THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES: An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures

Fairyland, the Underworld, Glamor, and Taboos

As in many stories of the Underworld, often there are taboos placed on eating and drinking in fairyland, and visitors would be wise to refuse any food or drink offered to them, no matter how appealing it appears. Fairies are known for using their glamor, or magic, to conceal the real nature of things.

The Legend of Innis Sark

Lady Wilde’s Legend of Innis Sark (1887) provides a cautionary tale against consuming fairy food and a lesson that all may not be as it seems in fairyland.

One November Eve (soon after Halloween), exhausted after a hard day’s work, a young man fell asleep under a haystack. He awoke to find himself in a fairy kitchen where, to his horror, he saw an old hag being chopped up and boiled to serve to the dinner guests.

The next thing he knew, he was being seated at a banquet table and a prince sitting on a throne at the head of the table was inviting him to eat. He looked around at the beautiful ladies and noblemen seated at the table, and then at the banquet. Fruit, chicken, turkey, butter, freshly baked cakes, and glasses of bright red wine filled the table.

Again, the prince invited the young man to eat. But, the scene from the kitchen still fresh in his mind, he declined. The prince persisted, insisting the young man taste the wine. Unable to resist the bright red liquid winking in a crystal cup offered to him by one of the beautiful ladies, the lad gave in and drank it down in one gulp. No sooner had he set down the empty glass than a clap of thunder shook the table, the lights went out, and he found himself alone in the dark night lying beneath the haystack.

Cherry of Zennor

In another tale, it is not food and drink but a special ointment that is taboo. This is a Cornish tale, “Cherry of Zennor,” collected by Robert Hunt in Popular Romances of the West of England (1865).

A few generations ago there lived a man known as Old Honey, such was the sweetness of his nature. He had a wife and several children and together they lived in a humble two-room cottage set on the cliffs at in the far west of Cornwall in a place called Trereen. Despite a simple diet of winkles and whelks and potatoes, they were a healthy, handsome family, and none more so than one of their daughters, Cherry.

When the miller’s boy visited to collect corn for the mill and left his horse tied to a furze bush, Cherry would climb onto its back and gallop off across the rugged cliffs and up onto the rough, rocky cairns that rose behind the little village.

Inevitably, this lively young lady soon became frustrated with the simplicity of her daily life and longed for a pretty frock to wear to the fair, or the church, or even to the preachings at the nearby villages of Morva or Nancledry. When one of her friends did just this and boasted of all the young beaus who had walked her home, she decided that she must leave home and look for work in the “low countries,” as the adjacent parishes were known. Her mother wanted her to go no further than Towednack, so she might still see her occasionally. But Cherry said, “No! I’ll never go where the cow ate the bell rope, and where they eat only fish and tatties and conger pie on Sundays.”

Old Honey saw that his daughter was determined and so one bright spring morning, Cherry put a few things in a bundle, waved goodbye to her family, and set off over the moors, heading south in the direction of Gulval and Ludgvan.

The path was steep and hard, and by the time she came to the crossroads at Lady Downs, she had to sit down to rest on a hard granite rock. She was tired and hungry and thirsty and began to regret her hasty decision. She hadn’t met a single soul on her journey, but now, quite suddenly, a gentleman appeared before her.

“Good morning,” he said. “Could you direct me to Towednack?”

Cherry pointed to the east and explained that she had left home to look for service, but was now resolved to return to Zennor.

“What great fortune smiles upon us both,” said the gentleman, “for I am looking for a good, clean girl to keep house for me, and here you are!”

He explained that his wife had died and he needed someone to look after his little boy, milk the cow, and tend to some light housework. He seemed a very kind gentleman and Cherry agreed to go with him.

They walked down from the moors and before long Cherry found herself in beautiful, gentle countryside such as she had never known before. Soft green trees shaded the lanes and pretty flowers carpeted the verges. The scent of honeysuckle and sweetbriar filled the air and ripe red apples hung from the trees.

Soon they came to a crystal-clear stream of water. Uncertain as to its depth, Cherry paused, not knowing how to cross. The gentleman lifted her and carefully carried her to the other side.

The lane became ever darker and narrower, almost like a tunnel through the trees, and they seemed to be going rapidly downhill, but Cherry felt safe in the company of this kindly man.

They came to a gate and when the master opened it, Cherry thought she must have entered into heaven. The garden was filled with flowers, fruit hung from the trees, the air was alive with birdsong, and a bright light shone everywhere, although the sun itself could not be seen. Cherry was reminded of the fairylands of which her granny had spoken, but here was the gentleman standing tall beside her and at that moment a little boy came running down the path crying, “Papa, Papa!” so, surely, these could not be fairies.

Before Cherry could greet the child, whose eyes were bright and direct, a bent and bony old woman appeared and took the boy back into the house. As she did so, the old hag stopped in the doorway and gave Cherry such a look that it felt as though a dagger was piercing her heart. However, when they entered the house, the old woman, who was called Aunt Prudence, laid the table with good food and drink, and Cherry soon recovered her good spirits.

Next, Aunt Prudence gave Cherry her instructions. She was to sleep in a bedchamber at the top of the house, where the child would also sleep. She was never to open her eyes at night, nor to speak to the boy. At daybreak, she was to take him to the spring in the garden to wash him and anoint his eyes with a special ointment that she would find in a crystal box beside the water. She was never to touch her own eyes with the ointment. After dealing with the child, she was to call the cow to get some milk for breakfast.

The next morning Cherry did all these things, then Aunt Prudence gave her a good breakfast and explained her household duties. Most of these were scrubbing and washing dishes and utensils and churning the butter and scalding the milk. She was warned not to wander about the house.

The following day, the gentleman asked Cherry to help him in the beautiful garden, picking apples and pears and weeding the leeks and onions. She enjoyed the work and the master gave her a kiss to show his appreciation of her diligence.

The days passed happily in this way and Cherry was quite content. Then, one day, Aunt Prudence took her into the rest of the house, which seemed dark and forbidding. She was told to remove her shoes and enter a room that had a floor as smooth as glass. All around it were stone statues of figures large and small, some distorted or limbless but all disturbingly lifelike despite their stony appearance. Cherry was frightened, but when Aunt Prudence insisted that she polish a wooden box as hard as she could, she did as she was told.

Suddenly, there came a terrible groaning from the box and poor Cherry fainted to the floor.

The master heard the noise and came angrily into the room. He gently carried Cherry down to the kitchen, where she soon revived. Aunt Prudence was dismissed from the house for taking Cherry into forbidden corners of the building.

Cherry recovered her vitality and curiosity and continued to live happily with the little boy and her master.

A year drifted by, but despite her contentment, Cherry could not help wondering about the boy, who she often thought saw more than she did with his bright, strange eyes, and even about her master, who sometimes disappeared for days on end or vanished into the depths of the house where Cherry was afraid to go.

One day, she could not resist touching some of the special ointment to her own eyes. Immediately, she felt a terrible burning sensation and splashed water from the spring to cool her eyes. As she did so, she was astonished to see hundreds of little people all dancing and playing in the pool. Among them was her gentleman, as tiny as the rest, dancing with the ladies. Cherry looked around the garden and everything was sparkling and bright, with tiny fairies and elves cavorting among the flowers and bushes and trees. She spent the rest of the day gazing at them in a trance of delight.

At dusk, her master rode up, restored to his normal self. He went to the enchanted room where Aunt Prudence had taken Cherry, and Cherry heard the sound of beautiful music floating on the soft night air.

Days passed and the master spent more nights in the private room. One night, Cherry’s curiosity overcame her fears and she crept to the door of the magic room and peered through the keyhole. What a sight met her eyes! The master was singing with many ladies in attendance; one in particular was dressed like a queen and playing on the wooden box that Cherry had polished. Cherry was filled with jealousy when she saw her master kissing this beautiful lady.

The next day the master stayed at home and asked Cherry to help him pick fruit in the orchard. After a time he bent to kiss her, but she drew back and slapped him, saying, “Keep your kisses for the fairy people!”

Realizing that she must have used the magic ointment, sadly the master told Cherry that she would have to go. That same night he called her and gave her a bundle of good clothes as payment for her services, and with a lantern to light the way, they set off into the lanes by which they had come so long ago. But now they were steep and dark and narrow and they only came onto the Lady Downs as the gray light of dawn slowly drove away the darkness.

The gentleman kissed Cherry goodbye and said he was sorry to leave her, but she had broken her word and he could no longer keep her in his service.

The sun rose over the moors and Cherry made her way back to Old Honey and her family. When they first saw her, they thought she must be a ghost, as they feared she had died. To begin with, they weren’t convinced by her story, but as time went by and she didn’t change a single word of it, they all came to believe her.

But Cherry longed for the life she had left behind, and on moonlit nights they say that you still may see the lonely figure of Cherry Honey wandering the Lady Downs in search of her long-lost fairy master.

Fairy Treasure

Humans have long been drawn to fairyland by tales of treasure and untold riches. But where fairy treasure is concerned, it is wise to tread carefully, for the path is often beset with glamor, curses, and taboos.

“The Old Wandering Droll-Teller of the Lizard, and his Story of the Mermaid and the Man of Cury,” collected by William Bottrell in Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1870), is a reminder of the old adage that all that glitters is not gold—especially when it is fairy gold.

In the story, a mermaid attempts to entice a mortal man, Lutey, into her underwater kingdom with promises of glittering treasures. Her description of the merpeople’s grottoes mixes the wondrous with the macabre, and reveals the fate that lies in store for many who are tempted to enter the fairy realm in search of riches:

“In our cool caverns we have everything one needs,” said she, “and much more. The walls of our abodes are encrusted with coral and amber, entwined with sea-flowers of every hue, and their floors are all strewn with pearls. The roof sparkles of diamonds, and other gems of such brightness that their rays make our deep grots in the ocean hillsides as light as day.”

Then, embracing Lutey with both her arms round his neck, she continued, “Come with me, love, and see the beauty of the mermaid’s dwellings. Yet the ornaments, with which we take the most delight to embellish our halls and chambers, are the noble sons and fair daughters of earth, whom the wind and waves send in foundered ships to our abodes. Come, I will show you thousands of handsome bodies so embalmed, in a way only known to ourselves, with choice salts and rare spices, that they look more beautiful than when they breathed, as you will say when you see them reposing on beds of amber, coral, and pearl, decked with rich stuffs, and surrounded by heaps of silver and gold for which they ventured to traverse our domain. Aye, and when you see their limbs all adorned with glistening gems, move gracefully to and fro with the motion of the waves, you will think they still live.”

In some cases, it is possible for the pure of heart to elude death and reap the reward of fairy treasure, providing specific conditions are met. In The Science of Fairy Tales (1891) Edwin Sydney Hartland describes the fairy island of Rügen in Germany, where long ago a king amassed piles of gold and jewels in the chambers beneath his castle. It is said that he still keeps watch over his treasure and occasionally he is seen wearing a golden crown and riding a gray horse around the lake, or glimpsed in the forest at night, wearing a black fur cap and carrying a white staff. At other times, he appears in the form of a black dog. The only way to get past his enchantment and win the fairy treasure is for a pure virgin on St. John’s Eve between 12 and 1 o’clock to:

… venture naked and alone, to climb the castle wall and wander backward to and fro amid the ruin, until she light upon the spot where the stairway to the tower leads down into the treasure chamber. Slipping down, she will then be able to take as much gold and jewels as she can carry, and what she cannot carry herself the old king will bring after her, so that she will be rich for the rest of her life. But she must return by sunrise, and she must not once look behind her, nor speak a single word, else not only will she fail, but she will perish miserably.

According to one tale, a princess whose chastity had been brought into question ventured to claim the treasure and prove her virginity. When she entered the vault the king bestowed the treasure upon her and sent servants after her laden with more riches. All went well until she turned to see if the servants were following behind her. At that point the king transformed into a black dog that leaped at her with a fiery throat and glowing eyes. The door slammed shut and she fell into the vault, where she has remained for 400 years. She awaits a pure youth who must find his way to her on St. John’s night, bow to her three times, and silently kiss her. The enchantment that keeps her there thus broken, he may then take her hand and lead her forth to be his bride—and they will inherit untold riches.

In Hungary, too, there are tales of buried fairy treasures that can be obtained only under a specific set of circumstances. It is said that although the Hungarian fairies have disappeared from the surface of the Earth, they continue to live in caves under their castles, where their treasures lie hidden. According to The Folk Tales of the Maygars (1886), these subterranean habitations are:

… no less splendid and glittering than were their castles of yore on the mountain peaks. The one at Firtos is a palace resting on solid gold columns. The palace of Tartod, and the gorgeous one of Dame Rapson are lighted by three diamond balls, as big as human heads, which hang from golden chains. The treasure which is heaped up in the latter place consists of immense gold bars, golden lions with carbuncle eyes, a golden hen with her brood, and golden casks filled with gold coin. The treasures of Fairy Helen are kept in a cellar under Kovaszna Castle, where the gates of the cellar are guarded by a magic cockerel. This bird only goes to sleep once in seven years, and anybody who could guess the right moment would be able to scrape no end of diamond crystals from the walls and bring them out with him. The fairies who guard the treasures of the Poganyvar (Pagan Castle) in Marosszek even nowadays come on moonlight nights to bathe in the lake below.