The Real World of Fairies: A First-Person Account

209 Pages·1999·24.79 MB·English

by  Dora van Gelder Kunz

THE ~AL WO~D
OF FAI~ES

THE ~AL WO~D
OF F AIR!_ES
A First-Person Account
DoRA
VAN GELDER_
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THe KHN FOUNDATION
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Theosophical Publishing House
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Dora_Van_Gelder
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Kunz,Dora.
The real world of fairies: a first-person account / by Dora van
Gelder.—2nd.ed.
p. cm.
ISBN978-0-8356-0779-7
1.Fairies. I.Title.
BF1552.K86 1999
133.9—dc21 99-12297
CIP
ISBNforelectronicedition,PDFformat:978-0-8356-4082-4
~~ CONTENTS ~-e
FOREWORD BY CAITLfN MATTHEWS VII
1 INTRODUCTION TO FAIRY WORLDS 1
2 DIALOGUES WITH LITTLE PEOPLE 13
3 A TYPICAL FAIRY 31
4 FAIRY LIFE 47
5 EARTH F AllUES 63
6 GARDEN FAIRIES 81
7 TREE SPIRITS 93
8 MOUNTAIN FAIRIES 111
9 WATER FAIRIES 125
10 FIRE FAIRIES 137
11 AIR FAIRIES 147
12 THE HURRICANE 157
EPILOGUE: PRESENT CONDITIONS 169
ROSTER OF FAIRIES 177

~~ FOREWORD ~-e
CAITLIN MATTHEWS
BY
t is my pleasure to introduce the reader to the
I
visionary encounters of Dora van Gelder in this
new edition of The Real World of Fairies. The
openhearted experiences of the writer reveal a
wondrous realm which many will recognize from
their own childhood, wherein each tree was inhab
ited by its native spirit and certain mysterious
places held the possibility of joyful communion
with our companions and neighbors of the natural
world: beings unseen to most adults.
It is my place in this foreword to help set the
author's writing within the context of our contem
porary understanding of the fairy realms. Within
Dora van Gelder's lifetime-a span that includes
most of the twentieth century-fairies have
undergone an interesting transition in popular
consciousness.
In 1907-10, when W. Y. Evans-Wentz of
Stanford University visited Britain, Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, and Brittany for his outstanding
study, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, he
VII
CAl fLfN M ATTHEWS
learned that belief in and encounters with fairies
was a living tradition still.1 These fairy traditions
are still a daily part of people's everyday experience
in Celtic countries. They are the latter end of a long
fairy tradition stretching back beyond the Middle
Ages into the Celtic past. First-person documenta
tion of this tradition is sporadic but consistent.
Here are two instances of fairy encounters which
involve clergymen-one Catholic, one Protes
tant- to demonstrate that seeing fairies has little
to do with one's spiritual orientation!
A thirteenth-century account by the chronicler
Gerald of Wales tells of Elidyr, a Welsh boy who
went into the fairy hills. He found the subter
ranean realm of the fairies, a sunless realm of great
beauty. The fairies were keepers of their word and
had only the greatest contempt for mortal ambi
tions and lies. Elidyr learned the fairy tongue,
which was a little like Greek. Due to adult mortal
greed, which sent him back into Fairy to seek for
gold, he eventually lost the way back and was for
ever after unable to return, as Elidyr subsequently
related with tears of sorrow.2
The fairy researches of the seventeenth-centu
ry writer Rev. Robert Kirk remain the earliest
semi-anthropological study of fairy customs and
mores. Kirk himself is believed not to be in his
FOR.EWOR.D
tomb in Aberfoyle but to be in the fairy realms to
this day. Kirk interviewed people who had encoun
tered the fairies and knew of their ways. Several
facts which he noted about them appear through
out the Celtic tradition: that they have their own
underground dwellings which mortals tend to
avoid, that they are apt to steal human children and
substitute changelings in their places, that they are
keepers of treasures, that they can form helpful
alliances with humans.3
Fairies appear in world traditions under many
different names, of course, and remain a vigorous
source of wonder, disquiet, or disbelief, depending
on the degree of modernism in the country in
question. But something has radically changed in
this century. The process began when folklorists
and story collectors, like the brothers Grimm,
began to research stories in the early nineteenth
century. Country people-significantly adults
told stories and songs of fairies as defensive war
riors, beguiling lovers, keepers of treasures and
wisdom. With an eye to a wider readership, story
collectors began to change things. The more robust
elements of fairy lore were purged until the term
fairy story began to mean "a light folktale suitable
for children."4