In the 12th century the fairies appeared , outside of any religion, as if detached from a mythology that has not survived time. These legendary female characters with supernatural powers create their own world of references, tapping into ancient beliefs that have never been fully forgotten. Carriers of memories but free from any system, they are made up of a bundle of ancient traditions which remind us that the language of nature and pagan memory remain anchored in us. Feminists, libertarians, ecologists before their time, what do they tell us about the concerns of men, their concerns, their hopes? How do they embody our eternal need to remain linked to the forces of the imagination, to return to the origin of our dreams and our fantasies?
The fairy at the origins of literature
For nine centuries, fairies have been involved in literary and artistic fields, in myths and legends. It was in the middle of the 12th century that the novel was born, the word for which designates the Romance language, heir to Latin and ancestor of French. This diverts the use of writing hitherto reserved for the transmission of knowledge and religion.
Thus appear stories that are justified by the sole pleasure of reading or listening to them, works of entertainment , the birth of fiction. To compose her lays, Marie de France, the first poetess in the Romance language, collected her stories from the mouths of Breton storytellers. The bards of the courts of England, Champagne, Alsace or Italy who sang their poems took up elements of their ancient mythology to compose them into tales and legends. These themes, inexhaustible sources of inspiration were material for the first novels. It was in this movement that the fairy was born, a newcomer to the repertoire of marvelous stories.
Entrance of the fairies
Uniting their destiny with the everyday life of men, imperfect, ephemeral and fascinating, appeared female creatures of supernatural essence:nymphs, dryads, apsaras (Hindu celestial nymphs, Valkyries etc. .The fairy presents a unique identity that speaks of a special and unprecedented relationship to the spiritual world of a close exchange between this world and the other world.Derived from popular beliefs, she is of great beauty and can distribute Wealth and Benefits.
The origin of the word fairy, from the Latin fata, emphasizes the role fairies play in human destiny, whether they predict it, transform it or master it. Initially an adjective as much as a noun, "fairy" or "fae" designates everything that turns out to be endowed with a supernatural essence:mountain, tree, castle, horse, knight... The verb féer (endowed with magical power) exists and persists very late in folklore. But the fae lady hijacks the word for her exclusive use.
In this word resonates the notion of enchantment, of the marvel (in the medieval sense of the term that which is contrary to the order of nature) which surpasses it in beauty or in horror. At the birth of the character, different terms are used:goddess, nymph, woman of the forests, demon or succubus... without us being able to agree on them. It is difficult to pinpoint the newcomer, who borrows from the goddesses and nature spirits of the Greek and Latin pantheons as much as from those of the woods and waters of the ancient Germans. In it, various traditions of Europe are recomposed, giving a new dimension to the legendary, which allows it to take its place in a society that has become Christian.
A birth in the Celtic world
The characteristics of our fairies are found in ''the Ban Sîd'' (the woman from the other world) of Celtic mythology. Golden hair, pale skin, red mouth, black eyelashes, revealed more than dressed in white, green and gold, she sails on a crystal boat or rides a horse harnessed in silver, accompanied by music. Her favorite areas are fresh water, the sea in the Gaelic tales of Ireland and Scotland since she comes from the islands in the north of the world, a kingdom similar to the Avalon Islands.
She is also a forest girl who can take the form of a doe, a bird, a fox. Her appearance, her behavior, her ability to give birth to children with a human designate her as a hybrid creature. She comes into the world of men to claim whoever she chooses to lead to love, sometimes to royalty.
The Valkyries, warrior maidens who serve Odin, choose heroes of exceptional bravery during battle and lead them to ''Valhalla'', the Nordic paradise. The most famous Valkyrie is Brünnhilde, young daughter of Odin, in love with Sigurd-Siegfried and then instigator of his assassination.
Medieval fairies borrow their knowledge from the ancient priestesses of the Celts and Germans, who knew plants, stars and mastered time. Chateaubriand has his druidess Vélléda say "the Gallic fairies have the power to stir up storms, to ward them off to take the form of animals".
The fairy Morgana summons the storm and commands the winds from her sanctuary to the west of any wild land. Viviane (Lady of the lakes) plays with the liquid element in various forms. Lover or mother, the fairy raises the young heroes in the heart of the forests, teaching them courage, freedom, poetry at the same time as the proper use of the bow and the sword. This is how Viviane will ensure the education of Lancelot by masters whom she brings to a castle on the edge of a lake.
Kingmaker fairies
The fairy bears witness to society in the said and in the unsaid in this 12th century when the weight of wars is lighter, bringing wealth and freedom news, as the screed of feudalism cracked, as cities developed, while Christianity dotted the territory with churches and abbeys. It takes place in this convergence between evolution and a culture in the process of being born. Heir to ancient cults, her anchoring in literature keeps her in the comfortable world of fiction.
But she is only all-powerful in a particular area, a place, a precise function, in a limited time and subject to strict contingency:like the fairy Viviane locked up in the limits of Brocéliande, or such a Mélusine united in spite of herself to the Lusignan family in the constraint of a pact impossible to untie.
Reigning families, completely historical, claim their enthronement through the benevolence of goddesses or fairies. For these dynasties, such a filiation is synonymous with unparalleled prestige. It helps them to reclaim the supernatural world, to transcend time, affirming themselves of a different essence, freeing themselves from the church without opposing it.
Richard Coeur de Lion boasted, for example, of having the blood of the demon in his veins to justify his amoral actions. The Plantagenets elect as historical ancestor the mythical figure of King Arthur "the most beloved king of the fairies". A legend makes the Grail, the fairies, the holy sepulchre coexist. It concerns Lohengrin (son of Perceva whose wife should never ask him where he comes from on pain of being abandoned; promise that she breaks before leaving for the other world, the son of the Grail will found the noble family of Bouillon.
Ruthless Freedom
In times of strict morals and highly codified sexuality, the fairy offers free, sinless loves that last a night or an eternity. But this freedom is subject to constraints, to tests to be overcome, to often arbitrary dangers because they come under the laws of the other kingdom, which can sometimes make them fatal.
Compared to humans, they are free with their bodies, their hearts, their wealth. They convey the hope and the image of a freedom that women do not enjoy because their bodies or their property never entirely belong to them. Whatever their competences, their birth, their functions, they depend on a dominating male authority in these times. The fairy represents in medieval society what the Lady would like to be, what the knight would like to have:beauty, freedom for one love, wealth for the other.
Despite the distribution of printed books to which only an elite could claim, the role of the storyteller is essential for all those, many, who cannot access the written word. The old stories thus continue on their way, modified by the environment, the events and the literary mode of the time in which they are told.
The evolution of fairy history shows that of society and highlights the transition from the "beautiful Middle Ages" (12th and 13th centuries) to the black legend of the 14th and 15th centuries century. First object of desire, promise of accomplishment, the fairy finds herself in a second era subject to a double evolution. Rationalization tolerates it by distorting it:it annihilates everything that makes it different. The violence of demonization seeks to destroy it. Reduced to the rank of witch by the church, which diverts the marvelous for its own benefit (which is enough to put consciences back on the right track) it is replaced by angels and its light goes out.
What touches the magical is of the order of distraction, worldliness and frivolity. Christianity explains and justifies the world, occupying the ground of spiritual and religious practice. Fairies pay the tribute of their origins:enchantments become black magic, beautiful ladies turn out to be evil, are subject to ageing, lose their eternal beauty. Their functions are carried out by hermits, while the knights are guided by the angels who now carry the chalice of the Grail.
Old-fashioned, fairies?
The ladies of the forests, the protectors of the knights, the magicians of the waters are preparing their metamorphoses. With the Renaissance come back the Greco-Latin Gods, the Arts and the philosophy of classical antiquity:fashion is to Italian taste. The nobility, eager for novelty, turned away from novels of adventure and marvels “that jumble with which childhood amuses itself” as Montaigne wrote. This is the time of great discoveries. France turns away from the fairy world and the style of the novel evolves, becomes briefly fast removed, with sometimes an explicit moral.
During the sixteenth century, the fairy and the tale remained inseparable:it was a literature of pleasure and 'escape. Then appear women novelists in social salons, using a symbolism that defends their right to exist in a society where their role is very depreciated, shaking up the codes. Forced marriages, monstrous husbands, so many themes that recur in the tales, denouncing the condition of women. These are literate, have read medieval novels, know the exploits of chivalry and the ancient works from which they are inspired.
From the end of the 17th century, a new literary genre emerged:the fairy tale. He quickly won favor with the public, thanks to the tales of Charles Perrault. Fairy tales are often the godmothers of the hero or heroine of the tale (as in Cinderella, Donkey Skin or Sleeping Beauty).
They are "guardian angels" who protect and advise their proteges. In the Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (published in 1881), the Blue Fairy, godmother of Pinocchio, is the one who ends up breathing life into the wooden puppet to transform him into a little boy. At the same time, there are some fairies with an evil character, of which the old fairy from Sleeping Beauty (later called the Carabosse fairy) is the archetype.
Walking the path of the fairies, one reads the story of a luminous subversion:the way in which the fairy tale comes to contradict the human will to elucidate, to organize and to control the world, sparking new ideas, upsetting the established order. "The fairies have a story", yes, they announce that the time has come for a change.
Where the lines move, look closely:there is a fairy! Their name refers to ageless daydreams and yet here they are to make an overly rigid society vibrate, to give impetus, a new breath, to break the 'slumber' of ideas, to incite more justice, yes! all this is part of their vocation.
Sources and illustrations
Fairies have a story by Claudine Glot. Editions Ouest-France, October 2014.
To go further
- The Woman in Fairy Tales, by Marie-Louise von Franz. Tallandier, 2015.
- The World of Fairies in the Medieval West, by L. Harf-Lancner. Hachette, 2003.