For the purpose of classification
the entire race of Faerie could roughly be divided into two groups: the
peasantry and the aristocracy.
The peasantry are solitary
fairies, descendants of the spirits who at the beginning of time ensouled
all nature. They are the guardians of tree and field, of forest pool
and mountain stream. Although they share in some powers of Faerie, such
as the ability to become invisible or to appear in various shapes, solitary
fairies were wild creatures, and their meetings with mortals were relatively
rare compared to those of their grand relatives.
Fairy
Godmother - © Brian Froud
The aristocracy of Faerie
was a different matter. Known as trooping fairies, these beings were descended
(it was popularly thought) from ancient, vanquished gods.
They were (are) a powerful
race who dwelled in kingdoms underground or across the deepest seas, to
mortals they were objects of infinite desire and sometimes infinite fear.
Ireland provides the most complete accounts of the trooping fairies and
their kind: Irish tales and songs trace the history of these fairies
back thousands of years, to a time before the boundaries between their
worlds and the mortal one became dangerous to cross, before mortals grew
to fear entrapment in the lands of the fairies, and before the love that
could exist between mortal and fairy turned to hopeless yearning.
No mortal could tell
where Faerie lay; the curtain of invisibility that cloaked its towering
mountains and turreted castles lifted only at the whim of the fairies themselves.
