Old English elves lived, we do possess some direct evidence of Saxon conceptions of their moods and behaviour.
The elves are mentioned in several medical texts as the cause of illnesses, mainly internal pains or mental disturbances. For instance, a spell to cure “the stitch” goes as follows:
Out little spear, if herein it be …
To them another I wish to send back …
A flying dart against them in return …
If it were gods’ shot, or if it were elves’ shot,
Or if it were witches’ shot, now I will help you-
This is the remedy …7
These Saxon elves seem to be hurting people by throwing tiny spears or arrows at them. In later times “elf-shot” was a recognised cause of disease of people and cattle and it appears as a major diagnosis in the Saxon medical books. A selection of herbs was employed in treating humans and livestock afflicted with these maladies.
The Old English medical texts also refer to other “elf” illnesses such as aelfsogetha—which appears to be something like bronchitis or heartburn—and aelfsidenn, which literally means “elf-enchantment” and seems to be a night fever or nightmares. There is also a cure for the condition called waeteraelfaedle (water-elf sickness) which is characterised by the patient’s livid nails, watering eyes, and downcast looks. This term may indicate another key subdivision of the elves; certainly in later times in Scotland there was a clear distinction made between land (or dressed) and water faeries. Equally, though, the name of the disease might just as well be read as “watery elf-sickness” and so be more concerned with the symptoms than the identity of the agent inflicting it.8
Anglo-Saxon elves seem to have been imagined as being human in size and shape, but having a semi-divine nature. Scandinavian elves shared this character and were the subject of sacrifices, called aelfblot. For instance, in Kormaks Saga a wounded man was told to sacrifice a bull and then to take the beast to a mound “in which elves dwell … and redden the outside of the mound with the bull’s blood and make the elves a feast with the flesh; and you will be healed.” There are records of comparable practices in Britain.
Common Traits
The attributes shared by later English faeries with those of the original English homelands in Denmark and northern Germany are extensive and include a range of traits that will become familiar as we work through this book. These common characteristics strongly suggest that this knowledge was brought over by the Anglo-Saxons when they settled in Britain.
The continental elves are to be found living under hills, which will periodically rise or open up to reveal feasting and music within. For human guests, residence with the elves under the hills is perilous, because time passes differently there and because the food is unsafe for humans.
The Scandinavian elves have a love of singing and dancing and a preference for dancing in circles in grassy places, leaving marks on the ground. There’s a strong link between elves and certain trees, especially oaks. Elder trees also feature in Danish folklore, which tells of the Old Lady of the Elder Tree who must be appeased before taking any of her wood. This spirit also appears in Lincolnshire, very strongly suggesting that Danish settlers brought the belief with them to East Anglia.
The Danish elves love cleanliness and tidiness, for which humans are rewarded (or punished). They have an aversion to loud noises, which may drive them away. They show a decided preference for wearing green and red, especially red caps. Elves have the power to make themselves invisible, change their shape, see the future, or confer prosperity. There is magic power in their names, which must be concealed from humans. Despite all these magical abilities, though, they still need to use human midwives and they’re unable to cross running water.
The elves take human children and leave faeries behind as “changelings,” which may be exposed by tricks or by the threat of burning. There is also a species of faery that resides with humans, doing farm work, stealing fodder and grain from neighbours, and becoming so attached to a household that it is impossible to escape them by trying to move away. Nonetheless, if they are insulted, they will become a nuisance.
The huge number of parallels between Danish faery lore and English tales confirm that they have a common source. All this evidence indicates that a rich set of beliefs was imported to British shores, there to mingle with the mythology of the existing British population and so produce the complex and developed faery lore that this book will examine in detail.
Faeries in the Mabinogion
What might the British people have understood about faeries at the time the Anglo-Saxons arrived? The Mabinogion is a collection of early medieval Welsh stories that connects us to ancient Celtic mythology and gives us the first literary mentions of the later Romantic hero, King Arthur. Much could be written (and has been) about the connections between these stories and the better-known Arthurian stories; yet more can be said about the links between the Welsh myths and the ancient Irish myths. Here, I focus solely upon the traces of faery lore in these accounts.
It’s fair to say that the Mabinogion is steeped in magic. Faery glamour—the use of concealment, deception, and transformation—is a theme that runs throughout the different stories. The “glamorous” quality of the tales is so fundamental to them and so subtle that we might almost overlook it. Nonetheless, the otherworldly quality of many of the stories shares a nature and a source with Faery. These are faery tales just as much as they are hero stories, pseudo-history or courtly romances.
There are several features that more clearly show the faery presence in the Mabinogion. In several tales, the action takes place on ancient mounds—grassy knolls are a typical faery haunt. In the stories of Pwyll and Manawyddan, the gorsedd hill at Narberth has a particularly central role, as it has too in the stories of Owein and of Peredur—in the latter tale one mound is also explicitly stated to be a barrow, underlining the link between faeries and ancient sites.
Magical ointment also features in the tales. In an incident in the story of Peredur, an ointment is used to revive knights killed in combat. This quality of bestowing immortality or overcoming mortality is something we’ll discuss later. There are faery hounds—at the very start of the story “Pwyll Prince of Dyfed,” the eponymous hero comes across Arawn, lord of Annwfn, who is out hunting with archetypal supernatural hounds—white with red ears. This is very plainly a faery pack and Arawn appears to be the lord of faeryland.
In the story “Culhwch ac Olwen,” the many members of King Arthur’s court are listed. Amongst them is his messenger, Sgilti Light Foot, who can run over forests on the tops of the trees and over mountains on the tips of the reeds. This skill is directly paralleled by a faery trait recorded much more recently at Llanberis in North Wales; the Welsh faeries, the tylwyth teg, were said to be so light and agile that they could dance on the tips of the rushes. Characters in the Mabinogion tales travel with a telltale gliding motion, most notably Rhiannon in the story of Pwyll; she cannot be pursued either slowly or quickly, but always mysteriously moves ahead of those following her. This gait is distinctively faery and is a feature of the “faery rades” that are often seen.
Lastly, we must address the identity and nature of the people called Coranyeit or Corannyeid (modern Welsh coraniaid) who bring plague to Britain in the story of “Lludd and Llefelys.” These mysterious people appear to be faeries of some description—or, at least, they’re strangers with magical powers. Their name is linked to the Welsh adjective corr (dwarf), suggestive of diminutive faeries, and to the Breton faeries called korriganed. The latter closely resemble the pixies of the British southwest, but it is hard to identify any clear parallels between the korrigans and the Coraniaid. All we do know is that the troublesome beings of the Welsh story are said to have come from Asia.
The Coraniaid are classed as one of the three gormessoedd (foreign oppressions or invasions) of Wales; this is because they have an unfortunate gift: they can hear anything that is said, however hushed the voice, provided that the wind catches it. As a result, no one could plot against them and they could seemingly never be harmed. It’s because of this skill, perhaps, that we must always refer to the faeries by pseudonyms, such as tylwyth teg, bendith y mamau (the mother’s blessings), or “Good Neighbours,” so as not to insult or antagonise them. It’s still the case across Britain, from Wales to the Shetland Isles, that the faeries will be listening and that it’s best to avoid words they dislike such as “faery” or “trow” and use some polite circumlocution instead.
Eventually, the Coraniaid are driven away by mashing insects in water and sprinkling this upon the assembled people. The humans present are unharmed by the potion but the intruders are destroyed. This detail is very puzzling and has never had any satisfactory explanation; some commentators have suggested that Spanish fly may be involved. The Welsh word used in the story (pryfet) is of very limited assistance in solving the mystery as it simply means “insects” in a general sense. Nothing is clear, then, but there is some parallel at least to the use of various plants like rowan or of offensive substances to repel faeries (in one case for example, stale urine was used on the Hebrides to trap faery cattle on the shore so that they could be rounded up).9 These measures may be distasteful to humans, but they are none of them fatal.
In the Coraniaid’s size, their malevolence, and their supernatural senses there is plainly a good deal of faery nature. A final observation may clinch this identification. In 1779 a clergyman called Edmund Jones wrote A Geographical, Historical, and Religious Account of the Parish of Aberystruth.10 He had cause to criticise (at length) his parishioners’ foolish attachment to old delusions concerning the tylwyth teg. Amongst the beliefs prevalent in the area in the late eighteenth century was the idea that the faeries would always know whatever was spoken out of doors, especially at night. This seems to be a direct preservation of the Coraniaid’s regrettable eavesdropping abilities.
Medieval Fae
As we move from Anglo-Saxon England to medieval Britain, a number of key faery lore features stay in place and in fact have persisted into the modern belief. Whilst we may have stopped talking about “elves” in preference for “faeries,” the people being described, as well as their essential traits, remain the same.
The faeries continued to inhabit a parallel world as several stories illustrate. The underground realm of Faery is visited in the legends of Elidyr and King Herla whilst the Green Children of Woolpit stray into rural Suffolk from just such a place. A notable feature that is several times mentioned is the curious half-light that prevails in Faery; there is neither sun nor moon, but a dim luminosity like torchlight. Despite their separate realm, the Fae still have the ability to enter our world and kidnap children—Ralph of Coggeshall’s story of “Malekin” demonstrates this. Malekin was stolen by the faeries from a cornfield where her mother was working during harvest; after which, rather like a ghost, she could contact the human world but not return to it. Given their ready access to our world, it follows that there are portals to Faery. In the account of Elidyr, he enters faeryland by a riverbank; in the story of King Herla, it is a cave in a cliff; the Green Children follow a long tunnel that leads them out of “St. Martin’s Land.” William of Newbury located a faery feast under a barrow, which we know is a quintessential faery locale, and Gervase of Tilbury described how a swineherd at Peak Castle in the Peak District followed a lost sow into a cavern and stumbled upon faeryland.
Equally, medieval faeries may be found living in human homes. Gervase of Tilbury tells of the “portunes” who closely resemble brownies. They work on farms, doing any work required of them, however hard; they serve the household but never injure the inhabitants and, at night, they enter the house and cook frogs on the fire. The portunes like mischief, too, riding horses at night or leading nocturnal travellers’ horses into ponds; a thirteenth-century sermon speaks of “all such ben led at night with gobelyn and erreth hither and thither” (all those who’ve been led astray at night by goblins and who’ve wandered hither and thither). In another story, two faeries knock a rider from his horse for no reason and then sit by the road laughing at him impishly.
The medieval accounts also tell us that time passes differently in Faery: when King Herla returns to the human world he is warned not to step from his horse until a small dog given to him has leaped to the ground. A couple of his retinue forget this injunction and dismount from their steeds; they instantly crumble to dust, for he has been away several hundred years, although to him it seemed but hours. It is said that he and his company are still riding, waiting for the dog to jump down. The story of Malekin also has a typical feature: she has been seven years in faeryland, she says, and must remain another seven before she may return home. Seven is a common magic number in faery measurements of time. The very common delay of a year and a day between events is also seen in medieval tales. King Herla celebrates his wedding and, a year later, visits the king of Faery to celebrate his. The same commitment to meet a year later also appears in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Gervase of Tilbury’s story of the lost sow in the Peak Cavern, time in Faery was the exact reverse of time here: their winter was our summer.
Adults as well as children are abducted. In one story a farmer called Richard of Sunderland is out cutting reeds for thatching when three men dressed in green and riding on green horses appear and carry him off. He’s taken to a fine mansion and offered ale in a green horn, which he wisely refuses to drink. They try to persuade him to stay with them, but he won’t, so eventually he’s returned home—but struck dumb as a punishment.
Beautiful faery women are a common feature of medieval romance. They dance at night and will sometimes wed humans—but always subject to conditions that in due course are inevitably broken. The story of Wild Edric epitomises the irresistible beauty of the faery bride and her unavoidable loss. In Layamon’s history The Brut, the lovely elf queen Argante takes Arthur to Avalon after the battle of Camlann to heal and care for him. Readers may recall the aelfscyne, or elf-bright women, of Saxon myth that I described earlier; these faery maidens are their later incarnation. Lastly, there is evidence suggesting that the faery women could have their own independent sexuality (or be loose and lustful, to medieval minds) as well as being very beautiful. There are menacing accounts in thirteenth-century sources of elf women visiting men at night as succubi. The sister of the Green Children grew up, it was said, to have quite lax morals—an indicator, perhaps, of her faery birth.
Marriage between humans and faeries takes place, but is subject to conditions; as mentioned above, faery maids will wed human husbands, but there is always a catch. In the story of Wild Edric, the hero was warned never to mention his wife’s sisters; of course, he eventually did, and she promptly left. Walter Map described the experience of Gwestin of Gwestiniog, who captured a faery wife at Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons. She lived with him and raised a family, but he was told never to strike her with a bridle. Eventually, accidentally, this happened and forthwith she and all but one of the children disappeared. This is the first of many such stories from Wales, as we’ll see. The inevitable result of these liaisons was children. We learn from the medieval stories another common fact of the Fae: that they often need human help, especially in childbirth. Gervase of Tilbury tells a story that features the theme of the midwife to the faeries, later a regular element in many faery tales.
Next, feasting is a major pastime of the medieval Fae, as in the story of King Herla and in the account by William of Newbury of a faery cup stolen from a banquet under a barrow. The medieval faeries have a particular liking of dairy products; in Gerald of Wales’s account of Elidyr’s childhood visits to faeryland, he mentions their vegetarian diet and their preference for junkets (a mixture of curds and cream, sweetened and flavoured). Also quintessentially faery is their green colour—as we’ve already seen in the account of Richard of Sunderland. The Green Children of Woolpit emerged into this Middle Earth green tinged and they would only eat green beans at first, although their colour faded as their diet changed.
Another pastime or habit of medieval faeries is to either bless or torment humans: according to the historian Layamon, King Arthur was blessed by elves at his birth (our earliest faery godmother account). Conversely, Gervase of Tilbury tells of a faery horn stolen by a hunter in Gloucestershire. It brings with it bad luck and the man is executed for his theft.
Some medieval faeries are of diminutive size. The portunes of Suffolk are said to be only a half-inch high (probably a mistake for half a foot, or six inches). The faeries encountered in a cavern under the High Peak are the size of “cocks and hens,” according to Gervase of Tilbury in his book Otia Imperialia, and those in the story of King Herla are described variously as being as big as apes, pygmies, dwarves, and half human size. The faeries met by Elidyr are likewise small, but by contrast the Green Children, the faeries under the barrow seen in William of Newbury’s story, and the bearers of the faery horn in Gloucestershire are all of normal proportions. Clearly the faery women who wed mortal men must approach human stature but there are some who are larger than average: the faery maidens seen dancing by Wild Edric are described as being taller than human women.
Some medieval faeries give warnings and have foreknowledge of events. This supernatural power is mentioned in the story of King Herla, and Gervase describes the “grant,” a foal-like creature which warns villagers of fire. Honesty and keeping promises were vital to faerykind during the Middle Ages. This an element in King Herla’s story (and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight); it is also seen in the story of Elidyr, who reported that the supernatural people he met never took oaths and abhorred lying.
Medieval faeries can disappear at will (as in the story of King Herla) and generally remain invisible to normal human sight (as with the changeling Malekin). This concealment can be overcome in two ways: a person might apply a magic ointment; or it may be possible to obtain the second sight through contact with a “seer.”
Summary
All these characteristics will be recognised in the more recent faery lore that will be examined later in this book. In other words, most aspects of our understanding of the nature, preferences, and dislikes of the Good Folk have been settled for a good thousand years or so. We can always learn more, of course, but most of our ideas today about our Good Neighbours would have been perfectly familiar to the writers just mentioned, and to their audiences.
The Good Folk have always been with us, therefore, but our knowledge and understanding of them have been expanded and rounded out as we have been able to share perspectives and experiences from across Britain over the last two hundred years or so. It’s this fully matured and elaborated faery lore that I draw upon in the rest of this book.
6. “The examination of John Walsh before Maister Thomas Williams” (London: John Awdley, 1566).
7. The charm “Wiðfærstice” (against stabbing pain) found in the Old English medical text known as Lacnunga.
8. John Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 64.
9 . MacPhail, “Folklore from the Hebrides II,” 384.
10. Jones, A Geographical, Historical, and Religious Account of the Parish of Aberystruth.