Explore Fairy Traditions - By Jeremy Harte

Synopsis:

"We are not alone. In the shadows of our countryside there lives a fairy race, older than humans, and not necessarily friendly to them. For hundreds of years, men and women have told stories about the strange people, beautiful as starlight, fierce as wolves, and heartless as ice. These are not tales for children. They reveal the fairies as a passionate, proud, brutal people. Explore Fairy Traditions draws on legends, ballads and testimony from throughout Britain and Ireland to reveal what the fairies were really like. It looks at changelings, brownies, demon lovers, the fairy host, and abduction into the Otherworld. Stories and motifs are followed down the centuries to reveal the changing nature of fairy lore, as it was told to famous figures like W.B. Yeats and Sir Walter Scott. All the research is based on primary sources and many errors about fairy tradition are laid to rest. Jeremy Harte combines folklore scholarship with a lively style to show what the presence of fairies meant to people's lives. Like their human counterparts, the secret people could kill as well as heal. They knew marriage, seduction, rape and divorce; they adored some children and rejected others. If we are frightened of the fairies, it may be because their world offers an uncomfortable mirror of our own."

Review

'... this is the best and most insightful book on fairies generally available... ' John Billingsley -- Northern Earth 'An erudite and well-referenced guide... 9/10' Paul Sieveking -- Fortean Times 'Explore Fairy Traditions is an excellent introduction to the folklore of fairies, and I would highly recommend it.' Paul Mason -- Silver Wheel 'If you really want to know about fairies, good bad and gremlins, then this book is for you.' Francis Cameron -- Pentacle ... this is the best and most insightful book on fairies generally available... -- John Billingsley 'Northern Earth' An excellent primer that has much to recommend it to more advanced students of the field... Highly recommended. -- D J Tyrer 'Monomyth' If you really want to know about fairies, good bad and gremlins, then this book is for you. -- Francis Cameron 'Pentacle'

From the Publisher

Winner of the Folklore Society's Katherine Briggs Award 2005 for the best book on British folklore

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