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Author
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Comment
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bielie
Unregistered User
(12/12/02 11:10:31 am)
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Mortal-Faerie union
Hi everyone
What is born of a union between a faerie and a mortal? Any examples?
Thanx
bielie
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/12/02 11:20:00 am)
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Many tales
There are many stories of fairy brides, or fairy grooms. The child usually looks like the mortal. (See for example, the Scottish "The Faerie Flag" story, which I have in my collection of the same name.)
For more stories of fairy marriages, check in Katherine Briggs wonderful British Isles books, or my FAVORITE FOLKTALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD. I ahve an entire section on fairy marriages.
Jane
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bielie
Unregistered User
(12/12/02 12:12:07 pm)
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Fairy unions
Thanks Jane. I'll be looking for your book!
bielie
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Midori
Unregistered User
(12/12/02 2:42:55 pm)
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depends
I think what comes of fairie-human relationships can vary quite a bit from story to story--even Greek mythology gives us a variety of images in such couplings--Dionysus is perceived as an effeminate young man, an old man, and even a goat. In Bordertown, there are "halfies" who have features of both--and in my novels "Hannah's Garden" and "Flight of Michael McBride"...it's impossible to tell. Some characters have specific attributes of their fairie parent--green eyes, an abilitity to make the abstract dream appear concrete, a second skin (fur or pelt).
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BlackHolly
Registered User
(12/12/02 6:40:09 pm)
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Faery Midwife Stories
In many faery midwife stories, the midwife delivers a baby that is half fey and half human. That's why the child needs faery ointment in his/her eyes. Presumably the child lives in Faery thereafter.
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bielie
Unregistered User
(12/14/02 8:42:35 am)
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Gilbertian fairies
I found this while searching for clues on the web: From the Opera Iolanthe by Gilbert & Sullivan. Don't you just love it?
LEILA. Your fairyhood doesn't seem to have done you much good.
STREPH. Much good! My dear aunt! it's the curse of my existence! What's the use of being half a fairy? My body can creep through a keyhole, but what's the good of that when my legs are left kicking behind? I can make myself invisible down to the waist, but that's of no use when my legs remain exposed to view! My brain is a fairy brain, but from the waist downwards I'm a gibbering idiot. My upper half is immortal, but my lower half grows older every day, and some day or other must die of old age. What's to become of my upper half when I've buried my lower half I really don't know!
FAIRIES. Poor fellow!
QUEEN. I see your difficulty, but with a fairy brain you should seek an intellectual sphere of action. Let me see. I've a borough or two at my disposal. Would you like to go into Parliament?
IOL. A fairy Member! That would be delightful!
STREPH. I'm afraid I should do no good there--you see, down to the waist, I'm a Tory of the most determined description, but my legs are a couple of confounded Radicals, and, on a division, they'd be sure to take me into the wrong lobby. You see, they're two to one, which is a strong working majority.
QUEEN. Don't let that distress you; you shall be returned as a Liberal-Conservative, and your legs shall be our peculiar care.
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Zanobia
Unregistered User
(12/17/02 5:51:54 am)
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Jinn falling in love with humans
Hey there Bielie! HOw's it going? Hope all is well.
I remember your comment about Jinn being part of a religion hence possibly irrelevant to the discussion of fairytales, but a lot of folklore has emerged from the belief in Jinn, so if you're interested, here are some mortal/fairie relations of the Islamic type.
There are stories of marriage between jinn and humans, both in pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabia. Around 1000 A.D., an entire section entitled “Names of those of Mankind Who Loved the Jinn and Vice Versa” can be found in the Fihrist of al-Nadim, sort of a Guiness Book of World Records of the time. A fabulous book if you can find a translation!
Sixteen other books that have survived from the Middle Ages also include titles alluding to the same themes. Passages in the Qu’ran point to the possibility of relations between jinn and humans. For example, in a description of the virgins of Paradise, the Qu’ran says: “In these gardens will be mates of modest gaze, whom neither man nor invisible being (jinn) will have touched ere then.” (Surah 55:56)
Even today, in some old Arab villages, if a man or woman is epileptic the folkloric explanation is that a Jinn has fallen in love with him/her. Then again, Jinn were blamed for many unsolvable issues. There's a new movie out called "When Mariam Spoke," in which an infertile woman is told that her womb is possessed by a Jinn that won't let her have babies and that she must blow the Jinn in the mouth of a snake or a dead person in order to be rid of it. Pretty good movie production if you come across it.
Sorry if I went off topic there. Take care! Z.
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annie
Unregistered User
(12/17/02 7:08:07 pm)
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faerie/mortal relationships
Another story of faerie and mortal relationships is the tale of
Undine. It's a german fairy tale by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque.
You can download it online at promo.net/pg/
which is Project Gutenburg a site that has e-books.
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Elizabeth
Unregistered User
(12/24/02 8:00:54 am)
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here's one
I seem to recall a mermaid story where a man married to a mermaid begets strange children. One had walrus-like teeth, one had horns, and I think the third one had one hoof, but I don't remember exactly.
I think though that this was one reason that mortals were warned away from fairy lovers. There kids came out a little deformed.
Liz
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/24/02 8:09:19 am)
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Another union
My father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night.
Out of that union there came three.
A porpoise and a porgie and the other was me....
What became of my children three,
Me mother then she asked of me.
One was exhibited as a talking fish,
The other was served in a chaffing dish. . .
--from the folk song The Keeper of the Eddystone Light which I can sing very loudly.
Jane
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bielie
Unregistered User
(12/24/02 1:24:04 pm)
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Eddystone
Thanks Jane
I'll keep away from mermaids in future!
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Nalo
Registered User
(12/24/02 9:14:55 pm)
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Re: Eddystone
I have a character in my new novel, an enslaved Muslim African living in 18th C. Saint Domingue (Haiti), be half djinn as a way of explaining his powers. But it's not something that features hugely in the novel.
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