#4
I’ve been looking into different pieces of literature to see where the Fae appear, apart from in the obvious placing of Fairy tales (for which I’ve bought a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and am waiting on getting a hold of my copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, as well as three of Cicely M Barker’s Illustrated Flower Fairy poetry books).
I’ve bought a copy of “Myth & Magic: The Art of John Howe”, who is the designer for the Hobbit films, and has done art based on various other mythical stories, and has included features of the Fae in a lot of his work. So this has been a useful resource for me to start flicking through.
However, the main piece of literature I have taken into account currently isn’t anything contemporary or modern, but belongs to our great British play-write, Shakespeare. I’ve been looking at “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, because if there isn’t a good base for Faerie Folklore anywhere else, then this play pretty much sums them up, albeit in a slightly comedic fashion.
The Fae characters within the play are:
Oberon (Fairy King)
Titania (Fairy Queen)
Robin Goodfellow, The Puck
Peaseblossom
Cobweb
Moth
Mustardseed
And others who are unnamed.
The specific copy that I looked through (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch & John Dover Wilson (eds.), 1968, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), had some particularly good explanations for the faerie-lore in the story, as well as the history behind the characters.
“Be it remembered that fairies dominate the play; and how constantly and intimately fairies were associated with weddings by our Elizabethan ancestors, their general favours invoked, their possible malign caprices prayed against.”
-Quiller-Couch & Dover Wilson
“Oberon is the name of the King of Faery in ‘Huon of Bordaeux’; Spencer also refers to him in ‘The Faerie Queen’, where he is made out to be the father of Gloriana (Henry VIII). Titania seems to be Shakespeare’s own name for the Fairy Queen. He found it in the original Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ – it does not occur in Golding’s translation – where it is used as a title for Diana. No one has apparently observed hitherto that Shaskespeare may have run some risk in giving one of Diana’s titles to his Fairy Queen, seeing that Diana and Fairy Queen are names commonly bestowed on Queen Elizabeth herself. Robin Goodfellow is a name; Puck is strictly speaking a title for a class of mischievous or malicious spites, and it is noticeable that Robin is never addressed simply as ‘Puck’ in the text, though ‘my gentle Puck’ and ‘sweet ‘Puck’ occur. The names ‘Puck’ and ‘Robin’ occur indiscriminately in the Quarto speech-headings and S.D.S”
-Quiller-Couch & Dover Wilson, p. 102-103
Titania has been referenced in many works since the play was written, and she is now an immensely popular character as the portrayal of the Fairy Queen. She is regal and kind, but also has authority and striking beauty – something that is the root of much jealousy throughout the play.
Referencing the classics is key for this, as they show the true portrayal of what the Fae were before Hollywood got their hands on the stories and turned them into bright and colourful stories where truth and love always triumph. The originals were not always like this.
Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” did not have a happy ending. Grimm’s prince in “Rapunzel” was blinded viciously. Not everything is sunshine and daisies.
It’s this dark side of the storytelling that is intriguing me more now, and is what I’m going to be focusing more on, rather than ‘pretty’ Disney stories.
