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A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and French folklore), a form of spirit, often with metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities.
Fairyland may be referred to simply as Fairy or Faerie, though that usage is an archaism.It is often the land ruled by the "Queen of Fairy", and thus anything from fairyland is also sometimes described as being from the "Court of the Queen of Elfame" or from the Seelie court in Scottish folklore.
Their name "chaneque" derives from the Nahuatl term ohuican chaneque, meaning "those who dwell in dangerous places", and they seem to have originally been guardian spirits of craggy mountains, woods, springs, caves, etc. Today, they are usually described as having the appearance of a toddler, with the wrinkled face of a very old person.
Germanic lore featured light and dark elves (Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar).This may be roughly equivalent to later concepts such as the Seelie and Unseelie. [2]In the mid-thirteenth century, Thomas of Cantimpré classified fairies into neptuni of water, incubi who wandered the earth, dusii under the earth, and spiritualia nequitie in celestibus, who inhabit the air.
Louis Le Breton's illustration of a grimalkin from the Dictionnaire Infernal. A grimalkin, also known as a greymalkin, is an archaic term for a cat. [1] The term stems from "grey" (the colour) plus "malkin", an archaic term with several meanings (a low class woman, a weakling, a mop, or a name) derived from a hypocoristic form of the female name Maud. [2]
Scholar Robert Pitcairn reconstructed the word as "Elphame" or "Elf-hame". [28] The concept of a Dianic queen of spirits influenced the neopagan cultures that developed from Charles Godfrey Leland's concept of Aradia "Queen of the Witches". [29] The Faerie faith developed from the same source as the McFarland Dianic tradition.
The word oaf, a clumsy or stupid person, is derived from the historic English word for a changeling, auf. This, in turn, is believed to have originated from the Middle English alven and elven , and ultimately from the Old Norse word for an elf, alfr .
fairy (faery, faerie or faërie) may also refer to: Tradition and mythology. Fairyland; The Faerie faith, a neopagan tradition; The Fairy Flag, a Scottish heirloom;