Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
Since the tone of the book is more serious and academic, here is some fact checking.
The term "fey" with an e is a misnomer. The proper term is "fay" with an a, from Old French "faie", from medieval Latin "fata", construed as feminine singular rather than neuter plural, and meaning a "fate". Compare the traditions about Morgan le Fay.
By contrast, "fey" with an e derives from a different word, Old English fæge, cognate with Old Norse feigr, meaning "doomed", in the sense of dead-man-walking on the way to the execution.
D&D 4e intentionally chose the incorrect spelling as part of its darker-and-edgier design approach, and possibly because fairy were out of fashion some decades earlier, and possibly because of transphobia and homophobia relating to the derogatory use of "fairy" for a biological male who is transexual or homosexual.
In any case, an encounter with a fay sometimes did cause a doomed "fate", so there is some semantic overlap between fay and fey in the sense of no longer belonging to the world of humans.
In Middle English, a "fairie" (faie +erie) (spelled variously) means the realm of a fay. It is the general term for any kind of magic, and simply means "magic". In Old French and Anglo-French, the concept of a seer using words to foretell the future came to assume a mage using words to change the future, whence magic words.
The term fairie creature meant any kind of magical creature, and by extension "fairie" also meant an otherworldly place of magic, where the fays lived along with any other kind of magical creature. In the original sense of a personification of fate, a "fay" is always a female. The males of this species are called fairie men, in the sense of the men from the place of fairie. The males are mages too, and personify magic, but dont formally embody fate the way that a fay does.
By the time of Modern English of the renaissance, the term fairie had come more and more to specify a specific kind of magical creature, relating to the "fairy" that Shakespeare describes. To disambiguate, the term "fairy land" came to refer to the otherworldly spirit world. Also to disambiguate, Modern English reused the term "magic" from the New Testament mention of the three magi, plus Latin commentaries about the "mage" (Latin magus, from Greek magos), to serve as the term for any kind of magic generally.
Shakespeare describes the "fairy" species as humansize but always a youth, whether a teen or a child. They are wingless immaterial spirits who personify fate and magic, where fertile soil correlates a good fate. Their youthfulness characterizes how they are ethically amoral but innocent in the same way a human child might be. As a spirit, the fairy has the ability to shrink in size, like an airy gas, like angels can. By the Romantic Period, 1800s, the iconography to depict a fairy tended to present them in their tiny form, sometimes with insect wings, to suggest their gaseous flight as beings made out of spirit.
While the term fairy normally means this specific modern creature, the original sense of any kind of magical creature occasionally persisted, whence uncertainty about the species involved, and even the terms fairy, sprite, goblin, elf, and so on being used interchangeably, depending on the dialect of English.
Since the scope of the book doesnt seem to cover Europe, including Hellenic, Slavic, Iberic, Italic, etcetera, I would avoid mentioning the term "Europe". I would simply refer to "the folkbelief of various cultures in and near the British Ilses". Heh, there seems to be no intention to represent Europe, nevermind anywhere outside of Europe.
It is the British tradition that abstracts and blends everything together from other cultures into a fairy realm. Other European cultures dont do this. For example, in renaissance Britain, Pluto/Hades is interpreted as if the monarch of a particular fairy court, but Greeks themselves would not perceive Hades as such.
The Norse alfar and dvergar arent "fay". They are animistic "beings" (vættir). (For D&D 5e, they arent Fey, and probably best translate into the Elemental creature type but being part of the Material Plane, similar to the chwanga. The being is a particular mountain or waterfall or glacier, etcetera, in the physical world.) A "being" is the mind of a natural object, such as fire or a particular mountain. A human is also a kind of "being" in the sense that the material body has a mind.
The concept of "fay", "fairie", and "fairy" are uniquely British. Albeit interpreting and borrowing from references in Paneuro literature, the fairy results from the mutual influences of the diverse cultures who are in Britain. In Britain, the fairy is a spirit from an otherworldly spirit world. Not so for the Norse, where "alfheimr" is part of the normal sky above the clouds and relating to sunlight.
For the animistic Norse, the "being" (vættr) is a normal feature of nature. Each feature has a mind. For the British cultures, a fairy is an otherworldly spirit who controls a feature of nature. The different point of view is profound and it is importat to avoid ethnocentric assumptions when dicussing an other culture.
When discussing Nordic cultures, the earlier Norse concepts of æsir and jotnar later evolved into "troll", under the influence of Paneuro literature. The concept of "troll", literally meaning "mage" and "magic", served as a rough approximation of the British concept of "fairie", which also means "magic". The earlier sky beings mostly merged with the Christian heavens (Baldr=Christ, alfar=angels, Odin=devil), and the remaining beings came to be understood as members of the same family whose members have diverse appearances. A beautiful troll might be the child of a grotesque parent, and viceversa. Sometimes a goodlooking troll is called a rise (=risi) or hulder (hidden one, undergrounder), and a monstrous troll called a tusse (=þurs). Two siblings might be one humansize and the other mountainsize. But all of the nature features of a particular locale are one family, often with a prominent mountain as the parent.
The warning notice mentions "mysogyny", but needs to mention transphobia and homophobia as well. The absence of stories about a princess who rescues and partners an other princess, etcetera, is part of how systematic and widespread the hate against trans and gays was during the 1800s, when academics recorded much of the folkbeliefs. Perhaps the academics even came across such accounts but censored them for legal reasons or fear of becoming victims of the hatespeech themselves.
The term "fey" with an e is a misnomer. The proper term is "fay" with an a, from Old French "faie", from medieval Latin "fata", construed as feminine singular rather than neuter plural, and meaning a "fate". Compare the traditions about Morgan le Fay.
By contrast, "fey" with an e derives from a different word, Old English fæge, cognate with Old Norse feigr, meaning "doomed", in the sense of dead-man-walking on the way to the execution.
D&D 4e intentionally chose the incorrect spelling as part of its darker-and-edgier design approach, and possibly because fairy were out of fashion some decades earlier, and possibly because of transphobia and homophobia relating to the derogatory use of "fairy" for a biological male who is transexual or homosexual.
In any case, an encounter with a fay sometimes did cause a doomed "fate", so there is some semantic overlap between fay and fey in the sense of no longer belonging to the world of humans.
In Middle English, a "fairie" (faie +erie) (spelled variously) means the realm of a fay. It is the general term for any kind of magic, and simply means "magic". In Old French and Anglo-French, the concept of a seer using words to foretell the future came to assume a mage using words to change the future, whence magic words.
The term fairie creature meant any kind of magical creature, and by extension "fairie" also meant an otherworldly place of magic, where the fays lived along with any other kind of magical creature. In the original sense of a personification of fate, a "fay" is always a female. The males of this species are called fairie men, in the sense of the men from the place of fairie. The males are mages too, and personify magic, but dont formally embody fate the way that a fay does.
By the time of Modern English of the renaissance, the term fairie had come more and more to specify a specific kind of magical creature, relating to the "fairy" that Shakespeare describes. To disambiguate, the term "fairy land" came to refer to the otherworldly spirit world. Also to disambiguate, Modern English reused the term "magic" from the New Testament mention of the three magi, plus Latin commentaries about the "mage" (Latin magus, from Greek magos), to serve as the term for any kind of magic generally.
Shakespeare describes the "fairy" species as humansize but always a youth, whether a teen or a child. They are wingless immaterial spirits who personify fate and magic, where fertile soil correlates a good fate. Their youthfulness characterizes how they are ethically amoral but innocent in the same way a human child might be. As a spirit, the fairy has the ability to shrink in size, like an airy gas, like angels can. By the Romantic Period, 1800s, the iconography to depict a fairy tended to present them in their tiny form, sometimes with insect wings, to suggest their gaseous flight as beings made out of spirit.
While the term fairy normally means this specific modern creature, the original sense of any kind of magical creature occasionally persisted, whence uncertainty about the species involved, and even the terms fairy, sprite, goblin, elf, and so on being used interchangeably, depending on the dialect of English.
Since the scope of the book doesnt seem to cover Europe, including Hellenic, Slavic, Iberic, Italic, etcetera, I would avoid mentioning the term "Europe". I would simply refer to "the folkbelief of various cultures in and near the British Ilses". Heh, there seems to be no intention to represent Europe, nevermind anywhere outside of Europe.
It is the British tradition that abstracts and blends everything together from other cultures into a fairy realm. Other European cultures dont do this. For example, in renaissance Britain, Pluto/Hades is interpreted as if the monarch of a particular fairy court, but Greeks themselves would not perceive Hades as such.
The Norse alfar and dvergar arent "fay". They are animistic "beings" (vættir). (For D&D 5e, they arent Fey, and probably best translate into the Elemental creature type but being part of the Material Plane, similar to the chwanga. The being is a particular mountain or waterfall or glacier, etcetera, in the physical world.) A "being" is the mind of a natural object, such as fire or a particular mountain. A human is also a kind of "being" in the sense that the material body has a mind.
The concept of "fay", "fairie", and "fairy" are uniquely British. Albeit interpreting and borrowing from references in Paneuro literature, the fairy results from the mutual influences of the diverse cultures who are in Britain. In Britain, the fairy is a spirit from an otherworldly spirit world. Not so for the Norse, where "alfheimr" is part of the normal sky above the clouds and relating to sunlight.
For the animistic Norse, the "being" (vættr) is a normal feature of nature. Each feature has a mind. For the British cultures, a fairy is an otherworldly spirit who controls a feature of nature. The different point of view is profound and it is importat to avoid ethnocentric assumptions when dicussing an other culture.
When discussing Nordic cultures, the earlier Norse concepts of æsir and jotnar later evolved into "troll", under the influence of Paneuro literature. The concept of "troll", literally meaning "mage" and "magic", served as a rough approximation of the British concept of "fairie", which also means "magic". The earlier sky beings mostly merged with the Christian heavens (Baldr=Christ, alfar=angels, Odin=devil), and the remaining beings came to be understood as members of the same family whose members have diverse appearances. A beautiful troll might be the child of a grotesque parent, and viceversa. Sometimes a goodlooking troll is called a rise (=risi) or hulder (hidden one, undergrounder), and a monstrous troll called a tusse (=þurs). Two siblings might be one humansize and the other mountainsize. But all of the nature features of a particular locale are one family, often with a prominent mountain as the parent.
The warning notice mentions "mysogyny", but needs to mention transphobia and homophobia as well. The absence of stories about a princess who rescues and partners an other princess, etcetera, is part of how systematic and widespread the hate against trans and gays was during the 1800s, when academics recorded much of the folkbeliefs. Perhaps the academics even came across such accounts but censored them for legal reasons or fear of becoming victims of the hatespeech themselves.
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