Fairies

Fairies are small supernatural creatures of human form. They live in everyday surroundings. They are generally thought to be beneficial to humans. However, they are known to play pranks and it is best to treat them with respect. They are small, beautiful, airy, nearly transparent in body, and can assume any form. In Ireland fairies are called legends, (pronounced "shee").
Fairies, as we know them today, are the ancient remnants of the Tuatha de Danaan, which means the people of the goddess Anu. Anu being like Mother Earth, the Tuatha were the gods and goddesses of the various aspects of nature. Like Nature itself, some were good and some were pretty frightening. With the onset of Christianity, these creatures, while still a rich part of Celtic myth and legend, grew considerably less forbidding and less powerful over the centuries becoming the whimsical, ethereal, airy, creatures we think of today.

Leprechauns

One of the first things people think of in association with St.Patrick's Day is the leprechaun. Leprechauns are little make-believe fairies from Ireland. They look like a small, old man standing about two feet tall (The name leprechaun derives from the old Irish word "luchorpan", meaning "little body") and usually dressed like a shoemaker, with a cocked hat and a leather apron. According to legend, leprechauns are cute, mischievous, and playful creatures who love to drink, dance, and play music, and who pass the time making shoes. They are also believed to possess a hidden pot of gold. Treasure hunters can often track down a leprechaun by the sound of his shoemaker's hammer. If caught the leprechaun must grant his captor three wishes. However, the captor must keep their eyes on him every second. If the captor's eyes leave the leprechaun for even one second (and he often tricks them into looking away), he vanishes and all hopes of finding the treasure are lost.

The true origin of the leprechaun is much more serious. The ancient origins of what we know today as the leprechaun was a Euro-Celtic god named Lugh (pronounced "Luck"). Lugh was as important a god to the ancient Euro-Celtic religion as Jesus is to our own Christianity. Lugh was the great Sun God of the Irish and Euro-Celts, patron of Arts and Crafts, leader of the Tuatha de Danaan. Many European cities were named for Lugh such as London, Leon, Loudan, Lyons, and others.

Pixies

Most people see pixies as happy, smiling folk who spend their days sitting on toadstools, watching the world go by. In fact, if you were to ask for a description of a typical pixy, this is the answer most will give. Adding of course that they are about six inches high, dance in "Pixy Rings" and work for a bowl of milk, but will leave when offered clothes.

 All of that is true up to a point. However, there is much more to the pixy than you may think

What is a pixy?

 What a pixy is not. Despite the insistence of Hollywood to the contrary, pixies are not tiny gossamer-winged faeries that flit around the woodlands and flower beds in the style of Tinkerbell. That particular type of fae is not a pixy, but a Pillywiggin or Flower faery. As well as appearing in Disney's "Peter Pan", they have most recently been seen in the movie "Fairytale", which purports to explain the story of the "Cottingley Fairies". However, Pillywiggins are not the reason for this essay, being mentioned here merely in order to explain that despite current trends, they are not the same as pixies.

The word "Pixie" is often used incorrectly as a generic term for all British and American faery folk, with books, movies and even computer games compounding the error - just enter the words "Pixy" or "Pixie" in an internet search engine and see what you get. Actually, the name should be spelt "Pixy", with the plural being "Pixies", although it has now become commonplace to spell it either way. In Cornwall, the word Pisky is used, which is a corruption of "Pixy". In the rest of the West Country of England, as in most of the English-speaking world, the word Pixy is used, although they are sometimes called Grigs or Dusters in East Anglia. Pixies are sometimes also known as Pisgies, Pechts, Pechs, and Pickers.

The usual description of a Pixy is similar to that seen on Cornish charms, where a little humanoid figure is depicted sitting on a toadstool, with his hands wrapped around his knees. He is usually dressed in green, although some pixies wear rags or in some instances, nothing at all. The pixy is usually envisaged as being small, although some are known to possess certain shapeshifting abilities resulting in a height range of between eighteen inches to the size of a fully-grown human adult. They are also believed to take the form of hedgehogs, in which shape they are known as Urchins.

The original pixies were the little aboriginal folk who inhabited the barrows and cromlechs, and whose cunning - their only effective weapon against the strength of the Aryan invader - earned them a reputation for magical powers. Over the years these peoples also became linked with the pagan belief in nature sprites, and the two beliefs merged, giving us the pixy we know today. Remains of ancient dwellings, half sunken in the ground give us an idea as to why the pixies were believed to live in the underworld, when you consider that when fully built, they resembled a small hill. When seeing a pixy entering and leaving from the smoke hole in the roof, it is understandable how a passing traveller could mistake them as beings from the underworld. In fact the word "Pixy" is believed to derive from "Pict" - early inhabitants of Scotland who lived in similar dwellings.

Legends say that during the Roman conquest of Britain, the Fatae, Italian faeries, accompanied the Romans and at first lived in relative peace with the pixies. However as the Romans expanded their control of the country, the pixies became concerned and war broke out. Eventually the pixies drove the Fatae out of the West Country (Cornwall, Devon and Somerset) and everything west of the river Parret became Pixyland. I believe that part of this legend is a retelling of the Roman invasion itself, with the Romans unable to progress through Scotland due to the attacks of the Picts. Eventually the invaders were forced to build artificial borders in the forms of the Hadrian and Antonine walls and the area they were unable to conquer received the name "Pictland". Of course, given that the West Country of England is as far away from the Highlands of Scotland as you can get, it is also possible that a similar defensive posture was made by the denizens of that area.

The character of Peter Pan, companion of the aforementioned Tinkerbell, is a pixy, as is Puck of Pook's Hill, and in fact Kipling's Puck is described as "a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face". This certainly sounds like a pixy to me. He also speaks of himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", and explains his uniqueness in that he is not affected by "Salt, or Horse-shoes over a door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the sound of Church Bells". All of which are supposed to dissuade pixies from their mischievous antics, although I know of many who enjoy the sound of bells and swimming in the river.

No discussion on the pixy would be complete without mention of their mischievous activities. They regularly make nocturnal visits to fields where horses are kept and race the animals around until dawn. These Pixy Ridden horses are discovered the next day, to be tired and drawn as if they have been racing around all night. Which of course they have. And at night the pixies revel in causing people to become Pixy-led, in which, taken unaware by mist which makes even familiar objects distorted and unrecognisable, people lose all sense of direction and wander around in circles.

Of course the pixies can be helpful as well as mischievous, and many a farmer has woken in the morning to discover work he planned for the next day has been done by the pixies in gratitude for food and milk left for them earlier in the evening. However, if a pixy is rewarded by a gift of clothes, he is likely to happily skip away wearing his new suit, and never be seen again. In fact the inclusion of "Dobby the House Elf" in the Harry Potter series of novels, is based on this very legend.

Gnomes

The woodland, or forest, gnome is probably the most common. But this is difficult to verify, as he is not fond of showing himself to man and has many escape routes. His physical appearance resembles that of the ordinary gnome.

The dune gnome is a fraction larger than the woodland gnome. He, too, avoids contact with man. His clothing sometimes is remarkable drab. The female of this gnome type does not wear gray clothes; hers are khaki-colored.

The garden gnome belongs to the general type. He lives in old gardens, even those hemmed in between the new houses of modern "model" cities. His nature is on the somber side, and he rather enjoys telling melancholy tales. If he begins to feel too closed in , he simply goes to the woods. But, as he is quite learned, he sometimes feels out of place there.

The farm gnome resembles the house gnome but is of a more constant nature and is conservative in all matters.

The house gnome is a special sort. He resembles an ordinary gnome but he has the most knowledge of mankind. Owing to the fact that he often inhabits historic old houses, he has seen both rich and poor, and heard a great deal. He speaks and understands man’s language; gnome kings are chosen from his family. These gnomes (Farm and House) are good-natured, always ready for a lark or to tease; they are never malevolent, with a few exceptions, of course. If a gnome is really wicked—which happens only once in a thousand –it is due to bad genes that result from crossbreeding in faraway places.

The Siberian gnome has been the most affected by crossbreeding. He is centimeters larger than the European type and associates freely with trolls. In certain regions there is not a single gnome to be trusted. The Siberian gnome takes revenge for even the slightest offense by killing cattle, causing bad harvests, droughts, abnormally cold weather, and so forth. The less said about him, the better.

Male Gnomes frown due to posing in harsh daylight.  At 275 years old he is in the prime of life...actual height (without cap) 15cm.

Muses

The Muses are the Greek goddesses who preside over the arts and sciences and inspire those who excel at these pursuits. Daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne ("memory"), they were born at Pieria at the foot of Mount Olympus. Their nurse, Eupheme, raised them along with her son, Crotus the hunter, who was transported into the sky as Sagittarius upon his death. Their name (akin to the Latin mens and English mind) denotes 'memory' or 'a reminder', since in the earliet times poets, having no books to read from, relied on their memories. The Romans identified the Muses with certain obscure Italian water-goddesses, the Camenae.

The original number of muses and their names varies in earlier times as their evolution blossomed in Greek mythology. At first, three muses were worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Melete ("meditation"), Mneme ("memory"), and Aoede ("song"). Another three were worshipped at Delphi and their names represented the names of the strings of a lyre: Nete, Mese, and Hypate. Several other versions were worshipped until the Greeks finally established the nine muses in mythology as: Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. The Muses had several epithets which usually referred to places where they had settled.

Ephialtes and Otus, who also founded Ascra, were the first to sacrifice on Helicon to the Muses and to call the mountain sacred to the Muses. Sacrifices to the Muses consisted of libations of water, milk, or honey.

Their companions are the Charities, the Horae, Eros, Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Harmonia, and Himerus (Desire). Apollo is the leader of the choir of the Muses and consequently he has the surname Musagetes. Athena caught and tamed the winged horse Pegasus and gave him to the Muses. Some of their disciples included the Sphinx who learned her riddle from the Muses, Aristaeus, who learned the arts of healing and prophecy from them, and Echo, who was taught by them to play music.

In Plato's Phaedrus 259c, Socrates says the locusts used to be men before the birth of the Muses. When song appeared when the Muses were born, some men were so overcome with delight that they sang constantly, forgetting to eat and drink until they eventually died. These dead men became locusts with a gift from the Muses allowing them to sing continuously from their birth until death without the need of sustenance. When they die, the locust go to the Muses and report which men on earth honors each, endearing a worshipper to the Muse he follows.

The Muses could be vindictive like in the story of the contest with Thamyris. Thamyris who excelled in minstrelsy challenged the Muses to a musical contest at Dorium in Messenia, the agreement being if he won he would take pleasure from all of them. The Muses won the contest, and bereft Thamyris of his eyes and minstrelsy.

In another story, the king of Emathia (Macedonia) and his wife Euippe had nine daughters and named them after the Muses. The daughters entered a contest with the Muses, were defeated and were metamorphosed by the Muses into birds called Colymbas, Iynx, Cenchris, Cissa, Chloris, Acalanthis, Nessa, Pipo, and Dracontis. These names were taken from actual names of birds such as the wryneck, hawk, jay, duck, goldfinch, and four others with no recognizable modern equivalents.

In yet another myth, it was said Hera, queen of the gods, persuaded the Sirens, who were described in early Greek mythology as having the bodies of birds and heads of beautiful women, to enter a singing contest with the Muses. The Muses won the competition and then plucked out all of the Sirens' feathers and made crowns out of them.

Many places were dedicated to the Muses such as the famous Valley of the Muses - Thespies on the eastern slopes of Mt. Helikon began it's "Mouseai" festivals in the 6th c. B.C. It was organized every 5 years by the Thespians. Poets and musicians from all over Greece also participated in various games (epic, poetry, rapsodia, kithara, aulos, satyric poetry, tragedy and comedy). It was common for ancient schools to have a shrine to the Muses called mouseion, the source of the modern word 'museum.' The famous Museum of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I, was a temple dedicated to the Muses. Before poets or storytellers recited their work, it was customary for them to invoke the inspiration and protection of the Muses.

Unicorns

The unicorn has been a topic of wonder and speculation for centuries. The writings of such men as Aristotle, Genghis Khan, Saint Thomas, and Saint Gregory reflect the fact that these men considered the unicorn as a very real creature. Webster's Seventh defines a unicorn as 'a mythical animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse, hind legs of a stag, tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of its forehead'. The word 'unicorn' comes from the Latin 'Uni', meaning one, and 'Cornu, meaning horn. The unicorn has been depicted in the folklore and legends of other cultures besides ours. The Chinese believed that they had the body of a deer, with horses' hooves and an ox's tail. Where in the west the horn was made of bone, the Oriental unicorn's horn was made of flesh. The coat of the unicorn was of the five sacred colors of the Chinese; red, yellow, blue, white, and black.

The best known legends surrounding the unicorn are in Western culture. The common view of the unicorn as a horse with a horn is popular, and has been depicted in our heritage for thousands of years. The unicorn is mentioned in the Bible in several verses. The Palm Sunday tract in the Roman Catholic missal reads, 'Deliver me from the lion's mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of unicorns'. Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan in the fourth century, considered the unicorn a symbol of Christ as he wrote, 'Who then has one horn, unless it be the only begotten son, the unique word of God, which has been next to God from the very beginning?' Saint Augustine considered the horn of the unicorn to be a symbol of the unity of the faith of the Church.

The horn of the unicorn has been sought after for centuries. In the west, it was thought to have magical properties, and could purify poisons. Therefore, it was a very valuable commodity to have. Pope Paul III is said to have paid 12,000 pieces of gold for one, but James I of England got a much better deal for his, only paying 10,000 pounds Sterling for one. The horn of the narwhal was a common substitute for that of the unicorn for those unscrupulous businessmen. Because of that problem, a common test to determine the validity of a unicorn horn was to use its magical properties of purification. David De Pomis wrote, 'There is very little of the true horn to be found, most of that which is sold as such being either stag's horn, or elephant's tusk. A true test by which one may know the genuine horn from the false: Place the horn in a vessel of any sort of material you like, and with it three or four large and live scorpions, keeping the vessel covered. If you find four hours later that the scorpions are dead or almost lifeless, the horn is a good one, and there is not enough money in the world to pay for it'.  

The search for the unicorn, and proof of its existence, dates back almost as far as the legends which surround it. Ctesias spoke of the unicorn in the court of Darius II, the King of Persia in 416 BC. Chinese writings date back to 2800 BC. The men of the ancient world believed in the existence of the unicorn, so the object of their searching was to find it, not to prove it existed. It wasn't until later in history that man began to doubt the unicorn's physical existence. In the ninth century, Margoulies wrote, 'It is universally held that the unicorn is a supernatural being and of auspicious omen; so say the odes, the annals, the biographies of worthies, and other texts whose authority is unimpeachable. Even village women and children know the unicorn is a lucky sign. But this animal does not figure among the barnyard animals, it is not always easy to come across, it does not lend itself to zoological classification, nor is it like the horse or bull, the wolf or deer. In such circumstances we may be face to face with a unicorn and not know for sure that we are. We know a certain animal with a mane is a horse and that a certain animal with horns is a bull. We do not know what the unicorn looks like'. Even though the existence of the unicorn is questionable, its symbolism is not. The beast, like all mythological creatures, has been a reflection of man's hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, and inner consciousness. Freud considered mythological beasts as representations of 'universal fears and feelings'. Specifically, Jung thought that the purity of the unicorn was of greater importance. Most mythological creatures represent man's worst traits, and are usually more evil than animals, or man. They kill for pleasure, and are often involved in unspeakable atrocities.

The unicorn is an exception to the rule, being a symbol of purity, hope, love, and majesty.