Reading Notes: Week 13 "More Celtic Fairy Tales" Part B

 

Dancing with fairies. 1895. John D. Batten (More Celtic Tales)

    My favorite story from Part B of the unit was definitely "The Legend of Knockgrafton." In all, it was a really good story, came with a song, had the good guy get rewarded, and the unethical guy gets punished (even if it was a little overboard). Aside from the plot and characters, I really liked how it portrayed the fairies' behavior.

    The idea of fairies being bright, merry, joyful creatures is mostly a Disney invention. In folklore, fairies (even the nice ones) are vindictive and fickle with a strict moral code tailored to each individual. Classical fairies are tough to deal with! Some are outright hostile. Others are easily agitated by violence. Most are gracious as long as you follow their rules.

    But...what are their rules?

    Excellent question!

    Answer?

    Who knows.

    No, really. Depending on the story, the protagonist is either dealing with a single fairy or with a group. Both entities have specific rules, and no entity follows the same rules as another in a different story.

    Take the fairies in this story for example. Our protagonist Lusmore listens to them sing their song three times, pays attention to their natural pause, and then sings a verse himself adding in another part. This downright tickles the fairies, and they reward him by removing his hump and curing him of his other physical deformities.

    The gossip, Jack, listens to the fairies seven times in a row but just jumps in with his own rendition of their song, completely throwing them off rhythm and out of sync with each other. They punish him by adding Lusmore's hump to his own. This ultimately kills Jack. Like I said, the fairies went overboard in my opinion.

    These fairies value cleverness, as most do, but more than that they value attention to detail, thoughtfulness. Their song is about Monday and Tuesday, so it isn't a stretch of musical genius when Lusmore adds in Wednesday or Jack adds Thursday. The only difference between what the two men did is Lusmore paid attention to when he might be able to jump in, where Jack just jumped in without care for the fairies' song.

    If you were to set up these rules next to another group of fairies, or just one fairy, they'd be totally different!

    This story is also a warning: don't seek the fairies out. Lusmore had a chance encounter with them without asking for anything, and, out of luck, it turned out very well. Jack sought them out, particularly for his own personal gain. Moral of the story? Don't seek out the fairies. You can't make them do anything (without severe repercussions anyway).

    All in all, it's just a really fun story that got my imagination turning.

Bibliography

The Legend of Knockgrafton from Celtic folklore by Joseph Jacobs

The Legend of Knockgrafton (cont.) from Celtic folklore by Joseph Jacobs