In folklore and literature, the Fairy Queen or Queen of the Fairies is a female ruler of the fairies, sometimes but not always paired with a king. Depending on the work, she may be named or unnamed; Titania and Mab are two frequently used names. Numerous characters, goddesses or folkloric spirits worldwide have been labeled as Fairy Queens.
The Tuatha Dé Danann and Daoine Sidhe of Irish mythology had numerous local kings and queens. Oonagh, Una or Nuala was the wife of Finvarra or Fionnbharr, fairy king of western Ireland, although he frequently took other lovers. She was usually described living with Finvarra in his hill Cnoc Meadha, but was sometimes said to have a separate residence in Cnoc Sidh Una (Knockshegouna). [1] In one story following the model of the Fairies' Midwife (Aarne-Thompson type 476), "Fionnbharr's wife" (unnamed) is thoughtlessly cursed by a human girl who must then serve as her midwife. Fionnbharr's wife attempts revenge by giving the girl a belt that will cut her in two when she puts it on, but a fairy servant warns the girl in time. [2] Other Irish fairy queens included Clíodhna of Munster, Aoibhinn and Ainé. [3]
The Arthurian character of Morgan le Fey (or Morgan of the Fairies) ruled the supernatural island of Avalon and was sometimes depicted as a fairy queen. [4] In the Vita Merlini , she is Morgen, the chief of nine magical sister queens.
Fairy queens appear in some of the Child Ballads. A kind and helpful fairy queen features in Alison Gross (Child 35), and a terrible and deadly fairy queen is the antagonist of Tam Lin (Child 39). Tam Lin's Fairy Queen pays a tithe to Hell every seven years, and Tam Lin fears that he will be forced to serve as a human sacrifice:
An unnamed fairy queen appears in Thomas the Rhymer (Child 37), where she takes the titular character as her lover and leaves him with prophetic abilities. Although the romances and ballads associated with Thomas the Rhymer have parallels to Tam Lin, including the tithe to Hell, this fairy queen is a more benevolent figure.
In Thomas Cheyne's rebellion in January 1450, "the King of Fairies" (Regem de ffeyre) and "The Queen of Fairies" (Reginam de ffeyre) were among the aliases used by the (male) leaders. [5] [6]
Goodwin Wharton, a 17th-century English politician and mystic, believed that he had married a fairy queen named Penelope La Gard. [7]
There were numerous local beliefs of fairy queens, some of whom had proper names. A charm from the Isle of Man names the fairy rulers as King Philip and Queen Bahee. [8] One Welsh folk informant stated that the queen of the Tylwyth Teg was Gwenhidw, wife of Gwydion ab Don, and small, fleecy clouds were her sheep. [9]
Some of these local beliefs influenced literature. "Old Moss the fairy queen" appears in Shantooe Jest, a 19th-century poem by Thomas Shaw inspired by Yorkshire and Lancashire folklore. She flees the sound of the church bells to live with a giant named Todmore and they eventually settle in the location of Todmorden. [10] Janet or Gennet, a legendary spirit associated with a waterfall called Janet's Foss in the Yorkshire Dales, was romanticized as a fairy queen by non-local writers and poets. [11] Joan the Wad was a Cornish queen of the piskeys, made famous in a marketing campaign in the early 1900s. [12] According to John Leyden in 1801, the Scottish fairy queen was called Nicneven, the Gyre-Carling, or Hecate. [13] Later scholarship has disputed this; Nicneven's earliest known appearance was in Alexander Montgomerie's Flyting (c. 1580) as a witch and worshiper of Hecate, and a separate character from the Elf Queen. [14]
Equivalents appear across the world. In modern Greek folklore, Lamia is queen of the Nereids and Artemis is queen of the mountains and land-nymphs. [15] A Romani legend describes Ana, queen of the Keshali nymphs, who was abducted by a demon. [16]
In "The Merchant's Tale", by Geoffrey Chaucer, Pluto and Proserpine are described as the king and queen of the fairies. This depiction is thought to have influenced William Shakespeare's fairy rulers in A Midsummer Night's Dream . [17]
A fairy queen Gloriana, daughter of King Oberon, is the titular character of the allegorical epic poem The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. She is also called Tanaquill, derived from the name of the wife of Tarquinius Priscus. She is a virtuous ruler written as an allegorical depiction of Queen Elizabeth.
William Shakespeare referred multiple times to the figure of a fairy queen. The Merry Wives of Windsor makes reference to the concept. In A Midsummer Night's Dream , Titania is the queen of the fairies and wife of King Oberon. Her name is derived from Ovid as an epithet of the Roman goddess Diana. In Romeo and Juliet, the character of Queen Mab does not appear but is described; she is the fairies' midwife, who rides in a tiny chariot and brings dreams to humans.
Post-Shakespeare, authors such as Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton also named the fairy queen as Mab. Drayton named Mab, not Titania, as Oberon's wife. [18] Aside from Titania and Mab, Oberon was sometimes depicted with wives of other names: Aureola in a 1591 entertainment given for Queen Elizabeth at Elvetham in Hampshire, [19] and Chloris in William Percy's The Faery Pastorall around 1600. [20]
Fairies and their society often played a major role in the French contes de fées . The fairies are ruled by a queen in Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast , and in several of Madame D'Aulnoy's tales, such as The Princess Mayblossom . In Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force's Fairer-than-a-Fairy , the villain is a wicked fairy queen named Nabote who replaced the previous, good queen. D'Aulnoy, who popularized the genre and the term "fairy tale," was nicknamed "la reine de la féerie." [21]
In The Little White Bird , the predecessor to Peter Pan, author J. M. Barrie identifies Queen Mab as the name of the benign and helpful fairy queen. In Disney's series of films based on Tinker Bell, branching out from their adaptation of Peter Pan , the fairy ruler is Queen Clarion.
In L. Frank Baum's Oz books, Queen Lurline is an otherworldly fairy queen who played a role in the creation of the Land of Oz. [22] An unnamed Queen of the Fairies also features in Baum's book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and is named Lulea in Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix .
In Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, the Fairy Queen is an essential part of the plot. Although she rules over the fairies, she is actually a unicorn capable of taking humanoid form.
The character Erza Scarlet from Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail earned the alias "Titania" due to her power.[ citation needed ]
In Foxglove Summer , part of the Rivers of London series, the protagonist Peter Grant is captured by the Fairy Queen and taken off to her Kingdom (an alternative reality or Otherworld where Britain is still covered with a massive unbroken primeval forest, with no sign of the familiar towns and villages).
In Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, Titania and Mab are rival queens of the Summer and Winter Courts. Oberon's half-human daughter, Meghan Chase, eventually becomes queen of the Iron Court.
Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock is a modern reimagining of the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, in which the Fairy Queen is known as Mrs Laurel Perry Lynn.
The goddess Diana was regularly portrayed as the ruler of the fairy kingdom in demonological literature, such as King James VI of Scotland's Daemonologie , which says that she belongs to "the fourth kind of spirits, which by the Gentiles [non-Jews] was called Diana and her wandering court, and amongst us is called Fairy (as I told you) or our good neighbours". [23]
Medieval Christian authorities condemned cult beliefs of nocturnal, female spirit leaders who might accept offerings or take practitioners on a nighttime journey. The Sicilian doñas de fuera of Italy were one example. In Scotland in the 1530s, William Hay described Scottish witches meeting with "seely wights" or "Diana queen of the fairies." Julian Goodare clarifies that "[t]here is no reason to believe that there was a Scottish cult of Diana"; rather, the name was contemporary authorities' way of classifying such beliefs. [24] Names used for this figure included Herodias, Abundia, Bensozia, Richella, Satia, and numerous others [25] like Doamna Zînelor in Romania (translated by Mircea Eliade as "Queen of the Fairies") [26] or Wanne Thekla in the Netherlands. [27]
A queen of the fairies or spirits, referred to as the "Quene of Elfame" and other spelling variants, was mentioned in several Scottish witch trials. In the 16th century, Andro Man claimed to have had children by the "Quene of Elphen." Scholar Robert Pitcairn reconstructed the word as "Elphame" or "Elf-hame." [28]
The concept of a Dianic queen of spirits influenced the neopagan cultures that developed from Charles Godfrey Leland's concept of Aradia "Queen of the Witches". [29] The Faerie faith developed from the same source as the McFarland Dianic tradition.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular and widely performed plays.
In English folklore, The Puck, also known as Goodfellows, are demons or fairies which can be domestic sprites or nature sprites.
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures, a form of spirit, often with metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities.
TamLin is a character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. It is also associated with a reel of the same name, also known as the Glasgow Reel. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies. The motif of winning a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales.
Aradia is one of the principal figures in the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899 work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which he believed to be a genuine religious text used by a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, a claim that has subsequently been disputed by other folklorists and historians. In Leland's Gospel, Aradia is portrayed as a messiah who was sent to Earth in order to teach the oppressed peasants how to perform witchcraft to use against the Roman Catholic Church and the upper classes.
Oberon is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fairies.
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture. Examples of shapeshifters are vampires and werewolves.
Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgan[n]a, Morgain[a/e], Morg[a]ne, Morgant[e], Morge[i]n, and Morgue[in] among other names and spellings, is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur, in which most often she and he are siblings. Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay, a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. Her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence, and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist, particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with potential for both good and evil.
Queen Mab is a fairy referred to in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, in which the character Mercutio famously describes her as "the fairies' midwife", a miniature creature who rides her chariot over the bodies of sleeping humans during the nighttime, thus helping them "give birth" to their dreams. Later depictions in other poetry and literature and various guises in drama and cinema have typically portrayed her as the Queen of the Fairies.
Fairyland (Early Modern English: Faerie; Scots: Elfame in English and Scottish folklore is the fabulous land or abode of fairies or fays. Old French faierie referred to an illusion or enchantment, the land of the faes. Modern English fairy transferred the name of the realm of the fays to its inhabitants, e.g., the expression fairie knight in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene refers to a "supernatural knight" or a "knight of Faerie" but was later re-interpreted as referring to a knight who is "a fairy".
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line for the MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh computers in 1994. It features high-resolution graphics in a style reminiscent of Disney animated films and is the only King's Quest game with multiple protagonists: Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella, who are both spirited away to the realm of Eldritch, and Rosella is transformed into a troll. They must find a way to return Rosella to normal and find her true love, get rid of a powerful evil force threatening this realm, and get back to their kingdom Daventry.
Titania is a character in William Shakespeare's 1595–1596 play A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Romani folklore encompasses the folktales, myths, oral traditions, and legends of the Romani people. The Romani were nomadic when they departed India during the Middle Ages. They migrated widely, particularly to Europe, while other groups stayed and became sedentary. Some legends say that certain Romani have passive psychic powers such as empathy, precognition, retrocognition, or psychometry. Other legends include the ability to levitate, travel through astral projection by way of meditation, invoke curses or blessings, conjure or channel spirits, and skill with illusion-casting. The Roma from Slavic countries believe in werewolves. Romani chovihanis often use a variety of herbs and amulets for protection. Garlic is a popular herb used by the Roma.
In folklore, fairy-locks are the result of fairies tangling and knotting the hairs of sleeping children and the manes of beasts as the fairies play in and out of their hair at night.
A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as "Hansel and Gretel". Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as The Morrígan or Badb, who are seen as neither wholly benevolent nor malevolent.
Queen of Elphame or "Elf-hame", in the folklore belief of Lowland Scotland and Northern England, designates the elfin queen of Faerie, mentioned in Scottish witch trials. In ballads and contemporary texts, she is referred to as Queen of Elphane, Elphen, or the Fairies. She is equivalent to the Queen of Fairy who rules Faërie or Fairyland. The character as described in witch trials has many parallels with the legends of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin.
Nicneven,Nicnevin or Nicnevan is a witch or fairy queen from Scottish folklore. She is often said to be the same figure as the Gyre-Carling or Hecate, but some scholars disagree with this. It is debated whether the name originally referred to a real woman or a mythical goddess.
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania is an oil on canvas painting by the Scottish artist Sir Joseph Noel Paton. Painted in 1849, it depicts the scene from William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, when the fairy queen Titania and fairy king Oberon quarrel; Oberon was considered the King of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. When exhibited in Edinburgh during 1850, it was declared as the "painting of the season". It was acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland in 1897, having initially been bought by the Royal Association for Promoting the Fine Arts in Scotland during 1850. An earlier version of this painting was Paton's diploma picture, which was submitted to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1846; they paid £700 for it.
