Description:
Many people think they know what fairies are, what a fairy looks like, and how a fairy is expected to behave. Francis Young's new history of fairies demonstrates that the truth about belief in fairies is far stranger than clichéd images of tiny figures with wings and wands.
Before the rise of the 'small winged fairy' in the nineteenth century, the category of fairies included a vast range of supernatural human-like creatures, from the elves of Scandinavia and the aos sí of Ireland to the vilas of the Balkans and the fadas of Iberia. Young traces the ancient origins of belief in such creatures and how it adapted to the rise of Christianity and then flourished in medieval Europe, before being transformed - but not destroyed - by the upheavals of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and even European colonial expansion, which made fairies a global phenomenon. He concludes this uniquely wide-ranging history by reflecting on the surprising ways in which fairy belief endures in our apparently disenchanted contemporary world.
No one who reads this brilliant tour through the enchanted pathways of fairyland will ever look at the winged creatures of contemporary popular culture - or the woods at the bottom of their garden - in the same way again.
Review Quotes:
"Who are the fairies? In this brilliant, ambitious book, Francis Young surveys the fairy question over 2,000 years of European history. With something of the angel about them and something of the wild, fairies were always morally ambiguous. If they seem to have departed, it is not because we know better, but because we have chosen to see differently."
Jeremy Harte, author of Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape and Fairy Encounters in Medieval England
"Francis Young offers us a history of fairies from prehistoric godlings to neo-pagan darlings. Particularly interesting is the internationalization of a British reflex of the social supernatural via photography, film, and children's literature. Fairies proves a worthy successor to Young's earlier and provocative Twilight of the Godlings."
Simon Young, author of Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies, 500 AD to the Present
"Dr Francis Young's history of fairies in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia is a richly rewarding journey through folklore, theology, and cultural memory to the present day, tracking the elusive, ever-shifting presence of fairies. A fascinating, comprehensive, and thoroughly enjoyable exploration which invites us to reconsider our perception of the world."
Jo Hickey-Hall, folklorist, author, and host of the Modern Fairy Sightings podcast
"There is no shortage of books on fairies, but Young has written a must-read, wide-ranging survey. The book is original in its approach and impressive in its scope. Young shows how fairy history has much to tell us about religion, culture, and the human condition."
Owen Davies, University of Hertfordshire
"[Young] enjoys an intimate acquaintance with Old World eeriness, and evinces sophisticated understandings of the contradictory ways Christianity has handled vernacular beliefs in entities other than angels and demons. He is rigorous, yet respectful of 'old believers' of all ages and faiths. It is, he reminds us, arrogant to treat Christianity with academic seriousness yet scorn equally plausible or at least sincere folk beliefs."
The Spectator
"Glorious"
Rod Liddle, Times Radio
"How did fairies fit into peoples' worldviews? What place did they take within a largely Christian cosmology? Where did they rank among the devils, the angels and the demons? This book is an excellent place to find out."
Unseen Histories