All of these Images were made by me. Folklorists generally use the term ‘fairy’ rather loosely, to cover a range of non-human yet material beings with magical powers. These could be visible or invisible at will, and could change shape; some lived underground, others in woods, or in water; some flew. Some were believed to be friendly, giving luck, prosperity, or useful skills to humans who treated them respectfully; many were regarded as troublesome pranksters, or, in extreme cases, as minor demons; sometimes they were blamed for causing sickness, stealing human babies, and leaving changelings. Human adults might be invited (or abducted) into fairyland.

Fairies can be divided into two major groups: ‘social’ fairies, imagined as living in communities and pursuing group activities such as dancing and feasting; and ‘solitary’ fairies, of which some (the brownie type) attach themselves to human households as helpers and luck-bringers, while others (the bogey/ boggart type) haunt an open-air site, often as a more-or-less serious threat to passers-by. But it is not always clear-cut; pixies, for example, can be either ‘social’ or ‘solitary’, while Robin Goodfellow behaves equally readily as prankster or helpful household sprite. Conversely, informants sometimes insist on rigid separations between categories; a brownie, for instance, might be regarded as a quite different creature from a fairy, and a shape-changing apparition like the Yorkshire guytrash as something different again—which, from a functionalist point of view, is true enough. The number of local words for species and sub-species, and for individuals, is considerable. The original English term for the whole species was elf, but in Middle English this was largely replaced by ‘fairy’, borrowed from French.

The clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant, usually insisted that all such creatures could only be devils; many realized their similarity to the fauns, satyrs, nymphs, etc., of classical mythology, which they also regarded as demons. In popular belief, however, fairies were fitted into the Christian frame of reference in ways which left them morally ambiguous; in Cornwall, they were said to be angels who refused to side either with God or with Lucifer when the latter rebelled, and so, being ‘too good for Hell and too bad for Heaven’, were thrown down to earth and lived wherever they happened to fall. Alternatively, they could be identified with ghosts—either of the dead in general, or of special categories such as unbaptized infants. The latter was commonly said of the Will-o'-the-Wisp.

Belief in the household brownie (or pixy, or puck) was closely linked to farming; he threshes corn, tends horses, herds sheep, churns butter, cleans the kitchen, and so on, like an ideal farm servant. He also brings prosperity, and can take it away again if offended; he punishes anyone who mocks him, and those who work badly. The knockers had a similar role in tin and lead mining, but not in coal mines, indicating that this belief had faded by the time the latter industry was established.

All of these images are by Duvy.