There are two courts in which faeries abide by, the 'Unseelie' and 'Seelie' court. The unseelie court is darker and not nearly as nice. It is by choice of the faerie to which court they belong.

Faeries appear in literature at least as early as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (approx. 850 BCE), in which he mentions nymphs and dryads.

The first known mention of faeries as tiny beings, is in the 13th century work of Gervase of Tilbury. In his Otia imperialia, he describes "certain daemons, whom the French call Neptunes, the English Portunes," and are less than "half a thumb" in height.

In the 14th century, Chaucer spoke of a land filled with faeries, in the opening of The Wyf of Bath’s Tale:

"In th’ olde dayes of the kyng arthour,
Of which that britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.
The elf-queene, with hir joly compaignye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede."

(In the old days of King Arthur,
Of which Britons speak with honor,
All this land was filled with faeries.
The elf-queen with her jolly company
Danced often in many green meadows.)

Far later, in the 16th century, our modern-day ideas of faeries were born and widely repeated in Shakespeare’s plays. His most famous faerie play is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which half the cast were faeries, from the human-sized Titania and Oberon, to the lesser spirits who served them. One of the leading characters is Puck, who—as Robin Goodfellow—had an evil reputation before this play. However, when Fairy in Act 2, Scene One, asks Puck if he is

"...that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens in the villagery..."

However, looking at our ideas today, it is clear that Shakespeare was the single greatest contributor to our modern conceptions of faeries. And while Shakespeare’s faeries are not always good, they are certainly no worse—and generally far better—than the mortals in his plays.

In studying the roots of Shakespeare’s faerie beliefs, folk historian Alfred Nutt said, "we must quit Britain and the woodland glades of Shakespeare’s Arden and turn for a while to Ireland."

Why Ireland? Very simply, it is one of our best resources when we study the fae world.

Your Encyclopedia To the Faeries~