Читать книгу THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES: An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures - Lucy Cooper - Страница 8

W. Y. Evans-Wentz, an American anthropologist and folklorist of Celtic descent who went on to translate The Tibetan Book of the Dead, explored the Celtic lands of Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany at the turn of the nineteenth century, collecting fairy stories, experiences, and beliefs from the people he met. He discovered a strong connection between fairies and the dead.

In Ireland, there was a belief that fairies were the spirits of the departed, returning with wisdom, warnings, or messages. The dead of the ancient tribes of Ireland are known as the Gentry. In Wales, the Tylwyth Teg, or Fair Folk, are ancestor spirits, often envisaged as being 6 feet (nearly 2 meters) tall. In Scotland, distinction was made between the Host, or Sluagh, and the Sith (Shee). The Sluagh, “hosts” of the spirit world, are the spirits of mortals who have died. According to one account in Evans-Wentz’ The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911), “they fly about in great clouds, up and down the face of the earth like starlings, and come back to the scenes of their earthly transgressions. No soul of them is without the clouds of the earth, dimming the brightness of the works of God, nor can any win heaven, till satisfaction is made for the sins of the earth.” The Sith, literally “people of the hills,” were fairy beings believed to dwell in the hollow hills or fairy mounds of Scotland. They were known as the Sidh, or Daoine Sidh, in Ireland.

Fairy ancestor spirits bestowed flags, banners, and gifts on Scottish clans, such as the famous “fairy banner” of the MacDonalds, the “fairy flag” of the MacLeods of Skye, and the Luck of Edenhall, a glass beaker decorated with enamel, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is said to have been crafted by the fairies and gifted to the Musgrave family of Edenhall in what is now Cumbria. “If this cup shall break, or fall/Farewell the luck of Edenhall” goes the famous saying. As yet, the glass remains intact.

In Cornwall, the story of The Fairy Dwelling of Selena Moor explains that fairies are the spirits of the dead not good enough for heaven, not bad enough for hell. They are shapeshifters and can take the form of beasts or birds, but every time they return to their proper shape, they are a little bit smaller than they were before. Over time, their senses and emotions dull, and they live on the memories of past feelings.

It was said, too [of the Fair Folk], that those who take animal forms get smaller and smaller with every change, till they are finally lost in the earth as muryans (ants) and that they pass winter, for the most part, in underground habitations, entered from cleves or carns. And it is held that many persons who appear to have died entranced are not really dead, but changed into the fairy state.

“The Fairy Dwelling of Selena Moor” in William Bottrell, Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Vol. II, 1873)