Fairies and fae and the like

[ratherastory]

Hey flist,

Anyone here know what they're talking about WRT fairies/the fae/etc? I am looking for some good reference books (or websites, that works too) that can give me more than a bare-bones overview of the various different types of small folk out there. The whole seelie/unseelie thing, everything from brownies to the hierarchies in the courts. All that stuff that I sort of know about but only enough to get myself into trouble.

Help?

Comments

[bellatemple]

*looks at big bang*

Yeeeeeee-ep.

I'm about to run out the door, so this is more of a marker right here for me to come back to later when I have time to properly go for a book list, but hi!

Lesson number one, though? None of your references will agree with each other 100%. So, be prepared for that.

I shall return.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you!

[bellatemple]

Okay, so, still at work, so I can't peer directly at my folklore collection, but here are some I can think of off the top of my head:

I got started on Abbey Lubbers, Banshees, and Boggarts by Katharine Mary Briggs. That one's out of print, I think (I have a very old copy I stole from my parents), and Amazon has a range on it from $195.00 to $0.01, so availability might be iffy. It's more of an encyclopedia of fairy beings than a collection of stories or a narrative of any kind, but it's useful information. Katharine Briggs did a lot of British Isles (and possibly European) folklore work and publishing in the seventies and eighties -- you might be able to find them at a library.

W.B. Yeats is one of the earlier reputable collectors of BI folklore that I've heard of. He relied on the legends of Oisín for some of his epic poetry, and also published just a flat out collection of Irish folklore. You can find these retold in pretty much any "Irish folktales" or "Irish Wonder Tales" anthology out there on the market, but I have a soft spot for Yeats, and I suspect much of the modern retellings are based on his work.

Brian Froud is one of my favorite "less hardcore" folklorists -- he does fantastic illustrative work, and his book "Faeries" is what I primarily based my big bang on. It does well as a very loose, general overview of some of the lore, providing geographical context and citing examples from earlier folklore texts and stories as he goes along.

Jane Yolen has done a lot of work in folklore -- these are less about fairies, particularly (those are a very European concept, though a lot of cultures have myths about household spirits and creatures like brownies or boggarts or gnomes) than they are about specific folk narratives (ie. Jack tales and the like), but I love Jane Yolen, so she gets a mention.

For online resources, Wikipedia actually does very well on folklore, and providing overviews of different legends for the more popular characters and races of fairy and fairy-like creatures. There's also Encyclopedia Mythica, though I've had limited success in navigating that one when I was looking for something very specific, and I don't know how well it'll work for general perusal.

And, of course, one cannot neglect works of fantasy in fiction. There's a fine tradition of using another author's work as a jumping off point for research -- I wouldn't know anywhere near as much as I do about Russian folklore, for instance, were it not for Esther Freisner and her Gnome Man's Land trilogy. Tanya Huff does some interesting work with this, too -- those two both work as just general "fun books to read" if you're looking for something more academic.

I frequently find myself in the mythology and folklore section at my local bookstore just picking up random things to flip through, and this can be a great way to pick up general knowledge, though as I said in my earlier comment, the books are not terribly likely to agree with each other. That's part of what makes Wikipedia as good as it is on this topic -- they tend to collect the different versions in one spot, for you to compare and pick out the details that work best for you.

[silverusagi]

There's always the classic Faeries.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

This one! The drawings! <3

[silverusagi]

There's also An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs, which doesn't present a whole picture because of the structure of the book, but it has an entry for about any type of fairy or fairy thing you want to look up. It's definitely more involved than a bare bones overview.

[primrose-1.livejournal.com]

There's no official primer, but I'd second the recommendations by goldenusagi.

[peppervl.livejournal.com]

Well, that depends. At what point in the legends are you looking to portray them? All the way back to the Tuatha de Danan in what would eventually become Ireland? The more modern faeries that were stories told to explain things in Ireland? Stories that had migrated to England, France, or other parts of Europe? Are you looking for fantasy story type faeries, or the rougher tales? Are you looking for books or websites?

...

Um. I may be passionate about the subject.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

The short answer to all of this is "yes." ;)

I am basically looking to educate myself as much as possible on the subject. I am looking less for polished fantasy tales (in which the author has tried to "streamline" the myths so that they all make sense) and more for the rougher stories. The stories told to explain things in Ireland would also be something I'm looking for.

Websites are great if they go into a bit of depth, and books are love. :)

[peppervl.livejournal.com]

Here's the Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katherine Briggs.

For art with lore, anything by Brian Froud. Faeries is a winner, and Good Faeries, Bad Faeries is a personal favorite.

This is a book of essays with a wide overview.

As far as websites go, your best bet is to pick the creature you're looking for and search for that.

[primrose-1.livejournal.com]

oo! Don't forget Yeats! Poke around with some of his stuff too!