Fey from other cultures

I'm working up faeries for several non-European cultures in my campaign world, and before I do a lot of research I wanted to check with the wonderful folks at ENWorld to make sure I'm not re-inventing the wheel. Do you have any experiences with non-European fey?

Also, I'm trying to avoid making deities into fey, though in many of these cultures, particularly the Egyptian culture, it is a fine line.

The Cultures IMC:
* Ayeer: Persian (as inspired by Shahnameh and Sassanids)
* Carthia: Venetian Renaissance with Etruscan/Gaulish polytheism mixed with the Holy Land, based on Carthiginian empire
* Hatares: Amazons of Amazigh (Berber), Ethiopian, and Scythian cultures
* Khemti: Egyptian (New Kingdom)
* Mazinderan: Rakshasa myth, India (as inspired by Ramayana) with touch of pre-Islamic Arabia
* Sapta-Sindhu: India with touch of James Gurney's Dinotopia
* (as yet unnamed): A blend of Greek and Turkish cultures, inspired by the Byzantine empire

Current Resources:
Egyptian Tales edited by W.M. Flinders Petrie (London, 1899)
Egyptian Wonder Tales of the Ancient World by James Baikie (Athena Books)
Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino (Harcourt Brace, 1980)
A Complete Guide to Faeries & Magical Beings by Cassandra Eason (Red Wheel, 2002)
Such is the Way of Faeries: A Guide to Thornwode Deeps by Thomas Moudry, Stacy Higgs, and Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Sovereign Press)
Complete Guide to the Fey by R. Scott Kennan (Goodman Games, 2005)
Faeries by John Snead and Sarah Link (Atlas Games, 2002)
Fey Feature Archive by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel and Faith M. Price (Wizards of the Coast, 2002-2004)
Faerie Encounters by Daniel J. Bishop, copyright 2005 (http://www.enworld.org/article.php?a=121)
Leylines by Scott Moore, copyright 2004 (http://www.d20zines.com/html/module...e=article&sid=960&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0)
Faeries by Bryon Wischstadt (Bastion Press)

I was involved in a similar project in a campaign I put together about two years ago. Here's what I got:

Persia: The peris and their various kin.
Japan: The fox people and the tengu.
Irish: The Tuath de Danaan.
Germanic: Elfs.
Iroquoian: Little Turtle People.
Algonkian (SE): Children of Jipjakimak.
Today: Hollywood. (Just think about the changelings Brad and Angelina are collecting!)

There is an argument to be made that the Hellenistic world was actually without fey in the way that they exist in most other cultures -- they tended not to have elaborate hierarchical societies of idealized aristocracies; this was something more often attributed to gods.

A German academic writing on transitions in how people perceived forests in the Middle Ages came up with an interesting rule about fey in mythology: large fey die off with megafauna and, as large animals are hunted to extinction, the physical size of fey declines with that of animals.

fusangite said:

I was involved in a similar project in a campaign I put together about two years ago. Here's what I got:

Persia: The peris and their various kin.
Japan: The fox people and the tengu.
Irish: The Tuath de Danaan.
Germanic: Elfs.
Iroquoian: Little Turtle People.
Algonkian (SE): Children of Jipjakimak.
Today: Hollywood. (Just think about the changelings Brad and Angelina are collecting!)

There is an argument to be made that the Hellenistic world was actually without fey in the way that they exist in most other cultures -- they tended not to have elaborate hierarchical societies of idealized aristocracies; this was something more often attributed to gods.

A German academic writing on transitions in how people perceived forests in the Middle Ages came up with an interesting rule about fey in mythology: large fey die off with megafauna and, as large animals are hunted to extinction, the physical size of fey declines with that of animals.

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I agree that the Hellenistic world didn't have fey in the same sense as other cultures, but if you want fey in that setting it seems like it would be simple to use creatures such as nymphs and dryads for that purpose. And for your Persian-inspired culture you could use djinni and mephits, perhaps altered to make them a bit less formidable than their Monster Manual versions.

sniffles said:

I agree that the Hellenistic world didn't have fey in the same sense as other cultures, but if you want fey in that setting it seems like it would be simple to use creatures such as nymphs and dryads for that purpose.

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Agreed.

And for your Persian-inspired culture you could use djinni and mephits, perhaps altered to make them a bit less formidable than their Monster Manual versions.

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Persian fey, primarily, are peris, the creatures we get the name "fairy" from. No reason not to go with pretty conventional fey here. Many things we now associate with elves and fairies were, like the institution of univesity, imported from the Muslim world during the Scholastic Renaissance.

Great comments, thanks!

I'd argue that Hellenistic world faeries most certainly existed in the mythology!
While the Greeks used the word daimon ("spirit"), it referred to non-mortal non-divine beings of the natural world - nymphs, satyrs, sileni, etc. Clearly faeries. Even the river goods of Greek myth could be classified as fairies. There are several examples of Greek fairy "courts", such as groups of hairy-men (bacchae) who gather at special hills.

I am convinced that the Hellenistic world had faerie tales in every culture. As you pointed out, fusangite, the Iroquois had Little Turtle People.

This begs the question: What is (and is not) a faerie?

Quickleaf said:

Great comments, thanks!

I'd argue that Hellenistic world faeries most certainly existed in the mythology!
While the Greeks used the word daimon ("spirit"), it referred to non-mortal non-divine beings of the natural world - nymphs, satyrs, sileni, etc.

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Actually, daemon was more typically assigned to non-corporeal beings, the Greek equivalent of Judean angels. As far as I know, this is not how these creatures were usually referred to.

Daemon also connotes intermediation; daemons were usually not their own society but messengers who communicated between humans and the gods. Having a complex hierarchical society of their own is, in my view, a property of faeries.

Even the river goods of Greek myth could be classified as fairies. There are several examples of Greek fairy "courts", such as groups of hairy-men (bacchae) who gather at special hills.

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The bacchae are a good case; I can buy them as being in the same class as faeries. But I had always considered them to be in the same class as human monstrosities like the dog-headed men rather than equivalents of nymphs et al.

I am convinced that the Hellenistic world had faerie tales in every culture.

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Why? Why does that need to be true? Find me some Judean faeries.

As you pointed out, fusangite, the Iroquois had Little Turtle People.

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And the Ojibway did not.

This begs the question: What is (and is not) a faerie?

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Here's mine: Creatures that are not human but have an ancient history and impressive hierarchical society of their own, who inhabit hidden or lost places in ecologically marginal regions and seek to avoid direct human contact and, in the event of contact, direct confrontation, in favour of covert ways of acting.

fusangite said:

Daemon also connotes intermediation; daemons were usually not their own society but messengers who communicated between humans and the gods. Having a complex hierarchical society of their own is, in my view, a property of faeries.

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I didn't know this about the meaning of the word "daemon". Thanks!
Certainly there are faeries who exist outside of the hierarchical society, like the Hunt?

Why? Why does that need to be true?

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It doesn't need to be true, I just have a hunch.
For my purposes, I want the nature spirits in my campaign world to be a pervasive presence.

Find me some Judean faeries.

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Actually, the Talmud tells the tale of Ben Temalion, allegedly a demon who helped Simon when he went to Rome to get edicts against the Jews revoked. Ben Temalion offered to enter the body of a Roman princess and not leave until Simon whispered his name, upon which all glass in the palace would shatter. Everything occured as Ben Temalion promised.

Due to the Ben Temalion's helpfulness French Jews considered him a kind of "lutin" (meaning goblin or brownie). The Tosafists give Bentemalion the appearance of a child and portray him as sporting with women. A variant of this story appears in the Jewish folktales: "The Goblin and the Princess": An obliging little ogre helps two wise men convince the Roman emperor to let the Jews continue to observe the Sabbath and their holy laws. Admitedly, these views are later interpretations, but when you consider that Ben Temalion was a helpful spirit it seems to make sense.

And the Ojibway did not.

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Really? What about giants and Wendigo spirits? Are these fey or something else?
There is a Chippewa/Ojibwa story about the lazy south wind Shawondasee who was so lazy he couldn't pursue a green-clothed woman with golden yello hair. Of course, it's a funny story, and at the end the woman is revealed to be a meadow dandelion, but still, it makes you wonder...

Here's mine: Creatures that are not human but have an ancient history and impressive hierarchical society of their own, who inhabit hidden or lost places in ecologically marginal regions and seek to avoid direct human contact and, in the event of contact, direct confrontation, in favour of covert ways of acting.

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I like your definition.
Defining fey seems very difficult to me because there always seems to be a couple fey who break the definition. For example: Many Italian folktales refer to hearth spirits who, while hidden from view, inhabitated people's homes. Also, peasant faeries would trade with humans, and while they appeared dwarf-like, they were definitely out in the open.

Quickleaf said:

I didn't know this about the meaning of the word "daemon". Thanks!
Certainly there are faeries who exist outside of the hierarchical society, like the Hunt?

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The hunt looks hierarchical to me. If it weren't hierarchical, the Horned King wouldn't be such a consistent element.

Actually, the Talmud tells the tale of Ben Temalion, allegedly a demon who helped Simon when he went to Rome to get edicts against the Jews revoked. Ben Temalion offered to enter the body of a Roman princess and not leave until Simon whispered his name, upon which all glass in the palace would shatter. Everything occured as Ben Temalion promised. Due to the Ben Temalion's helpfulness French Jews considered him a kind of "lutin" (meaning goblin or brownie).

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This is why I said "Judean" and not "Jewish." I am quite confident that Jews living in the Germano-Celtic world would believe in fairies much as they understood various other Judean ideas in the matrix of Northern European culture.

Really? What about giants and Wendigo spirits? Are these fey or something else?

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I think your fey basket is bigger than mine. These things don't have the kind of elaborated society or mischevious/covert nature I tend to associate with fairies.

I think if the fey basket is made too big, it becomes hard to see any mythological being that is not a god falling outside of it.

Defining fey seems very difficult to me because there always seems to be a couple fey who break the definition. For example: Many Italian folktales refer to hearth spirits who, while hidden from view, inhabitated people's homes. Also, peasant faeries would trade with humans, and while they appeared dwarf-like, they were definitely out in the open.

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Definitely no definition can be airtight. The Tengu are a pretty liminal case, for instance, because they lack an elaborated society; any after-the-fact transcultural definition of fey/fairy is going to be hugely problematic.

Nonetheless, I thought I'd stake out a position because, having had to co-GM my fairy campaign, my fellow GM and I spent a lot of time hammering something out that we could both live with.

ack! where was this thread when i was making up my fey creature query for Dragon mag!

I don't know where it was, BOZ, but I'm digging fusangite's definition of fay.

I don't really think of most of the spirits from Japanese folklore as being fay, but their nature is definitely a fey one. (If I'm confusing you, look up fay and fey in a good dictionary.) Oriental Adventures has some pretty sweet creatures with the "Fey" type.