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Although in modern culture fairies are often depicted as young, sometimes winged humanoids of small stature, they were originally depicted much differently: tall, radiant, angelic beings or short, wizened trolls being some of the commonly mentioned forms. Diminutive fairies of one kind or another have been recorded for centuries, but these occur alongside the human-sized beings which have been depicted as ranging in size from very tiny up to the size of a human child. Even with these small fairies, however, their small size may be magically assumed rather than being a constant.

A fairy contemplating her fireflies

Wings, while common in Victorian and later artworks of fairies, are very rare in folklore; even very small fairies flew with magic, not with wings, sometimes flying on ragwort stems or on the backs of birds. Nowadays, fairies are often depicted with ordinary insect wings or butterfly wings.

In some folklore Fey have green eyes and often bite. Though they can confuse one with their words, fairies cannot lie. They hate being told ‘thank you’, as they see it as a sign of one forgetting the good deed done, and want something that’ll guarantee remembrance.

Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers. Their origins are less clear in folklore, being variously described as dead, or as some form of demon, or a species completely independent of humans or angels. Folklorists have suggested that their actual origin lies in a conquered race living in hiding, or maybe in religious beliefs that lost currency with the advent of Christianity. These explanations are not necessarily incompatible, and they may be traceable to many sources.

A pretty fairy in the forest

Much of the folklore about fairies revolves around protection from their mischief, by such means as cold iron (iron is like poison to fairies, and they will not go near it) or charms of rowan and herbs, or avoiding offense by avoiding locations known to be used by fairies. In particular, folklore describes how to prevent the fairies from stealing babies and substituting changelings, and abducting older people as well. Many folktales are told of fairies, and they appear as characters in stories from medieval tales of chivalry, to Victorian fairy tales, and up to the present day in modern literature.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

Albert Einstein

With 2 weeks to go to the 2010 Mediaeval fayre things are starting to get frantic in the Magic Stunts office and the strain is starting to show, as it always will just before a big event. It’s unusual, however, for things to be so advanced as far as the organisation is concerned.

A fairy from Taleisin's tribe. In fact the head fairy

We have the live entertainment pretty much sorted out, with the band Skin and Bone along with firedancers, jesters, stiltwakers, fairy, some mediaeval theatre (can’t wait to see this one myself), the armoured fighting, Mediaeval flea market and craft displays which is more than twice the size it was last year.

The Mediaeval theatre and the stilt-walkers are being provided by Taliesin’s tribe, a group of experienced live entertainers that have become very popular at live events here in South Africa and who perform a variety of different items, including firedancing so the evening’s entertainment shows some great promise as there will be at least two groups of fire performers on the field, possibly even three but we’ll wait until they confirm before we tell you who the third group are.

The armoured fighting will be in a display format this time around as a one day event just isn’t long enough to host a full tournament but this is all a build up for next year’s full 2 day event, at which we will have a full contact tourney with prizes offered and some mediaeval jousting.

After all the messing around earlier in the year, it’s quite a relief to finally be here, after 3 date changes and 2 different venues, all of which was of course beyond our control.

Again it’s been a while since i got a chance to sit down and write something about the progress we’re making but here we are on a Sunday night at the end of a long weekend (Tomorrow’s a holiday here so I can stay up late) and a lot has happened since you heard from me last.

Taleisin’s tribe will be coming this year to help us with the entertainment. An awesome bunch of performers with a multitude of skills – Firedancing, stiltwalking, mediaeval theatre, storytelling and much more.

We’ve found horsemen to ride in the stunt shows, although it may be a bit of a squeeze to do the actual jousting display this year so we’ll rescue the princess again in November and plan proper jousting in 2011. There will definitely be medieval type swordfighting and a whole bunch of spectacular stunts, done live.

Go to one of SA’s top event listing websites:

http://www.eventsnow.co.za/eventResult.php?evID=17980