The Fair Folk/Quotes
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. |
Up the airy mountain —from the back cover blurb of Mythology Abroad by Jody Lynn Nye
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They steal cattle and babies... |
Like most of his race the fairy had a great multitude of names, honorifics, titles, and pseudonyms; but usually he was known as Cold Henry. Cold Henry made a long and deferential speech to his guest. The speech was full of metaphors and obscure allusions, but what Cold Henry seemed to be saying was that fairies were naturally wicked creatures who did not always know when they were going wrong.
—Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
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Sit down by the fire and I'll tell ye a story to send ye away to your bed —The Pogues, Sit Down By The Fire
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"Far out in the center of this region is a place called the Chantry. It's supposed to hold all kinds of vast and ancient secrets, including a powerful being the natives only refer to as 'The Kind One'. Now, a title like that can mean a lot of things in folklore, like trying to placate something monstrous."
—Justin Augustine, City of Heroes
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"Come away, O human child! —William Butler Yeats, The Stolen Child
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Consider, for instance, a Fae who believes that he has fallen in love with a changeling, and she loves him in turn. One day, though, that will all fall apart, a house of cards whirling in a callous wind. The Fae might grow to hate the changeling's pandering attentions. Or maybe the Fae will one day ask a simple favor -- "Please, my dear, pass me the salt" -- and in the changeling's hesitation the Fae sees gross disobedience. As so he snaps her neck, wondering at the sounds that gurgle up from her collapsed trachea. Soon thereafter, he remembers the burbling of the honeyed brook outside his Arcadian home, and he returns to his world, managing to never think twice about how easily he killed his "love."
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I certainly didn’t set out to specialize in elves. But recently, I think I figured out where this pattern comes from. [...] As I was developing Samara, the cat character, I had a startling insight. Start with a cat; give her intelligence, weapons, magic, and art; allow her human height and stance; keep the attitude--what do you have? —Elaine Cunningham
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[G]ood fairies don't exist.
—Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, Sunshine by Robin McKinley
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"Courage to strengthen, —Rhyme from The Wheel of Time which precedes the game of Snakes and Foxes, being a corrupted memory of the tools needed to fight the local version of the Fair Folk.
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