05/29/2026
This week’s fascinating find - Fairies: A History by Francis Young.
A bit about the book:
Many people think they know what fairies are, what a fairy looks like, and how a fairy is expected to behave. Francis Young’s new history of fairies demonstrates that the truth about belief in fairies is far stranger than clichéd images of tiny figures with wings and wands.
Before the rise of the ‘small winged fairy’ in the nineteenth century, the category of fairies included a vast range of supernatural human-like creatures, from the elves of Scandinavia and the aos sí of Ireland to the vilas of the Balkans and the fadas of Iberia.
No one who reads this brilliant tour through the enchanted pathways of fairyland will ever look at the winged creatures of contemporary popular culture – or the woods at the bottom of their garden – in the same way again.
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