Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

TRADITIONS AND TALES OF UPPER LUSATIA

What is a fairy?

Read!

[“A Wood near Athens.—Enter a Fairy on one side, and Puck on the other.1]

And there, then, they are!—The blithe and lithe, bright and fine darlings of your early-bewitched and for ever-enamoured fancy! There they are! The King and the Queen, and the Two royal Courts of shadowy,   gorgeous, remote, and cloud-walled Elf-land: The fairies of the vision once wafted, “by moon or star light,” upon the “creeping murmur” of the Avon!—The Fairies in England! Your fairies!

Nevertheless you, from of old, are discreet. And you mistrust information which discountenances itself, by borrowing the magical robe of verse! Or you misdoubt this medley of our English blood, which in the lapse of ages must, as you deem, have confounded, upon the soil, the confluent streams of primitively distinct superstitions! Or your suspicious inquisition rebels against this insular banishment of ours, which, sequestering us from the common mind of the world, may, as you augur, have perverted, into an excessive individuality of growth, our mythological beliefs: Or—Southwards then!

One good stride over salt water lands you amongst a people, who, from the old, have kept themselves to themselves; whose warm, bold, thorough-loyal hearts hereditarily believe, after the love and reverence owed from the children’s children to the fathers’ fathers. Here are—for good and for ill—and from a sure hand:—“The Fairies in Lower Britanny; alio nomine—The Korrigans.”

“Like these holy virgins, (the Gallicenæ or Barrigenæ of Mela,) our Korrigans predict the future. They know the skill of healing incurable maladies with particular charms; which they impart, it is affirmed, to magicians that are their friends. Ingenious Proteuses, they take the shape of any animal at their pleasure. In the twinkling of an eye they whisk from one end of the world to the other. Annually, with returning spring, they celebrate a high nocturnal festivity. A tablecloth, white as the driven snow, is spread upon the greensward, by the margin of a fountain. It is covered with the most delicious viands; in the midst sparkles a crystal goblet, which sheds such a splendour as serves in the stead of torches. At the close of the repast, this goblet goes round from hand to hand; it holds a miraculous beverage, one drop of which, it is averred, would make omniscient, like the Almighty. At any least breath or stir of human kind, all vanishes.

“In truth, it is near fountains that the Korrigans are oftenest met with; especially near such as rise in the neighbourhood of dolmens.2 For in the sequestered spots whence the Virgin Mary, who is held for their chief foe, has not yet driven them, they still preside over the fountains. Our traditions bestow upon them a strong passion for music, with sweet voices; but do not, like those of the Germanic nations, make dancers of them. The popular songs of all countries frequently depict them combing their fine fair hair, which they seem daintily to cherish. Their stature is that of the other European fairies: they are not above two feet in height. Their shape, exquisitely proportioned, is as airy, slight, and pellucid as that of the wasp. They have no other dress than a white veil, which they wrap around their body. Seen by night, they are very beautiful: in the daytime, you perceive that their hair is grey—that their eyes are red—that their face is wrinkled. Accordingly, they begin to show themselves only at the shut of eve; and they loathe the light. Every thing about them denotes fallen intelligences. The Breton peasants maintain that they are high princesses, who, because they would not embrace Christianity when the apostles came to preach in Armorica, were stricken by the curse of God. The Welsh recognise in them, souls of Druids doomed to penance. This coincidence is remarkable.

“They are universally believed to   feel a vehement hatred for the clergy, and for our holy religion, which has confounded them with the spirits of darkness—a grand motive, as it appears, of displeasure and offence to them. The sight of a surplice, the sound of bells, scares them away. The popular tales of all Europe would, meanwhile, tend to support the church, in viewing them as maleficent genii. As in Britanny; the blast of their breath is mortal in Wales, in Ireland, in Scotland, and in Prussia. They cast weirds.3 Whosoever has muddied the waters of their spring, or caught them combing their hair, or counting their treasures beside their dolmen, (for they there keep, it is believed, concealed mines of gold and of diamonds,) almost inevitably dies; especially should the misencounter fall upon a Saturday, which day, holy to the Virgin Mother, is inauspicious for their kind,”4 &c. &c. &c.

Here, in the stead of the joyously-sociable monarchal hive, you behold a republic of solitarily-dwelling, and not unconditionally beautiful, naiads! No dancing! And a stature, prodigiously disqualifying for the asylum of an acorn cup! You are unsatisfied. Shakspeare has indeed vividly portrayed one curiously-featured species, and M. De la Villemarqué another, of the air-made inscrutable beings evoked by your question; but your question, from the beginning, struck at the Generic notion in its purified logical shape—at the definition, then—of the thing, a fairy.

Sir Walter Scott,5 writing—the first in time of all men who have written—at large and scientifically upon the fairies of Western Europe, steps into disquisition by a description, duly loose for leaving his own foot unentangled. “The general idea of Spirits, of a limited power and subordinate nature, dwelling among the woods and mountains, is perhaps common to all nations.”

A little too loose, peradventure!

Dr James Grimm, heroically bent upon rescuing from the throat of oblivion and from the tooth of scepticism, to his own Teutons—yet heathen—a faith outreaching and outsoaring the gross definite cognisances of this fleshly eye and hand, sets apart one—profoundly read and thought—chapter, to Wights and Elves.6

These terms, Wight and Elf, are presented by Dr Grimm as being, after a rough way, synonymous; and you have above seen another Germanic writer—a native of Warwickshire—take Elf for equivalent, or nearly so, with Fairy.

Of his many-natured Teutonic wights and elves, then, but with glances darted around, northwards and westwards, and southwards and eastwards, Dr Grimm begins with speaking thus:—

“From the deified and half-divine natures [investigated by this author in several of his antecedent chapters] a whole order of other beings is especially herein distinguished, that whilst the former either proceed of mankind,   or seek human intercourse, these form a segregated society—one might say, a peculiar kingdom of their own—and are only, by accident or the pressure of circumstances, moved to converse with men. Something superhuman, approximating them to the gods, is mingled up in them: they possess power to help and to hurt man. They are however, at the same time, afraid of him, because they are not his bodily match. They appear either far below the human stature, or misshapen. Almost all of them enjoy the faculty of rendering themselves invisible.”

You turn away your head, exclaiming that the weighty words of our puissant teacher are, for your proficiency, somewhat bewildering, and for your exigency by much too—Teutonic.

Have a care!

However, “Westward Hoe!” Put the old Rhine between the master of living mythologists and yourself, and listen to Baron Walckenaer unlocking the fountains of the fairy belief, and showing how it streams, primarily through France, and secondarily through all remaining Western Europe. “If there is a specifically characterized superstition, it is that which regards the fairies: those female genii,7 most frequently without name, without descent, without kin, who are incessantly busied subverting the order of nature, for the weal or the woe of mortals whom they love and favour without a motive, or, as causelessly, hate and persecute.”8

What, female only? Where are Oberon and Puck? Without a name? Where Titania?—Mab? Without a motive? Where the godmother of the sweet-faced and sweet-hearted Cinderella? Partial, and without a distinct type in your own recollections, you guessingly pronounce the characterization of the perpetual secretary too–French. Driven back, disappointed on all sides, you turn round upon your difficulties, and manfully project beating out a definition of your own; to which end, glancing your eye back affectionately, and now, needle-like, northwards across the Channel, you “at one slight bound” once more find yourself at your own fireside, and on your table The Midsummer Night’s Dream, open at the second scene of the first act.

Inquirer whosoever! A problem lies large before us—complicated, abstruse even, yet—suitably to the subject—a delicate one! To hunt down an elusive word, and a more elusive notion! It is to find a set of determinings which, laid together, shall form a circle fitted to confine that inconfinable spirit—a Fairy; or, if you better like plain English, to find the terms needed for signifying, describing, expounding the Thought which, lurking as at the bottom of your mind, under a crowd of thoughts, rises up, in all circumstances, to meet and answer the name–a fairy; the Thought, which when all accidental and unessential attributes liable to be attracted to the fairy essence have been stripped away, remains; the substrate, absolute, essential, generic notion, therefore—a fairy; that Thought, which whencesoever acquired, and held howsoever, enables you to deal to your satisfaction with proposed fairies, acknowledging this one frankly;—this, but for a half-sister; shutting the door upon another. You may distinguish these terms at your pleasure, by sundry denominations: for example, you may call them Elements of the notion—a fairy—or circumscriptive Lines of such a notion, or indispensable Fairy-marks, or elfin Criteria, or by any other name which you may happen to like as well or better; but when found, call them as you will, they must reveal in essence, the thing which we look for—the answer to the question with which we first started, and to which we have as yet found no satisfactory solution.

As for the process of the finding.   This notion is to be tracked after widely, and in intimate recesses; more hopefully, therefore, according to a planned campaign than a merely wild chance expatiation. The chase ranges over a material and an intellectual ground. Of either—a word.

I. The material—is a geographical—region, and may be called, summarily—The western half of Europe. Let us regard it as laid out by languages at this day spoken. Here is a map, roughly sketched:—

1. North-Western CELTS.—Ireland, Highlands of Scotland, and the interjacent Isle of Man.

2. South-Western CELTS.—Wales, Britanny, and the, till lately, Celtic-speaking Cornwall.

3. Northern GERMANS, or Germans beyond the Eider, or Scandinavians.—Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland.

4. Southern GERMANS, or Germans below the Eider, or Teutons.—Netherlands, the German empire, Switzerland.

1. Italy.—Sicily.

2. Spain.

3. Portugal.

4. Latin-speaking France, distinguishing Normandy.

1. England.

2. Scottish Lowlands.

II. From all this tangible territory, we are to sweep up—what? An overlying intellectual kingdom, videlicet—The Kinds of the Fairies, rudely marked out, perhaps, as follows:—

1. The community of the Fairies, monarchal or republican:—The Fairy folk; Fairies proper.

2. The solitary domestic serviceable Fairy.

3. In the mines, under the water; a Fairy folk.

4. The solitary water Fairy.

5. The Fairy-ancestress.

6. The Fairy, tutelary or persecuting, of the chivalrous metrical romance.

7. The Fairy, tutelary or persecuting, now giving and now turning destinies, of the fairy tale proper.

We have then to ask what are the terms, marks, common traits, or by whatsoever name they are to be called, which are yielded by a comparison of such seven kinds. Something like the following eight will possibly arise:—

First, A Fairy is a subordinate spirit.

Secondly, Is attracted to the surface of our planet.

Thirdly, At once seeks and shuns mankind.

Fourthly, Has a body.

Fifthly, Is attenuate.

Sixthly, Is without proper station and function in the general economy of the universe; or is mythologically displaced.

Seventhly, Is endowed with powers of intelligence and of agency excelling human.

Eighthly, Stands under a doom.

To these eight criteria, taken in the nature of the thing enquired, the reflective inquirer will perchance find himself led on to add two furnished from within himself, as that—

First, Acknowledging, as in these latter days our more delicate psychologists have called upon us to do, the names fancy and imagination as designating two faculties, the fairies belong rather to the fancy.

Secondly, Accepting for a legitimate thought, legitimately and cogently signified, the High Marriage   which one of these finer Metaphysicians9—instructed no doubt by his personal experience—prophesies to his kind, between the “intellect of man” and “this goodly universe,” we may say that, regularly, this marriage must have its antecedent possessing and agitating Love; that this love must, like all possessing agitated love, have its attendant Reverie. Now, might one venture to surmise that this reverie breathes into the creating of a fairy?

Does the jealous reader perchance miss in the above proposed eight several elements the unity of notion, which he has all along seemed to feel in his own spirit and understanding? Let him at once conceive, as intensely joined, the two permanent characters of tenuity and mythological displacement, and take this compound for the nucleus of the unity he seeks. About these two every other element will easily place itself. For a soul, he shall infuse into the whole, after in like manner inseparably blending them—fancy, and that love-inspired reverie which won its way to us from Grassmere.

And so take, reader, our answer to your question, “What is a fairy?” THIS is a Fairy. Are you still unsatisfied? Good. The field of investigation lies open before you, free and inviting. On, in your own strength, and Heaven speed you!

The eight or nine tales of sundry length, and exceedingly diversified matter, contained in the two little volumes of Herr Ernst Willkomm,10 which have put us a-journeying to Fairy-land, have begun to produce before the literary world the living popular superstitions of a small and hidden mountainous district, by which Cis Eidoran Germany leans upon Sclavonia: hidden, it would seem, for any thing like interesting knowledge, until this author began to write, from the visiting eye of even learned curiosity. Nor this without a sufficient reason; since the mountains do, of themselves, shut in their inhabitants, and, for a stranger, the temper of the rugged mountaineer, at once shy and mailing himself in defiance, is, like the soil, inaccessible. To Ernst Willkomm this hinderance was none. He discloses to us the heart of the country, and that of the people which have born him, which have bred him up; and he will, if he is encouraged, write on. Three of these tales, or of these traditions—for the titles, with this writer, appear to us exchangeable—regard the fairies properly so called. They are, “The Priest’s Well,” “The Fairies’ Sabbath,” here given, and “The Fairy Tutor,” being the first, the third, and the seventh, of the entire present series. Upon these three tales the foregoing attempt at fixing the generic notion of a fairy was intended to bear. Should pretty Maud, the stone-mason’s daughter, our heroine for to-day, find the favour in English eyes which her personal merit may well claim, the remaining two are not likely to be long withheld.

The illustrations which shall now follow, drawn from distinguished authorities, aim at showing the consonancy of Herr Willkomm’s pictures with authentic representations of Elfin superstition already known to the   world. If, however, the criteria which have been proposed, have been rightfully deduced, the illustrations should as materially serve us in justifying these by proof.

Amongst the numerous points of analogy which strikingly connect our tale with popular tales and traditions innumerable, three are main to the structure of the tale itself. They may be very briefly described as—

I. The Heathenism of the Fairies.

II. Their need, thence arising.

III. Maud’s ability to help them.

I. The opinion, which sets the fairies in opposition to the established faith of all Christendom, is widely diffused. To the Breton peasant, as M. de la Villemarqué has above informed us, his Korrigan is a heathen princess, doomed to a long sorrow for obstinately refusing the message of salvation.

The brothers Grimm, speaking of the fairies in Ireland, say that “they are angels cast out from heaven, who have not fallen as low as hell; but in great fear and uncertainty about their future state, doubt, themselves, whether they shall obtain mercy at the last day.”11

Of the fairies in Scotland, it is averred by the same learned and exact writers, that “they were originally angels dwelling in bliss, but who, because they suffered themselves to be seduced by the archfiend, were hurled down from heaven in innumerable multitudes. They shall wander till the last day over mountains and lakes. They know not how their sentence will run—whether they shall be saved or damned; but dread the worst.”

Tales, in many parts of Europe, which represent the fairies as exceedingly solicitous about their salvation, and as inquiring of priests and others concerning their own spiritual prospects, for the most part with an unfavourable answer, tend to fix upon them a reproachful affinity with the spirits of darkness.

II. That the powerful fairies, who have appeared to us, from childhood upwards, as irresistible dispensers of good and evil to our kind, should need aid of any sort from us, is an unexpected feature of the fairy lore, which breaks by degrees upon the zealous and advancing inquirer.

The two excellent brothers Grimm, in the most elaborate and comprehensive collection,12 probably, of national traditions that Europe possesses, have furnished us with various instances. We select a very few. In the following graceful Alpine pastoral, the need of human help attaches to an exigency of life or death:—

“A herd maiden found upon the fell a sick snake lying and almost famished. Compassionately she held down to it her pitcher of milk. The snake licked greedily, and was visibly revived. The girl went on her way; and it presently happened that her lover sued for her, but was too poor for the proud wealthy father, who tauntingly dismissed him till the day when he too should be master of as large herds as the old herdsman. From this time forwards had the old herdsman no luck more, but sheer misfortune. Report ran that a fiery dragon was seen passing o’ nights over his grounds; and his substance decayed. The poor swain was now as rich, and again sued for his beloved, whom he obtained. Upon the wedding-day a snake came gliding into the room, upon whose coiled tail there sat a beautiful damsel, who said that it was she to whom formerly the kind   herd maid had, in strait of hunger, given her milk, and, out of gratitude, she took her brilliant crown from her head, and cast it into the bride’s lap. Thereupon she vanished; but the young couple throve in their housekeeping greatly, and were soon well at ease in the world.”

Since fairies, like ourselves, are mortal, two lives may be understood as at stake in the following:—

“Some hundred years ago, there lived at Calb, in the Werder, an aged lady of the house of Alvensleben, who feared God, was gracious to the people, and willingly disposed to render any one a service: especially she did assist the burgesses’ wives in difficult travail of childbirth, and was, in such cases, of all desired and highly esteemed. Now, therefore, there did happen in wise following:—

“In the night season there came a damsel to the castle gate, who knocked and distressfully called, beseeching that it should not mislike her, if possible, forthwith to arise, and to accompany her from the town, where there lay a good woman in travail of child, because the last hour and uttermost peril was already upon her, and her mistress wist no help for her life. The noblewoman said, ‘It is very midnight; all the town gates be shut and well barred: how shall we make us forth?’ The damsel rejoined that the gate was ready open, she should come forth only, (but beware, as do some add, in the place whither she should be conducted, to eat or to drink any thing, or to touch that should be proffered her.) Thereupon did the lady rise from her bed, dressed her, came down, and went along with the damsel which had knocked. The town gate she found open, and as they came further into a field was there a fair way which led right into a hillside. The hill stood open, and although she did well perceive that the thing was darksome, she resolved to go still on, unalarmed, until she arrived at last where was a little wifikin that lay on the bed, in great pains of travail. But the noble lady gave her succour, (by the report of some, she needed no more than lay her hand upon her body,) and a little baby was born to the light of day.

“When she had yielded her aid, desire took her to return from out the hill, home; she took leave of the sick woman, (without having any thing touched of the meats and liquors that were offered her,) and the former damsel anew joined her, and brought her back unharmed to the castle. At the gateway the damsel stood still, thanked her highly in her mistress’s name, and drew off from her finger a golden ring, which she presented to the noblewoman with these words, ‘Have this dear pledge in right heedful keeping, and let it not part from you and from your house. They of Alvensleben will flourish so long as they possess this ring. Should it ever leave them, the whole race must become extinct.’ Herewith vanished the damsel.

“It is said that the ring, at this day, is rightly and properly kept in the lineage, and for good assurance deposited at Lubeck. But others, that it was, at the dividing of the house into two branches, diligently parted in two. Others yet, that the one half has been melted, since when it goes ill with that branch: the other half stays with the other branch at Zichtow. The story moreover goes, that the benevolent lady was a married woman. When she upon the morrow told her husband the tale of that had betid her in the night, he would not believe her, until she said, ‘Forsooth, then, an’ ye will not trow me, take only the key of yon room from the table: there lieth, I dare warrant, the ring.’ Which was exactly so. It is marvellous the gifts that men have received of the fairies.”