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Author
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Comment
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melusine
Unregistered User
(3/1/06 3:30 pm)
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encyclopedia of faery
does anyone know of a good encyclopedia of faery?
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aka Greensleeves
Registered User
(3/1/06 6:36 pm)
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Re: encyclopedia of faery
Well, Katherine Briggs' 1976 An Encyclopedia of Fairies is a classic, but I'm also quite partial to Jacqueline Simpson & Steve Roud's recent Dictionary of English Folklore. It has a different bent, obviously, but has some really great scholarship on classic British fairy folk.
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princessterribel
Registered User
(3/2/06 1:08 pm)
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encyclopedia
There are a lot of these 'encyclopedia's ' online. However, strongly recommend all Brian Froud books...a very detailed account of various mythical creatures succh as merrows, brownies and a lot more. Recommend 'Faeries' by froud and alan lee.
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catja1
Registered User
(3/2/06 7:14 pm)
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Re: encyclopedia
Well, the Froud books have glorious illustrations, but most of the info in them has been cribbed from Briggs. Buy them for the pictures, but Briggs is the best source for accurate information.
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rosyelf
Registered User
(3/3/06 3:05 am)
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encyclopaedias
The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Anna Franklin and Paul Mason is one I would recommend. It is international in scope and the illustrations-some of which are digital-are of fairies in the widest sense of the word, not the gossamer-winged cutesy variety.
One encyclopaedia I would NOT recommend-at least for folkloric /scholarly purposes-is The Complete Encyclopaedia of Elves, Goblins And Other Little Creatures by Pierre Dubois. The title is beguiling, as are many of the illustrations-including the ones on the cover-but I do find the text heavy-going. It is written in a deliberately eccentric and over-literary style-Dubois describes himself as an "elfologist" and, frankly, the whimsy gets a bit much after a while. Also, the classifications are odd. There are two sections, "Elves" and "Goblins" and the Wendigo, the terrible cannibal monster of the Cree and Ojibway tribes, is categorized as an elf. Bizarre. Having said that, the number and variety of creatures mentioned in this book is truly extraordinary-there are many French ones, for example, I have never heard of. It has its uses but, as I said, it's not scholarly.
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princessterribel
Registered User
(3/3/06 12:29 pm)
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well...
Well...to be honest I do not this that you can expect to get an academic encyclopedia on faeries form anywhere...because all the information will have been gleaned from one source or another. Afterall, if we are being realistic the closest thing you can get to anything academic is if you research in terms of folklore and look at various myths. Then you might get a more well rounded view or definition of whatever creature it is u want to know about. :)
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catja1
Registered User
(3/3/06 8:09 pm)
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Re: well...
Princessterribel, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. There are several academic encyclopedias on fairy lore, with Katharine Briggs' Encyclopedia of Fairies being the best. They catalogue fairies as they appear in folklore, which is the only place fairies reliably and provably appear; many of the stories in Briggs' encyclopedia were collected by Briggs herself, or by her close associate, Ruth Tongue. As folklore is, in fact, an academic discipline, I have no idea why you think an academic encyclopedia of fairies is impossible. And encyclopedias are *supposed* to collect information from a bunch of different sources, and present that information in an easily searchable format. That's the entire point of an encyclopedia.
Edited by: catja1 at: 3/3/06 8:11 pm
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princessterribel
Registered User
(3/4/06 7:48 am)
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hehe
lol...I thinkI have put my foot in it. I agree with catja1. :)
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melusine
Unregistered User
(3/8/06 3:17 pm)
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encyclopedia
thanks so much! I'll be sure to take a look at a few. a scholarly encyclopedia of faery is possible.
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