FAIRY MYTHOLOGY Romance and Superstition of Various Countries 2 Thomas Keightley
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Fairy Mythology Romance and Superstition of Various Countries 2 Author: Thomas Keightley
Original publication: The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries (1870) Cover image: L ily Fairy (1888), Luis Ricardo Falero (1851 – 1896) Lay-out: www.burokd.nl ISBN 978-94-92355-10-2 © 2015 Revised publication by:
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FAIRY MYTHOLOGY Romance and Superstition of Various Countries 2
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contents
GREAT BRITIAN 9 England 10 The Green Children—11 The Fairy-Banquet—14 The Fairy-Horn—16 The Portunes—18 The Grant—19 The Luck of Eden Hall—27 The Fairy-Fair—30 The Fairies’ Caldron—32 The Cauld Lad of Hilton—33 The Pixy-Labour—40 Pixy-Vengence—43 Pixy-Gratitude—44 The Fairy Thieves—46 The Boggart—48 Addlers and Menters—50 The Fairy-Nursling—53 The Fairy-Labour—54 Ainsel and Puck—56 Scottish Lowlands 102 The Fairies’ Nurse—107 The Fairy Rade—109 The Changeling—110 Departure of the Fairies—112 The Brownie—113 CELTS AND CYMRY 119 Ireland 121 Clever Tom and the Leprechaun—135 The Leprechaun in the Garden—139 The Three Leprechauns—143 The Little Shoe—148 Scottish Highlands 150 The Fairy’s Inquiry—152 The Young Man in the Shian—153 The Two Fiddlers—155 The Fairy-Labour—157 The Fairy borrowing Oatmeal—158 The Fairy-Gift—159 The Stolen Ox—160 The Stolen Lady—162 The Changeling—164 The Wounded Seal—166 The Brownies—168 The Urisk—169 5
Isle of Man 170 The Fairy-Chapman—172 The Fairy-Banquet—173 The Fairies’ Christening—174 The Fairy-Whipping—175 The Fairy-Hunt—176 The Fiddler and the Fairy—177 The Phynodderee—178 Wales 180 Tale of Elidurus—181 The Tylwyth Teg—185 The Spirit of the Van—187 Rhys at the Fairy Dance—194 Gitto Bach—196 The Fairies Banished—198 Brittany 200 Lai D’Ywenec—204 Lord Nann and the Korrigan—219 The Dance and Song of the Korred—225 SOUTHERN EUROPE 231 Greece 232 Italy 237 Spain 248 The Daughter of Peter de Cabinam—249 Origin of the House of Haro—251 La Infantina—253 Pepito el Corcovado—255 France 260 Legend of Melusina—280 EASTERN EUROPE 289 Finns 290 Slaves 294 Vilas—297 Deer and Vila—298 AFRICANS, JEWS 301 Africans 302 Jews 304 The Broken Oaths—306 The Moohel—317 The Mazik-Ass—322 6
CONCLUSION 325 APPENDIX 329 The Harvest Dinner—330 The Young Piper—343 The Soul Cages—352 Barry of Cairn Thierna—367 Aileen a Roon—375 Rousseau’s Dream—377 Alexander Selkirk’s Dream—379 A Moonlight Scene—382 Lines —383 To Amanda—385 Lines—386 A Farewell—387 Verses—390 Father Cuddy’s Song—391 The Praises of Mazenderan—392 INDEX 395
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GREAT BRITIAN In old wives dates that in old time did live, To whose odde tales much credit men did give, Great store of goblins, fairies, bugs, nightmares, Urchins and elves to many a house repaires. Old Poem.
WE USE the term Great Britain in a very limited sense, as merely inclusive of those parts of the island whose inhabitants are of Gotho-German origin—England and the Lowlands of Scotland. We have already seen that the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain had in their language the terms from which are derived Elf and Dwarf, and the inference is natural that their ideas respecting these beings corresponded with those of the Scandinavians and Germans. The same may be said. of the Picts, who, akin to the Scandinavians, early seized on the Scottish Lowlands. We therefore close our survey of the Fairy Mythology of the Gotho-German race with Great Britain.
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Great Britian
ENGLAND Merry elves, their morrice pacing, To aërial minstrelsy, Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, Trip it deft and merrily. –SCOTT.
The Fairy Mythology of England divides itself into two branches, that of the people and that of the poets. Under the former head will be comprised the few scattered traditions which we have been able to collect respecting a system, the belief in which is usually thought to be nearly extinct; the latter will contain a selection of passages, treating of fairies and their exploits, from our principal poets. The Fairies of England are evidently the Dwarfs of Germany and the North, though they do not appear to have been ever so denominated. [a] Their appellation was Elves, subsequently Fairies; but there would seem to have been formerly other terms expressive of them, of which hardly a vestige is now remaining in the English language. They were, like their northern kindred, divided into two classes—the rural Elves, inhabiting the woods, fields, mountains, and caverns; and the domestic or house-spirits, usua called Hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows. But the Thames, the Avon, and the, other English streams, never seem to have been the abode of a Neck or Kelpie. The following curious instances of English superstition, occur in the twelfth century. NOTE [a] The Anglo-Saxon Dweorg, Dworh, and the English Dwarf; do not seem ever to have had any other sense than that of the Latin nanus.
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T he Green Children “Another wonderful thing,” says Ralph of Coggeshall, [a] “happened in Suffolk, at St. Mary’s of the Wolf-pits. A boy and his sister were found by the inhabitants of that place near the mouth of a pit which is there, who had the form of all their limbs like to those of other men, but they differed in the colour of their skin from all the people of our habitable world; for the whole surface of their skin was tinged of a green colour. No one could understand their speech. When they were brought as curiosities to the house of a certain knight, Sir Richard de Caine, at Wikes, they wept bitterly. Bread and other victuals were set before them, but they would touch none of them, though they were tormented by great hunger, as the girl afterwards acknowledged. At length, when some beans just cut, with their stalks, were brought into the house, they made signs, with great avidity, that they should be given to them. When they were brought, they opened the stalks instead of the pods, thinking the beans were in the hollow of them; but not finding them there, they began to weep anew. When those who were present saw this, they opened the pods, and showed them the naked beans. They fed on these with great delight, and for a long time tasted no other food. The boy, however, was always languid and depressed, and he died within a short time. The girl enjoyed continual good health; and becoming accustomed to various kinds of food, lost completely that green colour, and gradually recovered the sanguine habit of her entire body. She was afterwards regenerated by the layer of holy baptism, and lived for many years in the service of that knight (as I have frequently heard from him and his 11
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The Fairy world of the British Isles, Ireland, Southern and Eastern Europe The term “Fairy” covers all kinds of nature spirits and Elementals all over the world. Not just the tiny sugar sweet creatures hovering around flowers. Thomas Keightley collected an impressive amount of mostly European, and nowadays often “extinct” folklorist data on these invisible realm’s inhabitants, and compiled these in Fairy Mythology (1870). In its revised edition, this massive work of over 800 pages, is republished in two volumes to meet modern reading standards. Volume 1 covers Scandinavia, Iceland, Feroer, the Orkneys, Shetland Islands, Rugen, Germany and Switserland. Volume 2 deals with Great Britain, the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, England, Wales, the Isle of Man, Brittany, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, stories of the Finns and Slavonic people and some Jewish and African Fairylore. We encounter Fairies in many varieties, Pixies, Brownies, Leprechauns, Chancelings, the Boggard, Puck, the Phynodderee, Kobold, Urisk, Korrigen, the Korred, Tylwyth Teg and more. Just like volume 1, volume 2 displays a precious collection of ancient folklore directly based on the realm of the hidden Elemental nature.
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