The legend of fairies
Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.
Preparation
(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.
What stories of little magical people are there in your culture? What are they like?
I am from Brazill and the brazilian stories ís totally different from others countries. Brazil is a larger country and it is divivided by 5 regions. All of them has fairy stories, such as: Boi bumbá, Curupira, Saci and others. I am going to tell about Saci, who is a boy, he has one foot and he lives in a forest smoking a pipe. Sometimes, he appears jumping to scare people. Have you ever heard about Saci?
Colombian culture has many stories about magical creatures. In rural areas people belive in "El Mohan". In the department of Boyacá this creature helps farmes find gold or esmeralds in caves.
The mohan is describe as a wild, tall and strong man with a long hair. He walks barefoot and smoke tobacco. People belive he is the protector of ancient indigenius treasures.
In my culture, there are not many stories about little magical creatures. If we are talking about fairies, I don’t really know any stories about them.
I think dwarves or gnomes are much more common. They are usually described as creatures that play tricks on people and sometimes steal things. People are definitely not afraid of them. They can be a little bothersome, but not to a serious extent.
Hi, I'm of Colombia.
In my culture there are variou stories according to Regions, about magical people and souls in pain.
I love the fairy aesthetic❤🧚♀️🧚♀️
In Ukrainian mythology, there are many creatures and gods. One of these creatures is Mavka, who is very similar to a forest nymph. She lives in the woods and protects nature and animals. There are many stories and fairy tales about her. One of the most popular is Lesya Ukrainka’s work «Лісова пісня / Song of the Forest». It tells the love story between a man and the forest nymph Mavka. They loved each other, but there were many conflicts and problems. In the end, the man married another woman, and Mavka was heartbroken. She became a tree, symbolizing her connection to the forest.
What stories of little magical people are there in your culture? What are they like?
Stories about little elves are told not only in my culture, but in many others. When I was younger, I used to see videos titled as "a real elf is captured on camera" or something like that, of course they were fake but it was fun to watch them back then.
Also, I read about a way to scare bad elves away: leave a sandwich with mud in your garden.
I know many people believe in them, near my old job, there's a store where you can buy gnomes to protect your home. I don't know a lot about it, but it would be interesting to hear more from a believer.
Is a urban history in my country but is not totally true, is La llorona, always say that she see in the nights but I always thought is fake