Folklore

People have throughout the ages held a fascination for caves. A wide variety of traditions associated with caves occurs in Welsh folklore and the stories may concern smuggling, secret places where heroes are sleeping or fugitives have hidden, treasure has been...

The fairies of the Medieval Romances grew out of the Celtic tradition of the Heroic Fairies, the knights and ladies of the MABINOGION, the Daoine Sidh who encountered the Milesians in love or battle; but the poets and dramatists of the Elizabethan age brought a...

Among the many beliefs held about the fairies, there is one strand which describes them as beautiful in appearance, but with a deformity which they cannot always hide. The Scandinavian ellewomen, for instance, have beautiful faces, but if looked at from behind are...

In the middle ages fairy aristocrats were thought to be the most beautiful of fairylands people and their heroic exploits were described in legends about King Authur, in the Border ballads and in medieval romance. In many stories they were led by a King and a Queen...

Most nature fairies are the descendents of pre-Christian Gods and Goddesses, or of the spirits of streams, lakes and trees. Black Annis, a blue faced said to haunt the Dane Hills of Leicestershire, and Gentle Annie, who governs storms in the Scottish Lowlands may be...

It has been recently hypothesised that many of the alien and UFO sighings that are being constantly reported, are actually sightings of faeries. Cultural tracking, first brought to our notice by Jacques Vallée in his 1970 classic Passport to Magonia , demonstraits the...

Clean Hearth – The first recipe in old days for encouraging fairy visits and gaining fairy favours was to leave the hearth swept and the fire clear. This seems some indication of the contention that domestic fairies were of the type of the Lares, the ancestral...

Fay or Faery are sometimes divided into two classes which includes the trooping or solitary fairies. Solitary generally being the less friendly of the two. It is a distinction that hold good throughout the British Isles, and is indeed valid wherever fairy beliefs are...

The Urisk is an extremely hideous creature with deeply wrinkled skin, patches of hair, feathers that grow from their backs and huge misshapen heads. If human stumbles upon them they are struck with fear and runaway to safety. He haunts lonely pools and waterfalls....

The name of the fairies in Gower of Wales. In some parts of Wales Tylwyth Teg is never used to describe fairies; Verry Volk is used instead. Verry Volk were always little people who dressed in scarlet and green; and they generally showed themselves dancing on moonlit...