Folk wisdom offers a variety of suggestions for averting fairy abduction.  Travelers out walking at night in known fairy turf who begin to experience confusion are advised to turn their clothing inside out to reverse the fairy spell which could lead them astray.   Fairies avoid iron and salt, so carrying some of those substances can repel them.  Other sources suggest tucking a piece of dry bread into your pocket.  It is unclear whether the bread itself deters fairies or if it is meant as a snack to stave off hunger to avoid entrapment in fairy lands through consuming their food.    Some stories claim fairies react with fear to the Bible much like vampires, but other tales tell of malign fairies frightening and attacking priests who carried all the tools of their trade.   Some folklore suggests preventing fairies from entering your home by sprinkling stale urine over the doorways, but this measure seems extreme as it will also keep humans from visiting you.

Certain types of trees provide protection against fairies, not because the fairies fear them, but because they respect them as sacred.  Fairies hold rowan and ash trees in especially high esteem.  Legend says fairies will not harm a person standing beneath the branches of an ash tree.   A piece of rowan wood will prevent attacks by malevolent fairies and help you connect with benign members of this clan.  Avoid using wood from elder trees, as the fairies claim this for themselves.  There are stories of fairies pinching children put to sleep in cradles made from elder wood.   St. John’s wort, known as an herbal remedy against depression, also hinders bad fairies from interfering in your life.

Exercise caution with your words in order not to offend the fairies.  For centuries, Irish country people deliberately referred to fairies as “the good folk” in order to maintain good relations with their unseen neighbors.

Certain times of day and certain days on the calendar offer a greater likelihood of catching a glimpse of fairies.  At these times, the veil between our world and theirs may become more permeable, making it easier to experience at least a hint of fairy magic.  A large number of reported fairy sightings occur during the times of twilight or darkness.   Within this time range, the hours between midnight and dawn seem to offer the richest opportunities for seeing fairies.

Tradition holds that the summer solstice, the holiday known as Beltane or May Day (May 1), the Summer Solstice and Samhain (pronounced Sow-when, known in modern times as Halloween) may hold more potential for seeing past illusions to perceive the presence of fairies.  Fairy lore holds that the division between their world and ours becomes more permeable on these days.  People born between midnight and 1 am, especially while the sun transits through the astrological sign of Scorpio (October 24 through November 21), may be blessed—or cursed, depending on your point of view—with a greater ability to see fairies, as well as ghosts and other supernatural entities.

Items from nature can help in perceiving the presence of fairies.  Try looking through a fairy stone, one which has a natural (not drilled) hole in its center, or, if you cannot find one of these, twist a blade of grass into a circle and use it the same way.   Some herbs and flowers can also be allies in your fairy quest: primrose and thyme can help expand your field of vision to include the fairy realm.

To learn to see fairies, spend some time sitting quietly in nature—perhaps meditating beneath a special tree or drawing or painting a beautiful flower.  Fairies love music so if you play a small instrument or have a beautiful singing voice, they may approach you more readily.  You will begin to sense which areas hold traces of fairy energy.  Although some well-known spots have a long history of fairy sightings, fairies also may dwell in small city gardens as well as forest groves in rural areas.  If you garden, leave some of your land untamed enough to welcome fairies, who prefer a slight feeling of wilderness.   Planting certain flowers will help attract the fairies to your garden:  they love roses, foxglove, daffodils, heather, pansies, and lavender.   Trees which attract fairies include holly, oak, apple, blackthorn, elder, rowan, and willow.   If you perceive friendly fairy energy and want to engage with the protecting spirits of a certain tree or garden, you can leave gifts.  Some of the gifts said to please fairies include a silver cup filled with wine, or a glass bowl containing honey, milk, and rose petals.

Fairy lore links certain types of places with “the good people.”  High places such as hills and mountains have reputations as fairy haunts; in fact some stories speak of fairies living inside of hills.  The notion of fairies as elementals sees fairies as connected to their homes, specific rivers and streams, forests and rock outcroppings.  The fairies seem to have a preference for some types of trees, for instance the hawthorn tree, whose Irish name, Sceach Gheal, means fairy tree.   In some cases one specific tree or even bush holds a strong link to the fae.  Natural underground sites such as caves or tunnels are sometimes seen as portals to the world of the fairies.  Older man-made sites such as pre-historic burial mounds and standing stone circles may also be the site of fairy activity.

Bogs, as liminal spaces, not quite land nor completely water, hold an obvious hazard to unwary walkers.  Irish folk wisdom says the danger lies not only in falling into the bog through inattention, but being lured into it by fairies.  The danger is apparently strongest for men; tales tell of a beautiful red-haired fairy woman who lures men out to her house in the middle of a bog.  The ghostly lights over bogs and marshes known as foxfire is explained by scientists as spontaneous lighting of gases emerging from the water.  However, folklore calls these lights will-o-the-wisps which may be held by fairies to fool travelers.

Certain specific sites have historically been intertwined with fairy lore.  Visitors to Isle of Skye, the largest island of the Hebrides chain off the west coast of Scotland, can view an old silk piece of cloth known as the Faery Flag at Dunvagen Castle, home for eight centuries to the Clan MacLeod.  According to tradition, an early chief of this clan married a fairy woman with the understanding the union would last only 20 years.  When the term of the marriage expired, the couple said goodbye on the Fairy Bridge, 3 miles from the castle, where the fairy woman gave the flag to her husband telling him the clan could wave it in times of danger and the fairies would come to their aid.   Perhaps after leaving Dunvagen Castle, the wife went to live in another famous fairy site on the island:  the Fairy Glen.   Another Scottish fairy site is Schiehallion Mountain, whose name translates as “Stronghold of the Fairies of Caledonia.”

Legend says that at the base of Lough Gur, a horseshoe-shaped lake in County Limerick, lies an entrance to the fairy realm of Tir Na’Og, where the Tuatha de Danaan make their home.  Along the shores of Loch Gur lie a dolmen* as well as Stone Age houses and the Grange Stone Circle, the largest stone circle in Ireland.

*literally “stone table” from the taol maen in Breton language, a dolmen is a megalithic tomb consisting of three or more upright stones holding a large flat stone

Fairy lore has an abundance of stories of attractive men and women either abducted or choosing to live among the fae, often as the consort of a fairy man or woman.  One of the best known tales is the Scottish ballad Thomas the Rhymer.  The ballad relates how Thomas, a young man relaxing in the forest, meets a lovely woman astride a white horse.  He at first addresses her as the “Queen of Heaven” but she corrects him, identifying herself as the “queen of fair elfland.”  They kiss, and Thomas agrees to serve her for seven years.  The queen shows Thomas three paths:  a narrow and thorny one she calls “the path of righteousness”; a broad and lovely “path to wickedness”; and a green path to fairyland.  The queen warns Thomas while he remains with her to eat only the food and drink she herself gives him.  She also cautions him never to speak of what he sees in her realm.  At the end of his seven years of service, she feeds him an apple which gives him “the tongue that can never lie.”

Many scholars identify another ballad, Tam Lin, as the sequel to Thomas the Rhymer.   This ballad offers a much darker view of both fairy culture and the man taken by the fairies.  The story begins by forbidding young women to enter the woods of Caterhaugh because a man named Tam Lin has accosted other young women in the woods and taken “Either their rings, or green mantles, or else their maidenhead.”  One young woman, Janet, picks a rose in this wood, which causes Tam Lin to appear.  Later, Janet returns home and the first signs of her pregnancy appear.  She tells her family the father is not human.  She returns to Caterhaugh and speaks with Tam Lin, who tells her he is human, but has been abducted and taken as consort by the Fairy Queen and lived among the fae for several years.  During that time, he has witnessed the fairies sacrifice one of their humans each Halloween as a tithe to hell.  Tam Lin fears this year the fairies may choose him for that role.  He instructs Janet on how to rescue him so he can marry her and raise their child.   She will see him riding a white horse in procession with the fairies, and must pull him from the horse.  Fairy magic will cause him to transform into different beasts, but she must keep hold of him as this happens.  Finally, he will become a flaming brand, and then she must toss him into a well.  When he emerges from the well in human form, dripping wet, Janet has to toss a green mantle over him and then he will be released from the fairies.   Janet completes this magical task, much to the anger of the fairy queen.

A real historical person, Thomas Learmouth, is often identified as the protagonist of both of these ballads.   He was known as both Thomas the Rhymer and True Thomas.  He lived in the thirteenth century and earned renown for truthfulness, his poetry, and his accurate prophecies.

Some types of fairies seem to specialize in seduction.  Smooth-talking, sharp-dressing male fairies known as ganconers (or glanconers) lure unwary human women into trysting with them, usually less densely populated areas where trees outnumber people.  In most ganconer tales, the seduced and then abandoned woman goes mad, and/or kills herself or simply exists in misery for the remainder of her days, unable to enjoy romance with a mere mortal after the enthralling experience of fairy love.  Tall, dark, and handsome ganconers are said to carry old-fashioned short-stemmed clay pipes known as dudeens.  The female equivalents of the ganconers are leanan sidhes.   These fairy women tend to prefer artistic men, but loving a leanan sidhe may rob the victim of his drive to create (Keats’s La Belle Dame sans Merci would seem to belong to this category of fairy).

Although not all tales of fairy-human romance end in madness, sadness, or death, the tales do all share a sense of boundary crossing.  Etain believed herself to be human and happily married to the Irish king, Eochaid.  Then one day a handsome stranger appeared to her.  The stranger explained that he was a fairy king and he had come to reclaim her for she was his wife.  This fairy king, Midir, had lost Etain long ago when his jealous first wife cast a spell that caused Etain to take the form of a butterfly and drift away on a current of wind.  For years as a butterfly, Etain traveled helplessly on the airstreams until she fell into the wineglass of a human woman who swallowed her.  Nine months later, this woman gave birth to a child, Etain in human form.   Etain felt a sense of resonance to the story Midir told of her past life, but she loved her human husband.   She told Midir she would remain with Eochaid, but Midir asked if she would leave if her human husband let her go.   Believing this would never happen, Etain said yes.

The fairy king challenged the human king to a series of contests.  The first three times, Eochaid won (or Midir let him win), and each time the King of Ireland claimed as his stakes that the King of the Fairy Realm accomplish some superhuman task.  Midir did all that Eochaid asked, but the fourth time they played, the fairy king won and for his prize, he asked to kiss and hold Etain.   Eochaid stalled, saying Midir could return in a month for his prize.   While the fairy king was gone, the human one used the time to fortify his castle and set guards around the queen.   When the month was up, Midir used his magical powers to materialize within the castle walls.  He kissed Etain, then transformed her and himself into swans and the winged pair flew away.   Some versions of the tale end with Etain united in the fairylands with Midir, although she sends the daughter of Eochaid’s she carried in her womb when she left back to the father.  In other versions, Eochaid, after a long search, finds the fairy mound where Midir hides Etain.  Midir tells Eochaid that Etain will return to her human husband only if he recognizes his queen.  Midir then sends out fifty fairy woman wearing the guise of Etain, but Eochaid sees through the ruse and will accept only Etain.  Eochaid and Etain return to the human world to rule for many years.

For a tale of a happier fairy romance, albeit one with a specific expiration date, read the story of the Chief of the Clan MacLeod and his fairy wife.

Even those who receive a boon from the fairies once may be punished for returning for a second share of good fortune.  A German tale tells of two men, a tailor and a goldsmith traveling together by foot. One night, they happened upon a fairy dance, and are invited to join.   When the men left the party, one of the fairies suggested they take lumps of coal from the fire with them.  The next day, the two men discovered the coals from the fairy gathering which they tucked into their bags, have turned into pieces of gold.   The goldsmith leaves his companion behind the next night to return to the fairy dance.  Again, as day breaks, the fairies enjoin him to take coals with him on his departure.  To his disappointment, the goldsmith finds that not only do the coals from the second night remain nothing but charred lumps, the enchanted coals from the first night of dancing also lose their magic so he has no gold.

In some cases, a fairy gift helps entice its recipient into leaving human society behind in order to join the fairies.  This is the case in the Irish story “Connla and the Fairie Maid.”  In this story, Connla, the son of a king, meets a fairy woman while he is out walking with his father, a king and warrior.  Connla meets a fairy woman and speaks with her, although none of the other humans present can see her.  The fairy promises Connla eternal youth and the chance to wear a crown in the fairy realm if he follows her.  His father’s druid weaves a spell to protect Connla and the fairy leaves but she tosses an apple to the prince before she disappears.  For the next month, Connla pines for the fairy woman, refusing food save an occasional bite of the magic fruit.  The fairy woman appears to him again, and his father, who hears but does not see the woman, again summons his druid.  The fairy reprimands the king for not letting Connla make his own choice.  Connla and the fairy woman depart on a crystal ship, sailing into the setting sun.

In Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, the nixes took the blame for any suspected child switches.  Full-grown female nixes, half-human and half-fish, a sort of freshwater mermaid, had sufficient allure to entice men to drown chasing after them.  However, nixes were said to have ugly, wizened children whom  they sought to exchange with healthy, attractive human babies.  Nix changelings are called Wasserkopf.

There is also another image of fairies.  Some paintings portray fairies as possessing the same size as humans and resembling us in most ways, yet exuding a subtle, magical difference.  Their long limbs give them a sinuous grace, and their facial features are so symmetrical as to recall a sculpture or a mask.  Fairies speak with unusually musical voices which charm the listener into a state similar to hypnosis.  Sometimes a small difference of anatomy betrays these fairies as other than human—perhaps one extra finger, or eyes of a rare color, unusually shaped ears, or pupils recalling those of a cat.

Sightings of these not-quite-human fairies reveal them as inhabiting an enchanted parallel universe of eternal pleasure and beauty.  Sometimes humans have spied fairy processions, with the fey riding astride majestic horses.  Or on occasion a human will catch a glimpse of a fairy ball in an enchanted grove, with fairies dancing gracefully to music of unearthly loveliness.  Tales of this type of fairy have a darker undercurrent than stories about the tiny winged garden dwellers.  Lingering reports over the centuries tell of these fairies using their irresistible allure to tempt humans away from their mortal lives and families.   There does not seem to be a happily ever after ending for humans who follow the fairies into their world.  Fairies may steal attractive humans of either gender for servants or playthings, so men as well as women should exercise caution if approached by extraordinarily beautiful strangers.  Not all fairies engage in kidnapping.  Some of them may act with generosity, giving help where least expected, but their kindness is capricious.

Titania and Oberon, the queen and king of the fairies, appear to be somewhat amoral.  On the one hand, their quarrel is over the possession of a kidnapped human child.  On the other hand, Oberon attempts to use magic to correct the unkindness of one the human lovers, Demetrius, toward Helen, the woman who loves him.

While the names Titania and Oberon fit with the purported Athens setting of the play, the character Puck carries ties to the fairy lore of the British Isles.  His name is reminiscent of the Irish concept of a pooka, a mischievous nature spirit.  One of Titania’s fairies asks Puck if he is “that shrewd and knavish sprite/ Called Robin Goodfellow” who “frights the maidens of the villager”’ and “misleads night-travelers, laughing at their harm.”  Puck says yes and adds to his resume, explaining that he beguiles horses, “neighing in likeness of a filly foal” and tricks women by disguising himself as a stool so they will sit on him and “Then slip I from her bum, down topples she.”

The fairy queen Titania is accompanied by three servants, Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, and Cobweb.  The names are redolent of the natural world. That and the fact that, unlike Puck, these minor fairy characters do not participate in the quarrels and underhanded games of Titania and Puck, makes them appear more innocent.   Many productions of the play show these minor fairy characters as winged sprites, sometimes with the roles undertaken by children.

While Shakespeare’s concept of fairies seems to contain both positive and negative elements of fairy lore, other writers have exclusively emphasized one aspect of fairies.  In John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, as the title (French, The Beautiful Woman Without Pity) implies, the fairy woman is dangerous.  She uses her physical beauty and false words of love to ensnare the knight in the poem so that he is left “alone and palely loitering in a withered landscape where no birds sing.”

Keats’ poem was written in 1819.  By the following century, J.M. Barrie presented a completely different view of fairies.  In his novel The Little White Bird, he offers this explanation of fairies: “When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies.”  In Peter Pan, his fairy character, Tinkerbell, far from being the almost vampiric figure of Keats’ poem, who seems to drain her victims of life force, derives sustenance from people’s belief in fairies.  Each artist, and perhaps each era, interprets fairies in a different light.  How each individual, how each age, view fairies shows us where and how we expect to experience the magic they represent.

Fairy tales, on the other hand, contain enchantment, most often deriving from either the explicit or at least implied presence of magical beings.  These magical beings may include talking animals, witches, elves, trolls or gnomes, and on occasion actual fairies.   Older fairy tales, unlike the modern Disney versions, do not necessarily end happily.    The notion of a fairy godmother or a good fairy who makes things come out alright often hides an original, darker tale.

In some early versions of the Cinderella story, it is not a fairy godmother who aids the heroine, but the ghost of the girl’s dead mother who was killed by the evil stepmother.  In some versions of the tale, Cinderella kills the stepmother.  Another famous fairy tale featuring a benevolent fairy is Sleeping Beauty.  In the best known modern versions of this tale, a good fairy offers a way of twisting the bad fairy’s curse of the pinpricked finger and hundred years of sleep into a happy ending with true love’s kiss awakening the sleeping princess.   In some earlier telling, Sleeping Beauty is awakened not by a prince’s kiss but by her twin infants—she has been impregnated by the prince while under the sleeping spell and subsequently given birth.  The prince who fathered the children already has a wife who tries to kill Sleeping Beauty.  The somewhat questionable happy ending of this version of the story has Sleeping Beauty triumphing over the first wife to marry the real prince responsible for her conceiving while in a coma.

In both instances, the good fairy figure in a later version of a story masks an original plot containing sadness and/or violence in an earlier incarnation of the same tale.  The use of fairies to prettify harsher tales carries a strong note of irony.  Real fairy lore, stories passed down through generations about actual people interacting with fairies, shows fairies in a very different light.  Rather than existing to gratify human wishes and right wrongs, fairies tend to have their own entirely separate agenda from humans.