“Untiring Joys and Sorrows”: Yeats and the Sidhe

Excerpt: In popular culture, the idea of Irishness has long been associated with the idea of fairies and leprechauns. This association has been explored by scholars who treat the Sidhe—also known as the daoine maithe, or the “good people”—as either a sociological or a literary construct. Most often, the sociological con- struct is somewhat insidious and the literary construct tends to be romantic. Recently, Angela Bourke has explored how the folkloric understanding of the fairies may be used to explain the otherwise inexplicable—for instance, when hormonal changes that come about through puberty or menopause were explained by saying that the fairies have taken the real person and left a changeling instead. Bourke’s The Burning of Bridget Cleary (1999) examines the case of Michael Cleary, who burned his relatively independent wife to death in the hopes of forcing the fairies to change her back to the acquiescent wife that he desired. Bourke finds the mythology of the fairy world so deeply ingrained in Irish culture that it blurs the lines between the literary construct and the sociological us

Folk-healing, fairies and witchcraft: the trial of Stein Maltman, Stirling 1628

'Folk-healing, Fairies and Witchcraft: The Trial of Stein Maltman, Stirling 1628' is the first full publication of a trial record which is particularly valuable in the history of Scottish popular belief, that of Stein Maltman, of Leckie, about twelve kilometres to the West of Stirling. Although our text has itself been edited from the original transcripts of depositions and confessions by the seventeenth-century scribe, it provides important information about folk-healing practices, maleficium, and the role of fairies in the construction of illness in early modern Scotland. The case seems to be representative of endemic rather than epidemic witchcraft-trials, and the mentions of fairies attributed to Stein and which he is himself recorded to make may closely reflect his professional construction of healing practices

Where Have All the Fairies Gone?

Examines a number of modern fantasy novels and other works which portray fairies, particularly in opposition to Victorian and Edwardian portrayals of fairies. Distinguishes between “neo-Victorian” and “ecological” fairies

Легендарные персонажи «Фейри»: добро или зло? (на материале комедии «Сон в летнюю ночь» В. Шекспира)

В статье впервые читателям-гуманитариям представлен анализ кельтских персонажей «фейри» в философской категории «добро и зло». Дается сопоставительный анализ «добрых» фейри и «злых» фейри в комедии «Сон в летнюю ночь» В. Шекспира.У статті вперше презентовано читачеві-гуманітарію аналіз кельтських персонажів «фейрі» в філософської категорії «добро і зло». Подано зіставний аналіз «добрих» фейрі та «злих» фейрі в комедії «Сон літньої ночі» В. Шекспіра.The paper gives the first presentation an analysis of the Celtic character “fairies” in the philosophical category of “good and evil” for humanitarian audience. These are supplied with the comparative analysis of “good” fairies and “evil” fairies in W. Shakespeare’s comedy “A midsummer night’s dream”. The article describes the comic misadventures of two pairs of lovers who become lost in a dark wood and fall under the power of fairies. Here we present a classification of good and evil fairies. Midsummer night was thought to be one of the nights of the year when fairies were especially powerful. People also believed that flowers gathered on Midsummer night could work magic and that Midsummer night was a time when people dreamed of their true loves and sometimes went insane

Легендарные персонажи «Фейри»: добро или зло? (на материале комедии «Сон в летнюю ночь» В. Шекспира)

В статье впервые читателям-гуманитариям представлен анализ кельтских персонажей «фейри» в философской категории «добро и зло». Дается сопоставительный анализ «добрых» фейри и «злых» фейри в комедии «Сон в летнюю ночь» В. Шекспира.У статті вперше презентовано читачеві-гуманітарію аналіз кельтських персонажів «фейрі» в філософської категорії «добро і зло». Подано зіставний аналіз «добрих» фейрі та «злих» фейрі в комедії «Сон літньої ночі» В. Шекспіра.The paper gives the first presentation an analysis of the Celtic character “fairies” in the philosophical category of “good and evil” for humanitarian audience. These are supplied with the comparative analysis of “good” fairies and “evil” fairies in W. Shakespeare’s comedy “A midsummer night’s dream”. The article describes the comic misadventures of two pairs of lovers who become lost in a dark wood and fall under the power of fairies. Here we present a classification of good and evil fairies. Midsummer night was thought to be one of the nights of the year when fairies were especially powerful. People also believed that flowers gathered on Midsummer night could work magic and that Midsummer night was a time when people dreamed of their true loves and sometimes went insane

Getting shot of elves: healing, witchcraft and fairies in the Scottish witchcraft trials

This paper re-examines the evidence of the Scottish witchcraft trials for beliefs associated by scholars with "elf-shot." Some supposed evidence for elf-shot is dismissed, but other material illuminates the interplay between illness, healing and fairy-lore in early modern Scotland, and the relationship of these beliefs to witchcraft itself

Good Fairies

An account of Edwin Lutyens' design for Great Maytham Hall, and of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'secret garden' ther