Lucy Cooper - THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES - An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures

Once inside, all misgivings vanished, for never had they seen a more sumptuously furnished hall or a more elegant assembly of guests. They played all night, never growing tired and performing a succession of jigs and reels for the eager dancers.

When morning came, they only wished the night had lasted longer, such was the revelry that they had enjoyed. Their host paid them well, thanked them, and bid them farewell.

But when the fiddlers left the great hall, outside everything was changed. To their consternation, they found that the great tower they had exited was no more than a low hill. When they made their way into Inverness, there were buildings where once there had been trees and fields, and the inhabitants of the town, dressed in strange, fantastical clothes, poked fun at their old-fashioned rags.

A crowd gathered around the musicians and an old man hobbled up and questioned them.

“I know who you are,” he declared, “you are the two men who lodged with my great-grandfather and who, it was supposed, were decoyed by Thomas the Rhymer to Tomnahurich Hill. Sore did your friends lament your loss, but a hundred years have passed since then, and your very names are forgot.”

The fiddlers believed the old man’s story and were glad to have come out from the fairy hill alive. The church bells began to ring and they went to church to give thanks for their safe return. However, when the minister uttered the first word of scripture, they crumbled to dust.

Some say that Thomas the Rhymer ( see here ), the mortal musician whisked away by the Queen of Elfland, still lives, or sleeps, beneath Tomnahurich Hill.

Rusalka Lake in the Czech countryside, near the town of Pribram, was the inspiration for the composer Dvorak’s opera Rusalka. Based on folk beliefs about the water sprite Rusalka, it tells the story of her unhappy love affair with a mortal man. The composer’s house, Vysoka mansion, is nearby, and is now a museum.

Yoro waterfall, located on the slopes of the Tagi mountain in Mino province, Japan, is known as a magical Fountain of Youth. According to Japanese legend, a woodcutter discovered the waterfall’s youth-giving properties.

The woodcutter lived with his elderly father the mountains. One cold winter’s day he was out looking for wood when he came across a golden waterfall. He drank from it and was surprised to discover that it was not water, but sake (rice wine). He filled his gourd and took it back to his elderly father, who drank it with delight and immediately felt many years younger.

News of the magical waterfall reached the Empress, and she journeyed to Mino to drink from it. She named it Yoro—water of life, or regeneration.

Other fairy places include the forest of Paimpont in France, which is all that remains of an ancient woodland thought to have once covered much of inland Brittany. Legend has it that it is home to Brocéliande, Forest of King Arthur, the Fountain of Youth, and the Val sans Retour (Valley of No Return), where Morgan le Fay enchanted her victims.

Transylvania is usually associated with vampires; however, in Hungarian folk belief it was inhabited by fairies. Transylvania, now part of Romania, and Csallóköz, now part of Slovakia, were traditionally identified as the Hungarian fairyland. Almas cave near Baraolt in central Romania is reputed to be a fairy haunt. The cold wind known as the Nemere is said to blow when the fairy in the cave feels cold. In one tale, when plague was raging in the neighborhood, the people ascribed it to the cold blast emanating from the cave, so they hung shirts before the cave mouth and it is said the plague ceased. Some say this is also the cave from which the children led away by the Pied Piper of Hamelin re-emerged.

The fairy mountain Ngongotaha stands on the North Island of New Zealand, overlooking the big blue lake of Rotorua. The peak is known as Te Tuahu a te Atua (the Altar of the God) and was said to be one of the principal homes of the patupaiarehe , the fairy people of New Zealand. The tribe that lived on Mount Ngongotaha were known as the Ngati-Rua, their chiefs were named Tuehu, Te Rangitamai, Tongakohu, and Rotokohu.

It is said that the Maori ancestor Ihenga became thirsty while exploring the mountain and a patupaiarehe woman offered him a drink from a calabash, which he accepted. However, when the fairy people began to crowd around him, curious at seeing a mortal, he became scared that they might attempt to capture him. Smearing himself with kokowai , a mixture of shark oil and red ochre, the stench of which offended the patupaiarehe , he repelled the inquisitive creatures and ran away down the mountain. Later, he went on to be on friendly terms with the patupaiarehe and named the mountain Ngongotaha, meaning “drink from a calabash.”

The Majlis al Jinn in Oman, “Meeting Room of the Spirits” or “Gathering Place of the Djinn ,” is the second-largest cave chamber in the world. The colossal chamber is large enough to house over a dozen Boeing 747s or a 50-story skyscraper. Its name comes from the belief on the Arabian peninsula that djinn inhabit caves.

Trollkyrka (Troll’s Church) in Sweden is located in the heart of Tivden National Park. A trek up the trail to the “tower” of the church reveals a rocky outcrop where pagan fairy rituals took place in years gone by. A poem by folklorist Carshult describes the procession up into the troll hills, where a secret password was uttered, a fire was lit, and spirits summoned.

This race of tiny fairies from South Africa dwells with the ants. Small enough to ride an ant or hide behind a blade of grass, in all respects other than size, the abatwa resemble humans from the Zulu tribe. They are shy, elusive creatures, only occasionally seen by humans, most often wizards, children, or pregnant women. It’s believed that if a woman spies an abatwa in the seventh month of pregnancy she is sure to give birth to a boy.

From the fifteenth century onwards, many British abbeys and monasteries gained a reputation for luxury and wantonness. Folk satires were spread about them, including stories of the abbey lubbers, mischievous spirits who tempted the monks and nuns into drunkenness, gluttony, and lasciviousness. They were most often to be found in the abbey wine cellar.

See Green Fairy, the .

These Bolivian weather fairies have powers over the sun, wind, and rain. They live underground in caves and are rarely seen by humans. When they do appear, it is often as wizened old men.

Manx name for the fairies, meaning “Themselves”—a name humans must get right and never take in vain.

This mythical race is found in legends from Greenland and from Inuit tales of Labrador and northern Canada relating the union of a girl with a dog, from which the resulting ten offspring are five dogs and five Adlet, a creature half-dog, half-man.

In some legends the Adlet are sent inland for their safety and become the Native American tribes.

See Anguta , Sedna .