Fairies of New England: The Little People of the Hills and Forests

For many centuries, people have been aware of a “third power” that depends neither on the power of virtue nor the power of evil.

In the ballad “Thomas the Rhymer,” the Queen of Elfland shows Thomas of Erceldoune three paths, corresponding to three spiritual powers: the path of virtue (filled with “thorns and briars”); the path of vice (wide and beautiful but leading to destruction); and the path to “fair Elfland,” which the Queen describes as a “bonny road” winding between fern-covered hills.

What does this third path suggest about the power of Fairy? The third path is clearly not Christian virtue, for virtue is difficult, entwined with suffering but leading to paradise, whereas the path of Fairy is pleasurable. Not, like vice, in a self-destructive way, for it appears to be naturally good, is associated with balance and abundant nature, and perhaps represents natural magic.

Although the ballad doesn’t describe this path in detail, it associates the traveler with prophetic power: Thomas gains the ability to see the future from the Queen. In the world of the ballad, Fairy touches people and bestows on them spiritual gifts.

Fairy and knowledge

Elsewhere in folklore, we find that the power of Fairy may resemble virtue but usually leans toward knowledge and craft. Whereas virtue doesn’t require great knowledge, relying instead on humility, the Fairy path is decidedly gnostic, requiring special technique.

Let’s think about this in relation to a folktale from Appalachia.

In a fascinating story from eastern Kentucky, a mother, in anger, curses her daughter to marry the Devil. As one often finds in folktales, the mother’s words are fatal: a dark, handsome stranger arrives and marries the woman’s daughter. The mother, an archetypal Appalachian “granny woman,” understands what her words have unleashed and knows what she must do: she uses a “branch,” “prayed over in church,” to reveal her son-in-law’s true nature. The Devil then turns himself into a small black bug, and the mother and daughter trap him in a bottle.

The tale’s “branch” may, in fact, be a rowan branch, infused with Fairy power—a traditional talisman mentioned in the folklore of nearby North Carolina. This points to the mother’s pragmatic and occult power, which has little to do with Christian virtue and everything to do with craft, “smarts,” and the correct application of knowledge. The tale implies that, in the hills and hollers of Appalachia, spiritual problems don’t require “elevated” solutions (like virtue or ecclesiastical intervention) but rather a granny woman’s wit and gnosis. Like Fairy, the branch and its wielder are “bonny,” pragmatic, and, in a Christian sense, quasi-good.

Fairy fatality and human blood

Thus far, I’ve associated Fairy with the gifts of prophecy, gnosis, and wit/craft, which we find deposited (in Appalachia) in the mind of the wise granny woman. This woman may be “good”—because she uses her skills to heal—but she’s not particularly interested in virtue (in a classical Christian sense) or the seriousness of evil (which she sees as something to be outwitted rather than defeated through faith). Folklore, as a field, mirrors the granny woman’s mind, for it’s a repository of formulas and insights used to channel the third power of Fairy.

Returning to “Thomas the Rhymer,” we find a scene that complicates the relationship between Fairy and faith much more:

When the Queen of Elfland carries Thomas to Elfland, they travel through a land of “mirk, mirk night” in which they must “wade through blood up to the knee.” The ballad explains that the “springs” of this Fairy land flow with the blood of all those who’ve been killed “on earth.” This suggests that human fatality is the life-source of Fairy. Fairies, in this reading, are spirits associated with chance, fate, or accident. Magic and prophecy appear intimately tied to mortality and the shedding of human blood.

Nevertheless, I can’t avoid a theological point: if the blood in the ballad (all the blood shed on earth) includes the blood of Christ, it means that Fairy is fed by both human fatality and divine blood. Does this redeem the fatality of Fairy? Perhaps the dual life-force of Fairy mirrors the rowan branch mentioned earlier: the material potency of natural magic, when paired with grace (or prayer), is effective—despite being morally ambiguous. Fairy, here, is a third power because it: 1) draws from a fatality in which God is apparently absent (the spilling of human blood); and 2) remains entwined with divine creation and is, possibly, even redeemed.

Serpent-knowledge

However, another image from the ballad complicates the picture further. The Queen of Elfland offers Thomas an apple from a tree, thereby giving him the power of prophecy—knowledge of fate. In this, she mimics Eve’s role in Adam’s downfall. Just as Eve chose to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge after the serpent informed her that it would impart “knowledge of good and evil”—and thereby unwittingly subjected herself to fatality—so Fairy is a path of gnosis that imparts prophecy and fatality. In this echoing of scripture, the ballad appears to present Fairy knowledge as a type of serpent-knowledge, separate from God. Like Adam and Eve, who are stripped of grace and forced to sew “fig leaves together” as a substitute for grace (a substitute that some traditions, like the Kabbalah, identify with magical technique), the “initiate” into Fairy gains a knowledge that’s quasi-good and yet potentially fatal.

The Queen of Elfland’s offering of the apple to Thomas harks back to the beginning of the ballad as well, where Thomas mistakes the Queen for the Virgin Mary, “the Queen of Heaven.” The Queen immediately corrects Thomas, informing him that the name does not belong to her. This points to her role in the story: rather than exhibiting a Mary-like crushing of the serpent’s head, she cooperates with the serpent instead—offering Thomas the fruit of knowledge and binding him to Fairy.

This raises the question: is Fairy merely serpent-knowledge, a continuation of Eve’s disobedience? Or is it natural magic, a realm of creation that coexists ambiguously with grace? Christ’s blood flows into the realm of Fairy, suggesting that it’s not outside divine redemption. But at the same time, the Queen’s apple reminds us that engagement with Fairy may perpetuate a binding fatality.