Fairies are the 'Good People' or 'Gentry' of Irish and British folklore, a hidden race said to live alongside us in a world just out of sight. In Ireland they are the aos sí or daoine sídhe, the people of the fairy mounds. People used polite names for them on purpose, so as not to give offence. In the older stories they can be human-sized, beautiful and dangerous: they steal children and leave changelings, lead travellers astray and take offence at anyone who damages a fairy fort or lone hawthorn.
The tiny winged fairy of Victorian picture books came later. In 1691 Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle in Scotland, wrote The Secret Commonwealth, a sober account of what his parishioners believed about fairies. The belief could have tragic results: in 1895 Bridget Cleary of County Tipperary was killed by her husband, who said he believed she had been replaced by a changeling.
Fairy experiences are still reported today. The Fairy Investigation Society, founded in Britain in 1927 and revived online by historian Simon Young in 2013, ran a Fairy Census from 2014 that gathered hundreds of first-hand accounts. People describe small figures in gardens and woods, lights, music and lost time. The most famous 'evidence', the Cottingley Fairies photographs of 1917, was a hoax: the two cousins who took them admitted in 1983 that they used cardboard cut-outs.
What the stories say
- Small human-like figures in gardens or woods
- Music or voices with no source
- Lights dancing near old forts or hawthorns
- Getting lost on a familiar path
- Time passing strangely
Reader reports
Encounters sent in by our readers and checked by a moderator.
Famous cases
- 1691Robert Kirk writes The Secret Commonwealth
Aberfoyle, ScotlandRobert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, wrote The Secret Commonwealth around 1691, describing Highland beliefs about fairies and second sight as if they were natural facts. He died in 1692 before publishing it; local legend says the fairies took him. Walter Scott first published it in 1815.
- 1895Murder of Bridget Cleary, said to be a changeling
Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, IrelandIn March 1895 Bridget Cleary of Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, was killed by her husband Michael, who claimed the sick woman had been replaced by a fairy changeling. Her body was burned and buried. He was convicted of manslaughter and served fifteen years, and the case drew huge press attention in Ireland and Britain.
Modern reports
- 1917Cottingley Fairies photographs (a hoax, admitted 1983)
Cottingley, EnglandIn 1917 cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took photos in Cottingley, near Bradford, that seemed to show them with fairies. Arthur Conan Doyle promoted them as genuine in 1920. In the early 1980s the women admitted they used cardboard cut-outs copied from a children's book, though Frances maintained the fifth photo was real.
- 1999Latoon fairy bush saved from the Ennis bypass
Latoon, County Clare, IrelandIn 1999 storyteller Eddie Lenihan protested plans to cut down a whitethorn at Latoon, County Clare, for a new road, saying it was a meeting place of Munster fairies. The campaign made international news and the road plans were changed so the bush was spared.
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