Good or evil?

Unfortunately the goodwill of fairies may be just as embarrassing as their malice. There is a well-documentaded case of a fairy troop which decided to help a friendly farmer by bringing in his wheat harvest. He was astonished to find that his entire harvest had been reaped and stored overnight, but on subsequent nights the fairies also reaped the harvest of all his neighbours and stored it in his barns. He had great difficulty in talking himself out of this demonstration of fairy generosity.

Fairy attitudes towards humans range from dangerous mischief to and earnest desire to help and please. The latter quality is shown when fairies reveal themselves as mini-females with gossamer wings, carrying magic wands, simply to conform with human beliefs. In fact, they do not need to fly, because fairies have the power to vertical and horizontal levitation, and they do not need wands. Fairy magic, properly called 'glamour' afer the old Scottish world glamerye, operates through a kind of thought power which mortals cannot understand.

Fairy malice usually arises out of lack of understanding. They are so greatful, sensitive, and tactful that they cannot comprehend the clumsiness and stupidity of human beings. All other animals are careful not to trouble fairies but a mortal may go blundering through a fairy market without even seeing it, or tramp noisely over a hill containing a community of Troop Fairies. The fairies feel that men should have enough sensitivity to know when they are offending in such ways and punish them accordingly. Punishments may range from the infliction of bad dreams to sever curses which prevent a man from tasting his food, o to subtle tricks such as that of Fairy Gold.

This is a confidence trick in which a man becomes convinced, with fairy encouragement, that he knows the location of buried treasure. He follows a trail through the forest until he sees the gold gleaming in the moonlight, and shovels it into a sack with gleeful certainty that he is rich. But as he carries the sack home it becomes lighter and lighter, and when he opens it again it contains nothing but dead leaves.

Faires have a gossipy interest in human love affairs and are sometimes tempted to intervene. If they approve they do all they can to help the happy couple, but if they feel a mortal lad and lass to be insuited to each other they may attempt to break up the courtship. They become extremely angry with faithless lovers and commonly punish the males with baldness and females with toothlessness.

Fairy curiousity often leads to misunderstandings. They like to inspect human artefacts very carefully, and may take some possession away to be discussed by the restof the troop. Normally they return it, but not necessarily to the place where they found it. A human searching for some misplased item should never allow himself such remarks as 'Them dratted fairies have been and made off with my pitchfork"' or they are certain to be offended.

The most serious anti-human activity practised by fairies is that of stealing beautiful babies and putting changelings in their cradles. The reason for these thefts is still unknown. It may be that the fairies cannot resist the beauty of the babies and want them for their own. One theory is that they need humans, who will be brought up under a perpetual enchantment, to help them with such heavy labour of grinding wheat for flour and baking the bread. Another is that they have to give hostages to the devil so that he will not interfere with them.

Fairies like to join in mortal festivities and assume human form for this purpose. Their vanity is such that they usually appear as handsome blond youths, or beautiful blonde girls, to take part in the revels, but they sometimes betray themselves by some unfamiliarity with human customs. A mortal who notices this would be wise not to mention it. Fairy sensitivity would inevitably prompt a revenge for the insult, whereas a tactful mortal who ignores clumsiness is likely to be rewarded.

Fairies have no difficulty in communicating with mortals. They speak their own language, which sounds like a mixture between the twittering of blackbirds, the prattle of a stream, and the murmur of a breeze through the forest, but they also speak and understand the language of a host country together with the language previously spoken in that region, such as Latin, Celtic, Gaelic, Teutonic, Pictic, or old Scots.

There is a fallacious belief in 'good fairies' and 'bad fairies'. In fact, fairies are neither good nor bad. Like humans they vary in mood and temperament but on the whole they are genial, festive creatures who desire only to be left in peace to pursue the lifestyle they have fashioned over many centuries, and the functions appointed to them since the foundation of the Cosmos. They only reveal their more sinister aspects when they are affronted by the brutality and stupidity of human beings.