Craik, 'Last of the Fairies' 1870

PhD Thesis, 2020

This thesis charts the shift in the scholarly treatment of fairies within the work of the Folklore Society (FLS) and its members, from its foundation in 1878 until World War Two. During this period the fairies' cultural position shifted from being a subject of intense interest in Victorian adult art and literature to becoming a whimsical being which dominated children's fairy-tale illustrations. During this era the FLS itself also experienced a waning cultural influence. A prominent Society before 1900, the FLS increasingly dwindled as folklore failed to gain a foothold in universities, key founding members died and the Society faced financial pressures. Concurrently folklore scholars became disinterested in children's book fairies. Both the FLS and fairies experienced a correlating, and somewhat mutually causal, decline in cultural prestige by the early twentieth century. The FLS's fairy scholarship provides the perfect space for exploring the changing cultural position of fairies and folkloristics in Britain during this era.

Gramayre, 2022

Gramarye 22.2 OGOM Special Journal Issue on Fairies, developed from OGOM Gothic Fairies Conference

Providence University, 2013

Charles Perrault's tale Les Fées (The Fairies) appeared for the first time in 1695 in the Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Tales of Mother Goose). This short prose tale belongs to the "kind and the unkind girls" type (Aarne-Thompson 480). An early version of Les Fées occurs in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Latona and the Lycians, Leto (or Latona) was wandering the earth after giving birth to Apollo and Artemis. She attempted to drink water from a pond in Lycia, but the peasants refused to allow her to do so. They were turned into frogs for their inhospitality. Perrault was familiar with the famous Bassin de Latone, designed by André Le Nôtre in 1668, in the garden terrace of Versailles. The story of Leto was chosen as an allegory, a clear allusion to the revolts of the Fronde (1648–1653) during Louis XIV’s minority. The Fairies was very influenced by Italy. It resembles at least three Italian tales: Straparola’s Biancabella and the Snake and Basile’s Le Tre Fate (The Three Fairies), and Le Due Pizzette (The Two Cakes). Perrault’s tale portrays a younger daughter mistreated by her mother who prefers her elder daughter. A fairy will decide their fate: the young and beautiful girl will be rewarded for her courtesy and will marry a prince; the rude sister will be punished and will die alone in the woods. Even though The Fairies and Cinderella (1697) have much in common, the former is probably too dry and not enough developed to enjoy the success of the latter.

The following notes are all based on newspaper and magazine reports from the last third of the nineteenth century. These are ephemeral pieces that have been overlooked by folklorists, but which give some precious glimpses of the last generations of fairy belief in the West Riding.

Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 2019

Folk-lore, 2019

Northern Life June/July, 2008

This article was first published in Northern Life in June/July 2008. Further research work resulted in a case study of this remarkable story of the Cottingley Fairies in 2011. Just before the end of the First World War, in the summer of 1917, two young girls claimed to have taken photographs of real-life fairies at the bottom of their long garden behind their house at Cottingley Beck. But when we look at the photographs today we can see that the fairies are only drawings carefully cut out. Hardly anyone can look at these photographs now and accept them as anything but fakes. However, they fooled Sir Arthur Doyle, and their prank had far more reaching consequences than they could have ever imagined. This comprehensive article records in detail the history and events.

ELCOME TO MYTHCON 44, here in East Lansing, Michigan. Let me start by thanking the Mythopoeic Society and the Council of Stewards for inviting me, and Marion Van Loo and the Mythcon Committee for arranging the details, and Leslie Donovan for working out the programming. I'd also like to welcome Franny Billingsley, our writer Guest of Honor. Our theme for this year's conference is ‚Green and Growing: The Land and Its Inhabitants.‛ A look at the programming for this conference shows many different ways of approaching this theme, and in particular in approaching the complex relationship between a land (that is, any land), the beings that live in that land, and the beings that potentially live in the minds of the inhabitants of that land. That may sound confusing, but let me explain further. In general, I wish today to speak of that intersection of these varied branches. This area of intersection can be called Faerie or fairyland, as it exists in a kind of boundary world between the land and its inhabitants, and the fairies themselves may be seen as the beings that potentially live in the land, or in the mind of the land's inhabitants.

The Cottingley Fairy Photographs: New Approaches to Fairies, Fakes and Folklore, 2024

My contribution to Simon Young (ed) The Cottingley Fairy Photographs: New Approaches to Fairies, Fakes and Folklore (Pwca, 2024) 15–49... The 'fairies' purportedly photographed by two girls in Cottingley, Yorkshire, in 1917 were paper cut-outs - including figures copied from a children's book 'Princess Mary's Gift Book'. The originals, drawn by Claude Shepperson, illustrated a 'fairy' poem by Alfred Noyes. This paper traces the ultimate inspiration of poem and illustration in the writings of a 17th C antiquarian and occult philosopher, in the dances of a 20th C choreographer, and in an early 20th C pandemic.