THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES: An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures

D’Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine (c.1650–1705)

French countess and writer who published Les Contes de Fées (Fairy Tales) in 1697 and Contes Nouveaux ou les Fées à la Mode (New Tales or Fairies in Fashion) in 1698. She was one of the most influential writers in the French salons, fashionable gatherings of literary and artistic figures popular in the seventeenth century.

Like many of her contemporaries, such as Charles Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy drew on tales from oral folk tradition and retold them in a literary style. Her tales include “Le Prince Lutin,” translated into English as “The Imp Prince,” “Yellow Dwarf,” and “The White Cat” among others.

Dagda

King of the Tuatha de Danann, the immortal fairy people of Ireland.

Human invaders known as Milesians forced the Dananns to hide under “hollow hills” or mounds. However, they still controlled the natural growth of wheat and grass, essential for bread and milk, and so persuaded the Milesians to make a treaty with their king, Dagda.

Dagda had four great palaces underground and he gave two of these to his sons Lug and Ogme, keeping the other two for himself, the greater of these being Brugh na Boinne. A third son, Angus Mac Og, returned from his travels and was angry to find he had been left out. He asked Dagda if he could have the Brugh for a day and a night, and this was agreed. But at the end of that time Angus claimed the Brugh forever, as a day and a night following on from one another represented all time. Although a great warrior, Dagda wasn’t the sharpest knife in the box and could be conquered by cunning, and he allowed Angus his claim.

Dagda then took his fourth son, Aedh, to his last palace, near Tara. There they were visited by Corrgenn of Connacht and his wife. Corrgenn suspected Aedh of adultery with his wife, and promptly killed him. In turn it was expected that Dagda would kill him. However, feeling that he had been to some extent justified in his actions, instead he laid upon him a geasa, or curse: Corrgenn had to carry the body of Aedh with him until he found a stone of the exact size to cover it.

After many miles, eventually Corrgenn found a suitable stone on the shore of Loch Feabhail. He dug a grave on a hill and laid the body in it before carrying the stone up to cover it. All this was too much for him, however: his heart burst and he died. Dagda had a wall built around the tomb and this place has been called the Hill of Aileac, or Hill of Sighs, ever since.

Daji

See Huli Jing.

Dame Hirip

A child-stealing fairy woman of Hungarian folklore, one of the tündér, the Hungarian fairies.

According to an account in The Folk Tales of the Magyars (1889), Dame Hirip lived in a castle on the Varoldal mountain in Gyergyószentmiklós. She had two sons whom she sent down the mountain to rob travelers passing through of their gold and silver, and to kidnap human girls. She herself would stand on the tower of the castle, clutching a wreath in anticipation of her sons’ return.

One day, the sons encountered the sweethearts of two of the girls they had kidnapped. The two heroes, clad in mourning for their brides-to-be, fought the sons and were victorious, whereupon Dame Hirip, stationed at her lookout on the castle tower clutching her wreath, faded away.

Dame Rapson

A fairy woman of the tündér, the Hungarian fairies. The tündér were said to dwell in mountain castles that they inherited from giants or constructed themselves, often with the assistance of magical helpers. The Folk Tales of the Maygars (1889) relates how Dame Rapson enlisted the help of a magical cat and cock to construct her mountain abode.

The cat and cock carried materials to dizzying heights up a sheer-sided mountain face with which to build Dame Rapson’s castle.

To construct the road leading to the castle, the fairy enlisted the help of the Devil, who demanded as payment a valley of silver and a mountain of gold.

After the road had been built, the Devil demanded his wages. The cunning fairy presented him with a gold coin, which she held between her fingertips, and a silver coin, which she placed on her palm, explaining that the gold coin was the mountain and the coin was the valley.

The Devil flew into a rage at being outwitted and destroyed the road. It is said that remnants of it are still visible in the snow-clad Gorgeny mountains near Paraja where it is still known as Dame Rapson’s Road.

Dana

(Pronounced thana. Also Danu.) One of the great mother goddesses in Irish mythology. Particularly associated with the Tuatha de Danann, she was also worshiped in other countries under different names. As mother of the gods, she has similarities with the mother figure Don, who features in the Welsh Mabinogion stories. In Lady Gregory’s account of how the Tuatha de Danann came to Ireland, in Gods and Fighting Men (1904), special mention goes to Dana, whose power goes beyond that of all the other great queens.

Danu

See Dana.

Daoine Mainne

See Daoine Sidh.

Daoine Sidh

(Pronounced theena shee or deeny shee.) (Also Daoine Mainne.) The fairy people of Ireland. They are said to dwell in hollow hills and the name literally means “people of the mounds.” They are often referred to by euphemistic names such as the Little People, the Gentry, the Wee Folk, the Good People, or the People of that Town, so as not to cause offense. They are generally supposed to be the diminished gods of the Tuatha de Danann, the early inhabitants of Ireland. Celtic legends tell of fairy ladies and heroic fairy knights who spent their time hunting, fishing, riding, and dancing.

Daphne

According to Greek myth, she was a beautiful mountain nymph who attracted the attention of the great god Apollo. But she rejected him and so that she could escape his pursuit, her mother, Gaea, the Earth Goddess, transformed her into a laurel tree.

At the Pythian Games, held every four years at Delphi in honor of Apollo, a wreath of laurel gathered from the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly was given as a prize. The laurel wreath is still regarded as a symbol of success.

Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand,

Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster,

And you a statue, or, as Daphne was,

Root-bound, that fled Apollo.

Milton, Comus (678–681)

Deevs

See Divs.

Dennison, Walter Traill (1826–1894)

Walter Traill Dennison was a farmer, antiquarian, and folklorist. He was a native of the Orkney island of Sanday, where he collected local folk tales. He published these, many in the Orcadian dialect, in 1880, under the title The Orcadian Sketch-Book. His collection of Oracadian tales includes an account of an encounter with the fearsome Nuckelavee.

Derrick

Fairies in the folklore of Devon and Hampshire. In Devon they are considered to be ill-tempered, while in Hampshire they are regarded as friendly. In one account a farmer’s wife described how she had lost her way on the Berkshire Downs when a little man dressed in green with a round smiling face appeared and told her which path to take; a local of Hampshire suggested he was a derrick.

Devas

(Also known as the “Shining Ones.”) Benevolent supernatural beings in Hindu belief. Some devas represent the forces of nature, while others represent moral values. In the Rigveda, the ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns, Indra is the leader of the devas.

See also Apsaras, Gandharvas.

Diana

In Roman mythology she is the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and birth, and is associated with wild animals, the wilderness, and the forest. She was said to dwell in the Forest of Nemi with the nymph Egeria. In Greek mythology she became identified with the goddess Artemis.

Diana is also a key figure in witchcraft, particularly the Italian witchcraft tradition Stregheria. Aradia: Gospel of the Witches (1899) describes Diana as the great spirit of the stars who made all men, giants, and dwarves, and relates how one night a poor orphan boy saw a thousand little white figures dancing under the full moon. When he asked them who they were, they replied:

“We are moon-rays, the children of Diana.

We are children of the moon;

We are born of shining light;

When the moon shoots forth a ray,

Then it takes a fairy’s form.”

Dinny Mara

(Pronounced dunya mara.) Manx merman. The dinny mara has a gentler temperament than the English merman. In Dora Broome’s story “The Baby Mermaid,” he is described as an affectionate father who played with his baby and gave her presents. This contrasts with the Cornish legend “Lutey and the Mermaid,” in which the mermaid of Cury herself was harmless enough, but feared that her husband would eat their children if she didn’t get home to feed him.

See also Ben Varrey.

Direach, the

(Pronounced jeeryuch.) The Direach Ghlinn Eitidh is a type of fachan described in J. F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860–1862). Fachans were particularly ugly creatures that had one hand protruding from their chest and a tuft of hair sprouting from the top of their head. The Direach was described as a giant woodcutter with one leg and one eye in the middle of his forehead.

Divs

(Or Deevs.) Demons of Persian mythology, who are in constant battle against the peris, the good spirits or fairies. According to the Koran, they are gigantic, ferocious spirits ruled over by the evil spirit Eblis. William Finch, in Purchas’ Pilgrims, describes them thus:

At Lahore, in the Mogul’s palace, are pictures of Dews and Dives with long horns, staring eyes, shaggy hair, great fangs, ugly paws, long tails, and such horrible deformity, that I wonder the poor women are not frightened.

See also Berkhyas.

Djinn

(Also jinn, jinni, genie.) Shapeshifting spirits of Arabian mythology. There are many regional variations on the spelling; here djinn is used to indicate both singular and plural. Female djinn are named with the honorific title lalla.

Djinn are described in Thomas Keightley’s The Fairy Mythology (1828) as spirits formed from smokeless fire, or the hot, dusty Simoom wind that blows across the Sahara and the Arabian peninsula. This fire is their life force and will erupt from their veins if they are injured, reducing them to nothing but ashes.

They can appear as gigantic and terrifying beings, such as the evil spirit in the tale of “The Fisherman and the Djinn” in The Thousand and One Nights, who takes the form of an Ifrit, one of the classes of djinn, or in human forms of great beauty, although it is said that a djinn disguised in the form of a beautiful woman can be recognized by certain tell-tale signs: vertical pupils in the eyes, or the hooves of a goat or a camel instead of feet.

According to Islamic tradition, the djinn rebelled against the powers of good, like the Fallen Angels of Christian belief. Azazel grew up among the angels, but when he refused to bow to Adam, he was transformed into the fearsome Iblis, father of the Sheytans, or evil spirits, and led the djinn in battle against the angels.

Djin or Diju is the name the occultist Elephas Levi used to refer to the ‘sovereign’ of the elementals of fire, known as salamanders.

Beliefs about djinn vary from region to region. In Egypt, malignant djinn pelted travelers with stones and were wont to steal food and women. Zoba’ah, or “dust devils,” tall whirlwinds of sand in the desert, were said to indicate the path of a malevolent djinn