The Irish word for fairy is _sheehogue_ [_sidheóg_], a diminutive of
"shee" in _banshee_. Fairies are _deenee shee_ [_daoine sidhe_] (fairy
people).
Who are they? "Fallen angels who were not good enough to be saved, nor
bad enough to be lost," say the peasantry. "The gods of the earth,"
says the Book of Armagh. "The gods of pagan Ireland," say the Irish
antiquarians, "the _Tuatha De Dan[=a]n_, who, when no longer
worshipped and fed with offerings, dwindled away in the popular
imagination, and now are only a few spans high."
And they will tell you, in proof, that the names of fairy chiefs are
the names of old _Dan[=a]n_ heroes, and the places where they
especially gather together, _Dan[=a]n_ burying-places, and that the
_Tuath De Dan[=a]n_ used also to be called the _slooa-shee_ [_sheagh
sidhe_] (the fairy host), or _Marcra shee_ (the fairy cavalcade).
On the other hand, there is much evidence to prove them fallen angels.
Witness the nature of the creatures, their caprice, their way of being
good to the good and evil to the evil, having every charm but
conscience--consistency. Beings so quickly offended that you must not
speak much about them at all, and never call them anything but the
"gentry," or else _daoine maithe_, which in English means good people,
yet so easily pleased, they will do their best to keep misfortune away
from you, if you leave a little milk for them on the window-sill over
night. On the whole, the popular belief tells us most about them,
telling us how they fell, and yet were not lost, because their evil
was wholly without malice.
Are they "the gods of the earth?" Perhaps! Many poets, and all mystic
and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that
behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are
not of heaven but of the earth, who have no inherent form but change
according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift
your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The
visible world is merely their skin. In dreams we go amongst them, and
play with them, and combat with them. They are, perhaps, human souls
in the crucible--these creatures of whim.
Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is capricious
about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape
pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and
making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one
industrious person amongst them, the _lepra-caun_--the shoemaker.
Perhaps they wear their shoes out with dancing. Near the village of
Ballisodare is a little woman who lived amongst them seven years. When
she came home she had no toes--she had danced them off.
They have three great festivals in the year--May Eve, Midsummer Eve,
November Eve. On May Eve, every seventh year, they fight all round,
but mostly on the "Plain-a-Bawn" (wherever that is), for the harvest,
for the best ears of grain belong to them. An old man told me he saw
them fight once; they tore the thatch off a house in the midst of it
all. Had anyone else been near they would merely have seen a great
wind whirling everything into the air as it passed. When the wind
makes the straws and leaves whirl as it passes, that is the fairies,
and the peasantry take off their hats and say, "God bless them."
On Midsummer Eve, when the bonfires are lighted on every hill in
honour of St. John, the fairies are at their gayest, and sometime
steal away beautiful mortals to be their brides.
On November Eve they are at their gloomiest, for, according to the old
Gaelic reckoning, this is the first night of winter. This night they
dance with the ghosts, and the _pooka_ is abroad, and witches make
their spells, and girls set a table with food in the name of the
devil, that the fetch of their future lover may come through the
window and eat of the food. After November Eve the blackberries are no
longer wholesome, for the _pooka_ has spoiled them.
When they are angry they paralyse men and cattle with their fairy darts.
When they are gay they sing. Many a poor girl has heard them, and
pined away and died, for love of that singing. Plenty of the old
beautiful tunes of Ireland are only their music, caught up by
eavesdroppers. No wise peasant would hum "The Pretty Girl milking the
Cow" near a fairy rath, for they are jealous, and do not like to hear
their songs on clumsy mortal lips. Carolan, the last of the Irish
bards, slept on a rath, and ever after the fairy tunes ran in his
head, and made him the great man he was.
Do they die? Blake saw a fairy's funeral; but in Ireland we say they
are immortal.