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The Aziza are a beneficent fairy race from Africa, specifically Dahomey. The Yumboes are supernatural beings in the mythology of the Wolof people (most likely Lebou) of Senegal, West Africa. Their alternatively used name Bakhna Rakhna literally means good people, an interesting parallel to the Scottish fairies called Good Neighbours.
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.
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.
A possible equivalent to the Scottish "seelie" appears in the Welsh "sili," used in some individual fairy names. In a Welsh tale, "Sili go Dwt" was the name of a Rumpelstiltskin-like fairy whose name had to be guessed. [14] In a possibly related fragmentary story, a fairy woman was heard singing the words "sili ffrit" while she spun thread.
Fairyland (Early Modern English: Faerie; Scots: Elfame (Scottish mythology; cf. Old Norse: Álfheimr (Norse mythology)) in English and Scottish folklore is the fabulous land or abode of fairies or fays. [1] Old French faierie (Early Modern English faerie) referred to an illusion or enchantment, the land of the faes.
Articles relating to fairies, a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, German, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural
Fairies would also take adult humans, especially the newly married and new mothers; young adults were taken to marry fairies instead, while new mothers were often taken to nurse fairy babies. Often when an adult was taken instead of a child, an object such as a log was left in place of the stolen human, enchanted to look like the person. [5]
The Oxford English Dictionary favoured a Scandinavian origin, while the scholarly study by Erin Sebo of Flinders University argues for an Irish origin, on the basis that the word is widely distributed in Irish place-names, whereas puck-place-names in English are rare and late in the areas showing Old Norse influence, and seem rather to radiate ...