The size of faeries is one of the most hotly-debated subjects related to the magickal world.

As recently as the 19th century, faeries were usually described as large, frightening beings. They were often the same size as humans, or larger.

Many believed that the Banshee predicted death. They thought that Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, brought financial disaster to farms. And so on.

It was common for people to use protection against faeries.

For example, a pattern of iron nails in a front door stopped faeries from entering the home.  Scissors near a baby’s cradle kept the child from being swapped with a changeling.  The bell around the cow’s neck prevented faeries from drawing close enough to sour the milk.

Attitudes changed when Shakespeare presented an entirely fresh view of faeries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play, Robin Goodfellow was a mere prankster.

This was an almost revolutionary concept. A few earlier works (including a poem attributed to Ben Jonson) introduced the concept of friendly faeries, but it was Shakespeare’s play which made this idea credible and popular.

When did the faeries become the “little people?”

The term may have been a sarcastic one, since most faeries are human-size or larger. Perhaps the expression was taken literally by people who did not see the faeries. We really don’t know where this idea began.

The first known representation of small faeries was in the 16th century play, Endimion, by John Lyly.

However, up through the early 19th century, folklore and actual experience maintained the idea of (mostly) large faerie folk.

Many people blame the change on the Cottingley Glen photos, showing faeries exclusively as tiny creatures with wings. Those images were later debunked as illustrations from children’s stories.  However, they’ve had a lingering impact on how we think of faeries.

The surge of affordable magazines and books in the late 19th century, probably misled people as much as any single source of information.

Because print (and, later, video) media are entertainment, they often present fiction with the intention of convincing us — at least briefly — that it is real. “Cute” faerie images sold magazines and books, so they were featured.

As the faeries retreated from our increasingly busy world, the public relied more upon the media for their concepts of beings from the Otherworlds.

Today’s most popular image of a faerie is a cute figure, a few inches tall at most, with wings. Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell may be a child’s earliest picture of a faerie.

Small faeries do exist. However, the important study, Conjuring Up Philip, showed us that it’s possible that belief has contributed to the appearance of small faeries, not vice versa.

The girls whose tales appear in movies such as A Fairy Tale, admitted to faking the Cottingley Glen photos. Nevertheless–and this detail is often omitted when the story is retold–they maintained that the photos accurately represented what they saw in the Glen: faeries.

Today, we are as likely to see large faeries as the small, popular ones. However, in discussions of other worlds, it’s important to keep an open mind.

Try to release the popular imagery of childhood cartoons and films. You may be surprised at the faeries you’ll see around you, when you do.  In many cases, they look like people you see every day.

Recommended reading

Briggs, Katherine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies, and The Vanishing People.

Froud, Brian. Good Faeries, Bad Faeries.

Rose, Carol. Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins, an Encyclopedia.

Kirk, Robert. The Secret Commonwealth (see the online edition of this book)

Stewart, R.J. Walker Between the Worlds, dreampower.com

Owen, Iris. Conjuring Up Philip. (not about faeries)

Smith, Peter Alderson. W. B. Yeats and the Tribes of Danu. (academic study)

Stewart, R. J. The Living World of Faery.