page_title: Fairy
section_title: Hidden people
hierarchical_section_title: Fairy / Origins / Hidden people
caption_attribution_description: English: Fairy, by C.E. Brock.
context_page_description: A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural.
  Myths and stories about fairies do not have a single origin, but are rather a collection of folk beliefs from disparate sources. Various folk theories about the origins of fairies include casting them as either demoted angels or demons in a Christian tradition, as minor deities in Pagan belief systems, as spirits of the dead, as prehistoric precursors to humans, or as elementals.
  The label of fairy has at times applied only to specific magical creatures with human appearance, small stature, magical powers, and a penchant for trickery. At other times it has been used to describe any magical creature, such as goblins and gnomes. Fairy has at times been used as an adjective, with a meaning equivalent to "enchanted" or "magical".
  A recurring motif of legends about fairies is the need to ward off fairies using protective charms. Common examples of such charms include church bells, wearing clothing inside out, four-leaf clover, and food.
context_section_description: There is a theory that fairy folklore evolved from folk memories of a prehistoric race: newcomers superseded a body of earlier human or humanoid peoples, and the memories of this defeated race developed into modern conceptions of fairies. Proponents find support in the tradition of cold iron as a charm against fairies, viewed as a cultural memory of invaders with iron weapons displacing peoples who had just stone, bone, wood, etc., at their disposal, and were easily defeated. 19th-century archaeologists uncovered underground rooms in the Orkney islands that resembled the Elfland described in Childe Rowland, which lent additional support. In folklore, flint arrowheads from the Stone Age were attributed to the fairies as "elfshot", while their green clothing and underground homes spoke to a need for camouflage and covert shelter from hostile humans, their magic a necessary skill for combating those with superior weaponry. In a Victorian tenet of evolution, mythic cannibalism among ogres was attributed to memories of more savage races, practising alongside "superior" races of more refined sensibilities.
caption: Illustration of a fairy by C. E. Brock
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