The legend of fairies

The legend of fairies

Read a text about the legend of fairies to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

(1) Fairies today are the stuff of children's stories, little magical people with wings, often shining with light. Typically pretty and female, like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, they usually use their magic to do small things and are mostly friendly to humans.

(2) We owe many of our modern ideas about fairies to Shakespeare and stories from the 18th and 19th centuries. Although we can see the origins of fairies as far back as the Ancient Greeks, we can see similar creatures in many cultures. The earliest fairy-like creatures can be found in the Greek idea that trees and rivers had spirits called dryads and nymphs. Some people think these creatures were originally the gods of earlier, pagan religions that worshipped nature. They were replaced by the Greek and Roman gods, and then later by the Christian God, and became smaller, less powerful figures as they lost importance.

(3) Another explanation suggests the origin of fairies is a memory of real people, not spirits. So, for example, when tribes with metal weapons invaded land where people only used stone weapons, some of the people escaped and hid in forests and caves. Further support for this idea is that fairies were thought to be afraid of iron and could not touch it. Living outside of society, the hiding people probably stole food and attacked villages. This might explain why fairies were often described as playing tricks on humans. Hundreds of years ago, people actually believed that fairies stole new babies and replaced them with a 'changeling' – a fairy baby – or that they took new mothers and made them feed fairy babies with their milk.

(4) While most people no longer believe in fairies, only a hundred years ago some people were very willing to think they might exist. In 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright took two photos of her cousin, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths, sitting with fairies. Some photography experts thought they were fake, while others weren't sure. But Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories, believed they were real. He published the original pictures, and three more the girls took for him, in a magazine called The Strand, in 1920. The girls only admitted the photos were fake years later in 1983, created using pictures of dancers that Elsie copied from a book.

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

Download
Worksheet66.79 KB

Language level

Average: 4 (54 votes)

Submitted by Eric75016 on Tue, 08/12/2020 - 08:05

Permalink
Hello, I don’t understand this sentence :” He published the original pictures, and three more the girls took for him, in a magazine...”. What does it mean “and three more the girls” ? Thank you for your help.

Hello Eric75016,

The sentence is possibly confusing because some words are omitted. I'll write it out in full and I think this will help:

He published the original pictures, and three more pictures which the girls took for him, in a magazine...

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Murat on Sat, 28/11/2020 - 18:41

Permalink
Hello can anyone help me? "fairies were thought to be afraid of iron" i didn't understand. if sentence "fairies were afraid of iron" but "thought to be" why over there? i couldn't understand.

Hello Murat,

Fairies were afraid of iron describes a fact; it tells us something that is true.

Fairies were thought to be afraid of iron describes a belieft; it tells us that people believe that this is true, but it's possible that they are wrong.

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Ugulhan on Tue, 10/11/2020 - 07:52

Permalink
I would believe about small fairies because in my childhood I heard every small child will be protected by God. This world was created many years ago, and The great creator was created first Angeles before we.

Submitted by Lilly098 on Mon, 02/11/2020 - 21:20

Permalink
As majority mentioned here, we do not have any fairy tales in Japan. Instead of that, we have many monster stories. Monsters varies from good ones to bad ones. All the monster stories is believed to be based on real people; today people deliver the stories not only to entertain little kids, but also to remind them of consequences.
Profile picture for user danisep

Submitted by danisep on Fri, 16/10/2020 - 21:36

Permalink
Here in colombia there is no stories about little magical people, there is horror stories like. la llorona, el coco, la patasola, the man without head, among others. Just kids and ancient people in countryside believe in that. by the way there is a hollywood movie about la llorona, called the curse of la llorona, mostly latin american people doesn like because not represent the real legend.

Submitted by Nobu1230 on Sat, 12/09/2020 - 09:11

Permalink
I think we don't have typical fairies story in Japan,but we have some anime and manga in which there are characters use some magical power.For instance,Dragon ball,Sailor moon and Doraemon.I like dragon ball and when I was young,I imitated their magical power and I improved my imagination for it.

Submitted by senes19 on Fri, 28/08/2020 - 16:24

Permalink
In my culture, I don't know really any little magical people. Our stories are based on the truth. Because we believe an one Got. He know and controls everything. Therefore in our culture you cannot find any anti-real matter. But we are reading world classics in our country. We encounter with these kind of people who has magical abilities.

Submitted by Nanami on Mon, 17/08/2020 - 06:21

Permalink
In Japan, there is a TV animation for children called "Purikyua". This is a story of teenage girl students changing of appearance and using magic to fight against the bad guys. Girls never do bad things. They have the courage and keep fighting. I often watched it when I was a child. This show has many fans and has been made movies. But I haven't heard any other magic people. Fairies that appear in the stories of foreign countries are considered pretty and gentle. On the other hand, goblins that appear in Japanese stories are considered be afraid. I wish I could see more fairies with beautiful appearance and mental in Japan!