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British Fairy Origins BRITISH FAIRY QRIGINS THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS : BRITISH FAIRY ORIGINS BY LEWIS SPENCE Author of The Gods ofMexico, An Introduction to Mythology, etc. LONDON WATTS & CO., 5 & 6 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLF,F,T STRFFT. F,.C.4 First published 1946 Printed and Published in Great Britain by C. A, Watts & Co. Limited, 5 iSfc 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, H.C.4 INTRODUCTORY Few relics of tradition have aroused so much interest in the minds of lettered and unlettered alike as that body of superstitious belief which relates to the existence of fairy spirits. Only within the lifetime of many who still survive has it been partly resigned by the peasantry of this island. At the end of last century, and in the early years of this, it received the enthusiastic consideration of some of the most distinguished minds of the period, as the roll of its recorders and their critics reveals. In Europe its research has been productive of one of the most extensive and accomplished literatures known to modern culture. Debate as to its lore and origins has aroused controversies as vehemently eloquent as any known to the spheres of philosophy, religion, or politics. Yet a seemingly indefatigable and highly distinguished scholarship has lavished its utmost powers upon its investigation, with results which cannot be described as more than partially successful. How are we to account for this seemingly egregious solicitude on the part of so many eminent and gifted scholars and writers for a theme so apparently trivial? I have tried to analyse the reasons for my own profound and life-long absorption in the legend of Faerie, although I may not compare myself with its more notable exponents. A large collection of fairy tales inherited from a romantic grandfather, acting upon a mind naturally receptive of the marvellous, though still oddly sceptical of it, inspired me at an early age with a powerful preference for the fairy theme. At a more adult stage the critical faculty naturally cast about for explanations concerning the origins of what now appeared as fabulous, and I gradually embarked upon the serious study of fairy tales as folk-lore. This very simple and natural process fully explains, I believe, the circumstances in which most students have embraced and pursued the problem of Faerie. It is not the mere enchantment of its fabliaux alone which intrigues the mature mind. It is the supreme difficulty experienced in accounting for the origins of V vi INTRODUCTORY the fairy superstition, in finding a formula which shall express its original nature, which has inspired so many brilliant men and women to ransack the records of elfin tradition. Here indeed is a problem which might satisfy the most exacting seeker after hidden things. It challenges one’s intellectual vanity, it excites one’s curiosity. The best proof of its complexity is the existence of the very numerous theories which seek, or pretend, to account for it. Scores of other vexed questions in tradition and in the greater fields of science have been laid at rest; yet this remains unsolved and seemingly insoluble. Since the first decade of this century the pursuit of its secret has been engaged in only fitfully by an exhausted and depleted corps of interpreters. It has become the philosopher’s stone of traditional science. Con- cerning the origins of the fairy belief, students of folk-lore have agreed to differ, and to-day even the most knowledgeable among them allude to it in the phrase of compromise. Towards the end of last century, as we shall see, the controversy on fairy origins was waged with a vigour and ingenuity truly remarkable. Men whose names were household words in respect of their achievements in the sphere of tradition debated the numerous ancillary questions which relate to it with a fervour and a display of erudition which won for the study a popular interest it has never succeeded in regaining. With the passing of the more distinguished among its exponents—^Alfred Nutt, Andrew Lang, Sir John Rhys, E. S. Hartland, Sir Laurence Gomme, Edward Clodd, Marian Roalfe Cox, Grant Allen, S. Baring-Gould, J. G. Campbell, A. C. Haddon, and others—the study of Faerie languished, and was indeed diverted into the larger channel of animistic speculation which the researches of Sir James Frazer so greatly augmented. Still, several well-known students of fairy lore have continued to pursue its problems solely because of the anthropological interest and value they possess, and not because they were inspired to do so by a senti- mental adolescent “ hangover.” The case for the origins of British Faerie has not so far been d^lt with historically. No published work dealing exclusively with ^e subject has adequately summarized the several important theories which seek to explain these beginnings, as I hope to be enabled to do in the pages which Follow. But to summarize INTRODUCTORY vii them alone, without adding one’s own point of view, would be unfair both to those who conceived them as well as to the theme. Perhaps more than sixty years of sojourn in fairy precincts has given me the right to advance an opinion pf my own concerning the nature of their primitive foundations. ’But it would be more than absurd to hope for complete success where so many of my superiors have failed. In my view the study of fairy origins assumes a greatef degree of importance than popular opinion is wont to concede to it. Indeed, the ideas associated with it strike at the very roots of human belief and primitive methods of reasoning. It is scarcely to be questioned that the explanation of fairy origins is of the utmost value to the better comprehension of primitive religion. Later it will be made clear that, for the writer at least, the whole tradition of Faerie reveals quite numerous and excellent proofs of its former existence as a primitive and separate cult and faith, more particularly as regards its appearance and tradition in these islands. At times I have drawn upon foreign examples of tale and rite to illustrate my contentions ; but the main body of proof as represented in this book is almost entirely associated with the content of British fairy tradition. Had it embraced the whole range of elfin lore and literature at home and abroad, it would inevitably have greatly surpassed the limits of such a work as the present. L. S. CONTENTS CHAP. PAG* Introductory . v I. The Fairy Superstition 1 II. The Fairy Superstition {continued) .... 23 III. Theories Concerning Fairy Origins ... 53 IV. Fairies as Spirits of the Dead .... 65 V. The Ancestral Character of Fairy Spirits . 84 VI. Fairies as Elementary Spirits 96 VII. Were Fairies a Reminiscence of Aboriginal Races? . 115 VIII. Are Fairies Derived from Godlike Forms? . 132 IX. Fairies as Totemic Forms 156 X. Other Theories About Fairy Origins . .162 XI. Vestiges of Cult in Fairy Tradition . .169 XII. Conclusions 191 Bibliography of Works Consulted . .199 Index 203 ix CHAPTER I THE FAIRY SUPERSTITION Any adequate review of those theories which seek to account for the origin of the fairy superstition must necessarily be prefaced by a general description of the beliefs which compose that tradition. For this reason I have devoted the first two chapters of this book to a fairly generous summary of the data associated with British fairy belief. The material in question is by no means of a uniform character as regards its period and authenticity, nor is it drawn from one part of the British area alone. Its examples are occasion- ally as remote in time, one from another, as is the fifth century of our era from the day-before-yesterday. Portions of it may possibly be derived from the notions of aboriginal British tribes whose very names have been forgotten save by a specialist minority ; or they may represent fantastic ideas which have gained popularity from the writings of Elizabethan or Jacobean poets. The possibility that any example or legend respecting fairy belief or practice may be the result of late invention—either of a literary nature, or arising out of local hearsay—^must also be steadily kept in view. The derivation of the word “ fairy ” has aroused the polemical instincts of etymologists, but here I must deal with it briefly and practically. The generally accepted opinion is that it was distantly derived from the Latinfatum, or “ fate,” describing those goddesses or supernaturals who presided over human fortunes. This term gave rise to the early Italian form fata, which, through Roman provincial influence, appeared in Spain as hada. It seems as though the Celtic population of Gaul may have slurred or elided “ the t,” so that it came to have in early French the sound of fa'a, with a plural fa'ae. My own impression is that this term, through the medium of Norman-French influence, introduced to the English tongue the word “ fay.” There is, however, the alternative possibility that from fatum was derived a mediaeval form fatare, meaning “ to enchant,” with a past participle fde, which resolved itself into fee. ITiis again was productive of a no\m,fairie, or faerie, signifying “ enchantment,” or the state of illusion. It would seem to -have been adopted into English as implying both the region of Fairyland, the spirits who dwelt there, and, through later usage, an individual fay, or, as we now say, a 1 2 THE FAIRY SUPERSTITION “ fairy.” ^ The word is certainly not derived from the Persian peri or pari, as was formerly believed in some quarters, Professor R.
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