2026-04-14 20:11 UTC
the gist is that from the 11-15C, a heterogenous collection of inchoate beliefs and reports of encounters with humanlike magical beings were shaped into a consistent literary portrayal of a fairy kingdom, whose rulers and inhabitants acquired attributes from (1) old english beliefs about elves (whose name they also took), (2) magical characters—usually of an unclear, unstated nature—from literary romances and (3) those above-mentioned encounter reports
Replies (2)
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@tholindeth@wizzzard.online 2026-04-14 20:22
the new territory of fairy proved both hugely popular and able to accommodate a great deal of non/pre-christian material. for example the myth of orpheus becomes, in sir orfeo, a quest to retrieve a lover stolen away into fairy.
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@Sindemore@monads.online 2026-04-15 08:36
@tholindeth@wizzzard.online ever since I read a sort of offhanded comment in a folklore collection introducing selkies as perhaps a reference to Inuit wives, I've been thinking about the lower strata of fairy tales differently... "brownies" seems particularly suspect as originally referring to some actual people that traveled and did piece work