Fairies are a subject that has intrigued people across the world and across time. They appear in the earliest written Irish mythologies and fill the pages of modern urban fantasy; they once captivated Shakespeare’s audiences and today fascinate contemporary moviegoers. Fairies cavort in early modern artwork and across the greeting cards and posters of the twenty-first century. Songs have been written about them and there are even several songs supposedly passed on from them by people who have heard fairy music firsthand. Fairies have been found in every form of human art and expression, perhaps because they are intrinsically linked to us. As foreign as they often seem to be in their actions and moods, they nonetheless are intimately tied to humanity. Yet in our fast paced and technologically modern Western world they remain shrouded in mystery.
Perhaps some of that can be put down to the slow erosion and loss of the older folklore and folk beliefs that have formed the backbone of fairy beliefs. It has been said that, since at least Chaucer’s time, fairies were in retreat. While it never appeared be true, every generation claimed that fairy belief was waning and had been stronger in their grandparents’ time. Yet in the twenty-first century there may be for the first time some bite in this claim. This is not because the fairies are actually leaving, but because they have been radically re-envisioned in popular culture with mainstream belief replacing the boggart of folklore with that of Harry Potter, and the human-size, ambivalent fairy folk with Disney’s tiny Tinker Bell and friends. Paganism is not exempt from these newly remodeled fairies either, with many books aimed at a Pagan audience gleefully adopting the twee fairies or looking to the New Age and Victorian understandings of fairies to shape their own.
One might be tempted to think that these reimagined fairies are the sum of what fairies today have become, but this is not so; rather, they are the illusion that fairies have taken on, which obscures the older, often grimmer, culturally based folklore. However, the genuine folklore and belief does persist, but it is not as easily accessible to a wider audience, and therein lies a considerable problem for those fairy-seekers who aren’t embedded in a living culture that still includes fairy belief. Certainly many older works of folklore can now be found in the public domain. But those must be taken in their context and read with an understanding of the biases with which they were written; that task can be complicated if the reader isn’t aware of what the problems with the works are. It is also possible to connect to the living cultures on an individual scale, but that is also often complicated, and sometimes very difficult. And individual connections are ultimately only a short-term solution to reviving and revitalizing the fairy beliefs. The only way to bring the folklore outward to a wider audience, and for the beliefs and ideas surrounding them as they exist today to be preserved, is for them to be written about, ideally in a thoughtful manner that acknowledges their sources. I am delighted to see John Kruse taking on that effort.
To really understand who and what fairies are, we have to look beyond the current façade that has sprung up around them, the modern glamour that cloaks them in forms both friendly and harmless. To find the still-beating heart of Faery we have to dig deeper into the folklore and the living cultures that preserve the beliefs. This is a uniquely challenging quest in a world that is as full of false leads as it is of true information, but there are good resources out there to be found. This book, Kruse’s Faery: A Guide to the Lore, Magic, and World of the Good Folk, is one of the rare few that delivers on its promises to give readers a glimpse into the otherworld and an understanding of the beings who dwell within it. It touches on the folklore but doesn’t neglect the living modern beliefs either, and includes a balance of theory that is nicely delineated from established folk belief.
Kruse’s Faery: A Guide to the Lore, Magic, and World of the Good Folk is a much needed addition to the corpus of fairy lore on the market, even more essential because the subject of British fairies has sadly been neglected in recent years. Nothing this thorough on the topic has been produced since Simpson and Roud’s Dictionary of English Folklore—and yet, what that work lacked in depth on the subject of fairies, Kruse’s work more than fulfills, going further with its inclusion of practical material and thoughtful analysis. While there is some natural crossover between fairy lore, British—and specifically English—fairies are truly an essential niche too often glossed over in favour of the more popular Celtic fairies. I am delighted to see such an in-depth and thoughtful work on the subject and readers will no doubt find themselves both intrigued and educated as they proceed on into Kruse’s careful guide through faeryland and introduction to its inhabitants.
Morgan Daimler
Author of Fairies: A Guide to the Celtic
Fair Folk and A New Fairies Dictionary