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Recurring themes in the old tales

Just as you find different descriptions of Fairies

in the oldest legends, you also find a wide variety

of themes and story lines. Just about anything you

could ever imagine can happen if one encounters

a Fairy, and then the adventure would be told and

retold until it became what we might today call an

“urban legend.”

There does seem to be a small handful of sto-

ries that appear to repeat and that are not bound

to one particular location or time period. These

are the Fairy tales that use the magic of the race

to explain odd instances and unexpected occur-

rences in the lives of people. Several stories are

excellent examples of this. Let’s explore just a few

to discover the basic idea behind the Fairy tale.

The Tale of the Fairy Ring Dance

A story that is often told revolves around the

Fairy ring dance and is an old version of

Rip van

Winkle

by Washington Irving. This story begins

late at night as a man is walking along a wood-

lined, deserted road. (Human women, for some

unknown reason, do not appear in this particular

story.) Suddenly he hears the sweet melody of the

fiddle and the pipe coming from under a large tree

just a short way from the roadbed. Curious and

drawn by the lovely music, he creeps toward the

tree to discover a band of Fairies dancing merrily

around and around the tree’s base. A lively Fairy

maiden grabs the man’s hand as she passes by him,

encouraging him to join in the fun.

As the evening goes by, he abandons his hesi-

tation and throws himself into the spirit of the

evening, enjoying every twist and turn of the

dance. When dawn’s light creeps into the woods,

the man is overcome with weariness and finally

pulls himself away from the merriment to fall

asleep on a bed of soft grass. Little does he know

as he drifts off that it will be anywhere from one

year and one day to five hundred years later when

he awakes or that he will return to a human world

that is strangely changed and unknown to him.

When this poor soul does finally make it home, he

discovers that everyone he has ever known has

died, his house has been long sold, and there is no

one who knows anything about him, except for a

small piece of old gossip about the “man who

never came home.” Many of the variations of this

story end with the man, now decrepitly old, turn-

ing to dust before the next sunset.

The main character of “The Tale of the Fairy

Ring Dance” seems to fall into one of three types.

The first character type is the overly responsible

man. This gentleman finds himself doing more

labors than he physically can stand as no one else—

neither wife, nor children, nor grandchildren—will

lend themselves to the work. He often is noted as

having a demanding wife with a wicked tongue, who

may have managed to create a large debt due to her

spending well beyond his meager means.

The second type of man that shows up in the

tale is the misunderstood son. These versions tell

about a young man who, no matter how hard he

works or applies himself to his lessons, can never

accomplish as much as his sire expects of him.

The boy will be noted as having struggled for years

to earn even one small scrap of respect from his

father. Though he will have achieved more than

any other man of his age in the village, in his

father’s eyes he will always be a failure.

The third character type that appears in these

stories is the chronic drunk. This version usually

begins with noting that the man is, once again

(since it is a regular practice), returning home

from the village tavern after a hard evening of

drinking. It is also noted in these stories that his

wife, who is waiting at home, is ready to once

again deliver a firm tongue-lashing in response to

his drunken state.

It would be a major topic of gossip in any small

village if one day a man disappeared, never to be

seen nor heard from again in the lifetime of his

family and friends. In reading the tales it seems that

any of these men might have finally had enough of