What Are Fairies?
Fairies are small, magical creatures endowed with
the powers of shape-changing and invisibility, who are found
in one form or another in almost every culture. "Fairy"
or "Fairie" comes from the Latin term fata,
translated to fate. Fairies can reward mortals with gifts and
wishes, for kindness, offered to a fairies
presenting themselves in-disguise, for they are masters of shape-shifting.
small, human in form, playful,
having magical powers [syn: fairy, faerie, sprite]
A tiny, mischievous, imaginary
being; a fairy.
Faery
Fairy \Fair"y\, n.;
pl. Fairies. [OE. fairie, faierie, enchantment, fairy folk,
fairy, OF. faerie enchantment, F. f['e]er, fr. LL. Fata one
of the goddesses of fate. See Fate, and cf. Fay a fairy.] [Written
also fa[\"e]ry.] 1. Enchantment; illusion. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
Fairy lore is particularly prevalent in Ireland,
Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland. Fairies are common in literature
from the Middle Ages on and appear in the writings of the Italians
Matteo Boiardo and Ludovico Ariosto, the English poet Edmund
Spenser, the Frenchman Charles Perrault, and the Dane Hans Christian
Andersen, among others. A.G.H.
They live in the same world as we do, but their
bodies are less dense than ours, though only slightly less dense
than a tenuous gas. I feel sure that the veil between them and
us is exceedingly thin -- so thin that nearly anyone could penetrate
it with a little effort along the right line. The difficulty
is to indicate this line and especially to get others to comprehend
it. Most certainly, one strong reason for our not seeing them
is due to a difference in point of view. If, therefore, what
I write here can help to change points of view toward the fairy
world, it will help to make more and more people able to see
them. -Dora Van Gelder
