The Fair Ones

In legends and folk lore, fairies are magical beings who can sometimes be seen by humans, they can be friendly, and quite often they behave impishly. The name fairies means the fair ones and they hail mainly from England and Ireland. Presently you can find a lot of fairies in children’s literature because they are a great source of fun and are very imaginative. Authors can place fairies in different worlds with numerous amounts of magical powers and powerful lessons that can be learned from fairies. One author brought fairies into New York City and had them peddling fairy drugs. However, that was not always so. Fairies in the past were feared as dangerous and powerful beings who could often be very cruel.

Morgan LeFay was known to be a cruel and malicious fairy. She was the half sister of King Arthur and she was said to have sought after him for most of his life. She lay in wait for him and stole Excalibur and changed herself into a rock so he couldn’t find her. She tried many times to kill her own half brother. In the end, it was said that she took Arthur away to Avalon after their son Mordred mortally wounded him in battle.

It was said that fairies would also carry off babies and leave their own sick babies in their place. The sick fairy child is called a changeling. The strange thing is that the changeling did not look like a human child so the parents knew right away that something was wrong.It is thought that the fairies lived in our world and were hidden under rocks or in streams nearby. They had tricks too such as when they danced in a circle if a human joined in they would never be able to break the circle and they could never stop dancing.

Different fairies have different powers. Some like Morgan Le Fay have what is called foresight, which means they can see into the future. Some can grant wishes and worst of all some send out curses for any reason they feel suits them. There have been stories in Ireland about fairies that appear and ask for food. If they are denied then they will curse the person for life. Fairies are also interconnected with the names little people, elves, gnomes, leprechauns, and witches.

Fairies have been around for many hundreds of years in some form or another. The idea of fairies was made popular in Europe in the Dark Ages and was used to describe fairy women lovers that appeared in the night, similar beings have existed in both folklore and written literature for thousands of years. This is the time that Sir Thomas Malory wrote his Le Morte De Arthur in which he featured Morgan LeFay as the fairy witch that enticed King Arthur and his knight. Today in England, Ireland, and Scotland they stand true to their fairy ties and keep the fairy legends in mind as they are never sure who might be lurking nearby in a cave or a bog.