You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[drigel]

just for the record - when I ran off with the :
'representations of nature and explanations to events that the ignorant could not themselves' answer, I was thinking of the example of how elves were to blame when a child was born sickly. It was told that they were actually sickly elvish babies that were switched with the healthy human baby.

no offense intended toward the celts or any otherwise uncivilized culture

[Lalwendë]

Some more thoughts...

I think that the Faerie of SOWM quite literally is Tolkien's Faerie, but that's because Tolkien seems to have had a particular notion of what faerie was/is. I think that his Faerie, rather than being an Otherworld place was in fact the imagination, the realm within people. The star in SOWM could represent the imagination and the passing on of this could represent the encouragement of further generations to explore the Faerie within.

fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being.

Tolkien says that a fairy story is not about the people who live there, but about the place. How does this square up with his work set in Arda? We do not actually get to see very much of the Undying Lands, as the books are set in Middle-earth, and we might expect that the former would be the 'Faerie' of the story.

I think the answer to this depends on how much the books are about the places or about the people. If the answer tends towards the latter then maybe the books aren't about Faerie or Tolkien's idea of Faerie at all.

Getting back to what Tolkien said in On Fairy stories, I have to note that this was his opinion on what good Fairy Stories ought to be like, and though I agree with most of what he says, it does not necessarily apply to Faerie itself. He says that 'pigwiggenry' ought to have no place in a good fairy story, but that doesn't mean it would have no place in Faerie; if pixies wished to ride around on earwigs in Faerie then no doubt they would, it's that kind of tricksy place (I should imagine... ). What Tolkien was trying to get across in his essay is that a good Fairy story ought also to be good Art, while Faerie itself would have no respect for such a notion as Art.



Amusing Footnote: I was googling for a reference on 'pigwiggenry' and only about 14 entries came up, one of which was the latest canonicity thread on the Downs. Hmmm....

[drigel]

And to rural peoples everywhere.

Here as well to a certain extent. No fairies, but plenty of ghosts and spririts, mothmen and Jersey Devils. I probably shouldnt use ignorant as a descriptor. But, come to think of it, saying that tsunamis and hurricanes and earthquakes happen to people because God is angry with them is way, way ignorant IMO.

And so we have Smith, in itself & particularly in the Smith essay. This particular 'Secondary World' & its inhabitants is another 'betwixt & between' realm, but this time it stands 'betwixt & between' the 'High', 'Christian' Faerie of the Legendarium & the simple 'rural' Faery of tradition. Yet even so it is closer to Middle-earth than to the 'Fair Elfland' of True Thomas. Perhaps if he had lived he would have moved even closer to the traditional Faery.

It's what makes this all the more interesting - reading that I find that physicality of Faery in the essay very real. And the people and objects transitioning between here and there very real and mostly ordinary. It's almost approaching a middle ground of sorts in SOWM. Facinating! I agree with your conclusion here, and would find it much more interesting to see how he would evolve and/or combine these seemingly disparate Faeries, than reading anything about a 4th age "New Shadow". Alas..

Tolkien says that a fairy story is not about the people who live there, but about the place.

He says that 'pigwiggenry' ought to have no place in a good fairy story, but that doesn't mean it would have no place in Faerie

We seem to see in Tolkien a conflicted artist - 'torn in two'.

So is my brain trying to work this out. Is the stigma of validating things pagan too much of a conflict? Would it have been not so if Tolkien was Protestant? Agnostic?

[davem]

Its interesting that SoWM was the last thing Tolkien published. Of his other post LotR published writings, what do we have? The 'Notes for Translators of LotR published in Lobdell's A Tolkien Compass, the co-authored Road Goes Ever On - anything else?

Yet what we now find is that Tolkien didn't simply write Smith as a short story & leave it at that - he created a whole backstory for it, giving depth & history to the secondary world. In early drafts of Smith the story was to some degree linked into the world of Middle-earth:

When he got it down, he found that very little of the spices was left, and that was rather dry and musty, but in one compartment he found a ring, black-looking as if it was made of silver and was tarnished. 'That's funny!' he said, as he held it up to the light. 'NO, it isn't!' said a voice that made him jump; for it was the voice of his apprentice who had come in behind him, and he had never yet dared to speak first before he was spoken to. He was only a small boy; bright and quick, 'but he has a lot to learn yet' (so the cook thought).
So 'What do you mean, my lad' said the cook, not much pleased. 'If it isn't funny, what is it?' 'It's a magic ring' said the apprentice. Then the cook laughed. 'All right, all right,' he said. 'Call it what you like! You'll grow up someday. Now you can get on with stoning the raisins; and if you notice any magic ones tell me'.
'What are you going to do with the ring?' said the apprentice. 'Put it in the cake, of course,' said the cook. 'Surely you have been to children's parties
yourself, and not so long ago, where little trinkets like this were stirred into the mixture, and little silver coins and what not: it amuses the children.' 'But Cook? this is not a trinket, it's a magic ring' said the apprentice. 'So you've said before' said the Cook crossly. 'Very well, I'll tell the children. It'll make them laugh.'

One day, however, he was walking through a wood in Fairy, and it was autumn there, and there were red leaves on the boughs and on the ground. Footsteps came behind, but he was thinking about the leaves, and did not turn round. A man caught up with him, and said suddenly at his side: "Are you going my way, Gilthir?" For that was his name (Starbrow) in Fairy; at home he was called Alfred Smithson. "What is your way?" he answered. "I am going home", said the man, and Alfred looked at him and saw that it was the Apprentice: a tall man now, but he stooped a little, and had lines on his brow and face, though he was only a few years older than Alfred. "So am I," he said; "we will walk together."

Magic Rings & a Quenya name for Smith! Yet Tolkien removes these 'links' & moves the story away from Middle-earth. Perhaps he felt that such references would impose too many restrictions on his freedom & he wanted to explore another Faery - or explore Faery in a new way. He can't break free of his established Faery (ie Middle-earth) because the moral value system remains, yet it is in many ways a different world & the Faeries have new motives (albeit entirely Tolkienesque ones rather than traditional ones).

In speculating on possible endings for Smith Tolkien wrote:

When the Smith comes home after surrendering the star, should any more be said than has been about what became of him? In earlier draft it is said that he could go back to Fayery, for the mark of the star that had been on his brow was still visible to the folk of Fayery; but he could not go deep in, nor ever visit any new place or see any new thing that he had not already seen. (This has a significance, of course: a time comes for writers and artists, when invention and Vision' cease and they can only reflect on what they have seen and learned.)

So, we have Tolkien stating ' a time comes for writers and artists, when invention and Vision' cease and they can only reflect on what they have seen and learned.' at the same time as he is creating a brand new Secondary world - without the depth of Middle-earth, certainly, but still he is doing far more than merely 'reflecting on what he has seen & learned'. Indeed, this essay, in its own way, is as profound & important an exploration of Faery & Fairy stories as 'On Fairy Stories'. The analysis of the nature of Faery & the motives of its inhabitants is in some ways even more profound.

It is a 'Fairy Story', of the kind in which beings that may be called 'fairies' or 'elves' play a part and are associates in action with human people, and are regarded as having a 'real' existence, that is one in their own right and independent of human imagination and invention...

This is an interesting statement in light of the quote from OFS given by Lalwende

fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being.

He seems to be using a different definition of 'Fairy Stories' in the Smith essay - in OFS Fairy Stories are not stories about Fairies, but in SoWM - which is a Fairy Story according to Tolkien, Fairies are central characters - they are the initiators of the action. Smith is given the 'freedom of Faery':

In such stories there must be some way or ways of access from and to Faery, available at least to Elves as to favoured mortals. But it is also necessary that Faery and the World (of Men), though in contact, should occupy a different time and space, or occupy them in different modes. Thus though it appears that the Smith can enter Faery more or less at will (being specially favoured), it is evident that it is a land, or world of unknown limits, containing seas and mountains; also it is plain that even during a brief visit (such as one on an evening walk) he can spend a great deal longer in Faery than his absence counts in the world; on his long journeys an absence from home of, say, a week is sufficient for exploration and experiences in Faery equivalent to months or even years. ...

But then it gets interesting in other ways:

But also this must be considered: the Faery of this tale is a particular one. If one accepts it, while 'within' the tale, then clearly the Rulers of Faery — who are presented as interested in Men (not necessarily primarily) and beneficently - must be able to arrange that the experiences in Faery of favoured human persons may be enjoyed without dislocation of their normal human life. The time of their Faery must be different, even though it may be at points contiguous. For them human time is or may be also longer than that of Faery. The King dwells in Wootton for 58 years. ..

'This' Faery is a particular one - how many Faery's are there? According to OFS really just the one. Faery is, maybe, still the human imagination - or the human imagination fired by some 'Other' place or state, but it seems there is now more than one Faery. But however many there are they are not 'illusions', but objective states of being:

Entry into the 'geographical' bounds of Faery also involves entry into Faery Time. How does a mortal 'enter' the geographical realm of Faery? Evidently not in dream or illusion. Physical objects, such as the star, the Living Flower, and the elvish toy, survive transplantation from Faery to the World...

Faery(s) is not defined or limited, & it seems that only part of it has a relationship with the human world, only certain of its inhabitants are concerned with humanity - but those that are are on a mission to 'save' mankind & the human world (& by extension their own:

But in this tale Forest and Tree remain dominant symbols. They occur in three of the four 'remembered' and recorded experiences of the Smith — before his leave-taking of the Queen. They do not occur in the first, because it is at that point that he discovers that Faery is 'limitless' and is mainly involved in vast regions and events that do not concern Men and are impenetrable by them. ..

It is probable that the world of Faery could not exist* without our world, and is affected by the events in it — the reverse being also true. The 'health' of both is affected by state of the other. Men have not the power to assist the Fdvenfolk in the ordering and defence of their realm; but the Elves have the power (subject to finding co-operation from within) to assist mm the protection of our world, especially in the attempt to re-direct Men when their development tends to the defacing or destruction of their world. The Elves may thus have also an enlightened self-interest in human affairs. ..

Faery needs the human world, just as much as humans need Faery. Yet only the Faeries realise this at the beginning of the story. But Tolkien himself also recognises this need, this interrelationship. Except, according to him it is not traditional Faery that we need, but this very precisely defined creation that he sets before us.

Still no nearer....

[drigel]

One aspect of Tolkien's Elves which is world's away from the traditional figures (particularly the Irish Sidhe) is in their sexual mores. The Fairies of tradition are notoriously lascivious & this sexual element was extremely shocking to the early Christian redactors of the Pagan material.

I keep coming back to this thought. From what Ive been exposed to, it seems the traditional view on sexuality is one sided. The faeries being the aggressor as it were. Their human victims either being duped, or forced into the relationship. Is this right? Or do I need to dig up more material?

Contrast this with the Legendarium, where the few times (at least with the "higher elves") it happened it was very much mutual, and the Choice had to be made. Producing offspring for elves was also very much a Task, the sexuality nothing more than a means to the end.

Of course, initially, my modern mind views the traditional model as mainly an excuse: "I was faithfull, really! It was a confounded elf that accosted me!", etc. But anyways, the stuff I read the tryst has been either forced, coerced, or manipulated in some way by faerie, resulting in either a cursed or magiked baby, and / or the disappearance of the victim.

[davem]

Originally Posted by drigel

I keep coming back to this thought. From what Ive been exposed to, it seems the traditional view on sexuality is one sided. The faeries being the aggressor as it were. Their human victims either being duped, or forced into the relationship. Is this right? Or do I need to dig up more material?

As I understand it, it could work both ways - there's an analysis of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth here:. Especially

There were also more sinister aspects to human/fairy interactions.
Most people have heard of changelings, where a human baby is taken away
from its parents and a defective fairy child left in its place. But the
Subterraneans did not balk at taking adults away too. They particularly
liked women who'd just given birth. They were kidnapped to serve as wet
nurses to fairy babies. Interestingly, the fairies would leave exact
doubles of their captives behind. Kirk discusses these doppelgangers,
who he calls "co-walkers," in some detail. Like changeling infants,
co-walkers tend to weaken, become incoherent, and eventually die.
They're not human or fairy, but a sort of biological robot created by
fairy magic to distract mortals away from the truth about the abduction
of their loved ones. UFO lore is full of co-walker types. Many of the
classic "men in black" episodes feature clumsy, muddle-mouthed visitors
who don't quite seem in sync with the mundane world. MIBs, like
co-walkers, perform some task, then depart -- though they don't usually
die in front of puzzled witnesses.

Kirk gives this account of one woman's abduction (I have modernized
his spelling):

"Among other instances of undoubted verity, proving in these the being
of such aerial people, or species of creatures not vulgarly known, I
add the subsequent relations, some whereof I have from my acquaintance
with the actors and patients and the rest from the eyewitnesses to the
matter of fact. The first whereof shall be of the woman taken out of
her child-bed, and having a lingering image of her substituted body in
her room, which resemblance decayed, died, and was buried. But the
person stolen returning to her husband after two years space, he being
convinced by many undeniable tokens that she was his former wife,
admitted her home and had diverse children by her. Among other reports
she gave her husband, this was one: that she perceived little what they
[the fairies] did in the spacious house she lodged in, until she
anointed one of her eyes with a certain unction that was by her; which
they perceiving to have acquainted her with their actions, they fained
her blind of that eye with a puff of their breath. She found the place
full of light, without any fountain or lamp from whence it did spring."

Kirk goes on to say the returned woman was undoubtedly the same one
everyone thought had died, and that her husband, having remarried since
her "death," was obliged to divorce his second wife to remarry his
first.

& an article on Selkies gives:

The male members among the selkie-folk were renowned for their many encounters with human females - married and unmarried.

A selkie man in human form was a handsome creature with almost magical seductive powers over mortal women. These selkie men had no qualms in casting off their sealskins, stashing them carefully, before heading inland to seek illicit intercourse with an 'unsatisfied woman'.

Should such a mortal woman wish to make contact with a selkie man, there was a specific rite that she had to follow. At the high tide, the woman should make her way to the shore where she had to shed seven tears into the sea.

The selkie man would then come ashore and after removing his magical sealskin, would seek out 'unlawful love' among the women of the island.

In the words of the Orkney folklorist Walter Traill Dennison, these selkie males:

"..often made havoc among thoughtless girls, and sometimes intruded into the sanctity of married life."
If a girl went missing while out on the ebb or at sea, it was inevitably said that her selkie lover had taken her to his watery domain - assuming, of course, she had not attracted the eye of a Finman.

But if the males of the selkie race were irresistable to the island women, selkie women were no less alluring to the eyes of earth-born men.

The most common theme in selkie-folklore is one in which a cunning young Orcadian man acquires, either by trickery or theft, a selkie girl's sealskin.

This prevented her from returning to her home in the sea and the beautiful seal-maiden was usually forced to marry their 'captors' and sire children.

These tales generally end sadly, however, with the selkie wife's children finding and returning her sealskin so that she might return to the sea. In some accounts her children go with her while others have them remaining with their mortal father.

Six of one, half dozen of the other, so to speak.

[Numenorean]

Greetings Davem, Drigel , Lalwendë et al, sorry to backtrack a wee bit on this fascinating thread of yours, but I’ve also often pondered aspects of Tolkiens Faerie and its reflections/divergences from the Faerie of folklore and tradition.

Davem:

Thinking about it, (& with drigel's earlier mention in mind)I find the Elves of TH quite 'traditional'

Certainly in comparison to the Elves who undertook the Great Journey and received wisdom and strength from Valinor, particularly the Noldo who returned to Middle Earth with their lordly ways and crafts. I find that the Mirkwood Elves- as described in the Hobbit - have a fey quality to them very reminiscent of the Faeries of British tradition, their behaviour can also be seen to reflect this feyness. Firstly they seem to bewitch and tease Bilbo and the starving Dwarves with illusive twinkling lights and tantalising glimpses of a wondrous unattainable woodland feast, then they repeatedly disappear entirely leaving the group in terrible danger near and at the mercy of the large evil spider colony. Furthermore, the Mirkwood Elves also have no hesitation in kidnapping, imprisoning and placing a spell on Thorin, and I find all these incidents to have a strong echo of traditional Faerie shenanighans – let alone the drunkenness and revelry. On P.162 of the Hobbit Tolkien describes them thus:

Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.

Dangerous indeed. The very gates, the physical manifestation of the Elvenkings inner realm are also notably magical, Thranduil himself says “There is no escape from my magic doors for those who are once brought inside.”

As has already been discussed, the Elves from Valinor are very different and feel more ‘humanized’/Christianised than the Avari and the Faeries of folklore. However, I also perceive a strong seam of what Drigel calls the ‘unhindered, chaotic, wild and untamed aspect’ of Faerie, in at least some of the other Elves of Tolkiens Legendarium. In this regard the first of whom that springs to mind are the Green-elves of Ossiriand:
The Silmarillion.(P171) has these two intriguing passages concerning them and their relationship with Men:

Now the Green-elves of Ossiriand were troubled by the coming of Men, and when they heard that a lord of the Eldar from over the Sea was among them they sent messengers to Felagund.’Lord,’ they said, ‘if you have power over these newcomers, bid them return by the ways that they came, or else to go forward. For we desire no strangers in this land to break the peace in which we live. And these folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all the ways that we can.’

I am particularly drawn to Tolkiens use of the words ‘unfriends’ and ‘afflict’ in that passage, and note that the Green-elves do not confront Men directly here, rather they use a go-between – a ‘humanised’ Elf from Valinor, further distancing themselves from Men folk, humans. Are their words merely threatening with no real intent as it were? I tend to think not, I get the sense that they are genuinely and actively hostile to Men, as the next passage reveals, Silmarillion.(P171):

First came the Haladin; but meeting the unfriendship of the Green-elves they turned north and dwelt in Thargelion, in the country of Caranthir son of Feanor

Given what we know of the deep moral fortitude and grim determination of the Haladin, the unfriendship of the Green-elves must have been considerably fierce to spur them into such a retreat. It may also be worth considering that from the point-of-view of the Haladin folk, the Green-elves most probably never revealed either themselves or their ‘reasons’ for afflicting them, and that feels quite wild and disturbing to me.

In Beleriand there are also individual Elves who seem to be borderline traditional Faerie if not wholly so. Eol, Maeglin and Saeros all pervade an aura of darkness, a sense of mystery and of unfathomable hostility towards change as it were, and Men folk particularly.

You mentioned earlier Davem:

they (Faeries) made the natural world a place of terror, a place to be avoided. It was their realm and humans entered at their peril. There is an echo of that in Doriath and Lorien

I would maybe also add Nan Elmoth and Nan Dungortheb, despite the fact that the latter was not an Elven realm as such, it certainly bordered them. This dreadful valley had an atmosphere of enmeshing shadows, fell creatures and poisoned streams, any or all of which could prove utterly perilous to the unwary traveller who tried to cross it. Tolkiens world, or the fear inspiring wildness of traditional Faerie?