The belief that fairies were elementals – creatures made only of earth, fire, air or water – seems to have been common amongst medieval magicians, who devised complex spells and rituals for raising them and using there powers. One ritual recorded in an early 15th century manuscript now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, involves stripping the bark from three hazel wands, writing the fairies name on the wood, and burying the wands ‘under some hill whereas you suppose fairies haunt’. The fairy will come if she is called on the following Friday, after the wands have been dug up.
In quite a scientific method, Medieval alchemists and mystics, (Paracelsus & The Rosicrucians), the ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece & Rome found beings of nature. They divided them into four catagories:
ANGELS (parallel to the God of Tuatha De Dannan)
DEVILS (Fallen Angels of Christianity)
ELEMENTALS (Sub-Human nature spirits, Greek Daemons)
SOULS (Shades or Ghosts of the dead)
In Modern Time we have dropped the sub-classification of the Elementals and refer to One for each element:
Fire-Salamanders
Earth-Gnomes
Water-Undines
Air-Slyphs
Fire seldom appearing in the world of Fairy they are considered supreme in elemental hierachies. As well it is no longer Fairy Land, It is now Middle Kingdom which resides between kingdom of God and the Underworld. Intermingling with both worlds, which holds Faery-Faith Tradition. While some still cling to the ‘little folk’ or the winged fairies that are invisible to human eye, yet tug at the strings of imagination. Faery can be all things to all people, but hardly what it has been portrayed throughout the history of the Crusades and Christianity. Just as Witches have been set up to be Devil worshippers, Once Gods, were turned into Fairies. Creating Fairy Tales to explain to children why they existed, but changing the story from Gods to Morals.