Fairy/Faery
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		The original fairies, or faeries, bestowed gifts upon newborn children, such as beauty, wealth and kindness. In the subsequent centuries they continued this original function, but expanded their activities into other types of meddling in human affairs. Fairies can only be seen clearly by animals and seldom by humans, although if one is fortunate enough, one might catch a fleeting glimpse. There are a few exceptions however. The first is when fairies use their power (known as 'glamour') to enable a human to see them. Also, during a full moon on Midsummer Eve a mortal witness fairy dances or celebrations. And finally, by looking through a self-bored stone (a stone in which a hole has been made by tumbling in the waters of a brook; not found on a beach) one can see fairies distinctly. The rulers of the race of fairies are Queen Titania and her consort Prince Oberon, their court being in the vicinity of Stratford-on-Avon. Other synonyms and euphemisms for fairies are: the Little People, the Green Men, the Good Folk and the Lordly Ones. The name given to a wide variety of supernatural beings that either help or hinder mankind. Fairy beliefs are strongest in the Celtic lore of Britain, Ireland and Europe, but nearly every culture possesses myths and legends concerning miniature biped creatures. The word is derived from the Latin fata, ‘fate', which refers to the mythical Fates, three women who spin and control the threads of life. According to theory, fairies are either: earthbound unbaptized souls; guardians of the souls of the dead; ghosts of venerated ancestors; fallen angels condemned to remain on earth; nature spirits, or small human beings. They are said to have magical powers and to consort with witches and other humans with supernatural powers. They have many different names and come in all shapes and sizes. They are invisible and can only be seen by clairvoyants or when they make themselves visible. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was deeply interested in spiritualism and psychic phenomena. In the early 1920s he was fooled by a photograph purporting to show tiny, winged, female figures dressed in fashionable gowns and floating in the air. The picture was taken by two young sisters, Elsie and Francis Wright, of Cottingley, Yorkshire. The girls insisted the photograph was genuine, and despite expert testimony that the picture was a fake, Doyle wrote about the picture as proof of fairies in his The Coming of the Fairies (1922). The Wright sisters did not admit that the photo was a fraud until the 1980s.