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Full Description
Fairies fascinate young and old alike. To some they offer tantalizing glimpses of other worlds, to others a subversive counterpoint to human arrogance and weakness. Like no other author, Katharine Briggs throughout her work communicated the thrill and delight of the world of fairies, and in this book she articulated for the first time the history of that world in tradition and literature.
From every period and every country, poets and storytellers have described a magical world inhabited by elfin spirits. Capricious and vengeful, or beautiful and generous, they've held us in thrall for generations. And on a summer's morn, as the dew dries softly on the grass, if you kneel and look under a toadstool, well ...
Contents
Preface, PART I The Fairy Peoples 1 Historic Survey 2 The Fairy Realms 3 Tutelary Spirits 4 Forgotten Gods and Nature Spirits 5 The Host of the Dead 6 Hobgoblins and Imps 7 Giants, Hags and Monsters 8 Fairy Beasts 9 Fairy Plants 10 Regional Differences PART II Traffic with the Fairies 11 The Fairy Dependence 12 Time and Seasons 13 Fairy Morality: The Double Strain 14 Changelings and Midwives 15 Fairy Wives and Fairy Lovers 16 Fairy Encounters and Odd Experiences 17 Human Opinions PART III Some Literary Fairies 18 The Poets: The Eighteenth Century 19 The Poets: The Nineteenth Century and After 20 The Foreign Invasion 21 The Moralists 22 Folklorists and Collectors 23 The Humorists 24 Whimsy 25 Something to Bite On
