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The salve, sometimes an oil and sometimes an oinment, by which human eyesight penetrates the Glamour which fairies can cast over it, and see things as they really are. It also penetrates the spells which cause invisibility. We are told most about it in stories of the Midwife to the Fairies. The first version of the tale is told in the 13th century writings of Gervase of Tilbury in the account of the Dracae of Brittany. Early as it is, it is the complete story: the fetching of a human midwife at night to an unknown house, the ointment given her to anoint the eyes of the newborn child and the strange enlightenment that follows her casual use of it on one of her own eyes; and as it followed, as in all the later stories, by the innocent betrayal of her forbidden vision and the blinding of the seeing eye. There are dozens of such stories with slight modifications, but Professor John Rhys in CELTIC FOLKLORE VOL. I, gives what may well be the complete story, the tale of Eilean. The fairy ointment occurs in another, slightly different story, Cherry of Zennor (q.v.). In this story in Hunt's collection a country girl seeking service is engaged by a Fairy Widower as nursemaid to his little boy, and one of her duties is to anoint the eyes of her charge every morning. Her master is amorous and friendly and she is very happy with him, until curiosity about the strange things that happen in her new home leads her to use the ointment on her own eyes, when she sees all sorts of things going on around her, her master as amorous with the midget fairies at the bottom of the spring as he ever was with her. Jealousy leads her to betray herself, and her master regretfully dismisses her though he does not injure her sight. It is clear from the story that the fairy master's first wife was a mortal, which suggests that the ointment was needed only for hybrid fairies, for whole fairies by their own nature could see through the glamour.
# 100 - 331 - 554
See: ORIGINS OF THE FAIRIES.
Several seventeenth-century magical manuscripts contain spells to obtain power over fairies. Some were to call them up, some to dismiss them from places were treasure was to be found, and some to gain their help and advice. The one that follow are from the Bodleian Library (MS. Ashmole 1406): An excellent way to gett a Fayrie, but for my selfe I call margarett Barrance but this will obtaine any one that is not allready bound. First gett a broad square christall or Venus glasse in length and breadth 3 inches, then lay that glasse or christall in the bloud of a white henne 3 wednesdayes or 3 fridayes: then take it out and wash it with holy aqua and fumigate it: then take 3 hazle stickes or wands of an yeare groth, pill them fayre and white, and make soe longe as you write the spiritts name, or fayries name, which you call 3 times, on every sticke being made flatt one side, then bury them under some hill whereas you suppose fayries haunt, the wednesday before you call her, and the friday followinge take them uppe and call hir at 8 or 3 or 10 of the clocke which be good plannets and howres for that turne: but when you call, be in cleane Life and turne thy face towards the east, and when you have her bind her to that stone or Glasse. An Ungt. to annoynt under the Eyelids and upon the Eyelidds evninge and morninge, but especially when you call, or finde your sight not perfect. (That is, an ointment to give sight of the fairies) pt. (precipitate?) sallet oyle and put it into a Viall glasse but first wash it with rose water, and marygold flower water, the flowers be gathered towards the east, wash it til the oyle come white, then put it into the glasse, ut supra. and thou put thereto the budds of holyhocke, the flowers of mary gold; the flowers or toppes of wild time the budds of younge hazle, and the time must be gatherred neare the side of a hill where fayries use to go oft, and the grasse of a fayrie throne, there, all these putt into the oyle, into the glasse, and sett it to dissolve 3 dayes in the sonne, and thou keep it for thy use; ut supra.
# 100
# 562: Land of the Dead; Cleena, a Danaan maiden once living in Mananan's country, the Land of Youth beyon the sea. Escaping thence with a mortal lover, she landed on the southern coast of Ireland, but was lulled to sleep on the beach by fairy music played by a minstrel of Mananan, when a great wave of the sea swept up and carried her back to Fairyland. Connla's Well is under the sea, in the Land of Youth in Fairyland, and in which are the hazels of wisdom and inspirations; war carried on against Fairyland by Eochy, who at last recovers his wife, Etain. CuChulain in, and Laeg's visit to Fairyland; Fergus mac Leda and Fairyland (q.v.); tales of the Fianna concerned with Fairyland; Oisin's (Usheen) journey to Fairyland in Tales of the Ossianic cycle (q.v.); Finn and the Fianna rescue the Fairyland from a rival Fairy king; rescue of FairyLand by Pwyll, in the tale: PWYLL, PRINCE OF DYFED.
# 156: In Spenser's FAERIE QUEENE, the realm in which Arthur had adventures before becoming king. The poem is an allegory, with Fairyland standing for England of Spenser's day. The inhabitants claimed descent from Elf (who was created from Prometheus) and a fay from the gardens of Adonis. Early kings included Elfin, son of Elf, who ruled England and America; Elfinan, who founded the city of Cleopolis; Elfiline, who built a golden wall around it; Elfinell, who defeated the goblins in battle; Elfant; Elfar, who killed two giants, one with two heads, the other with three; and Elfinor, who built a brazen bridge upon the sea. The immediate family of Gloriana, queen of Fairyland, of whom Arthur became enamoured, was: ELFICLEOS, King of Faerie, his sons: Elferon (King of Faerie) and Oberon (King of Faerie), and Oberon's daughter, Gloriana (Queen of Faerie). See: CAPTIVES IN FAIRYLAND, and TIME IN FAIRYLAND.
# 156 - 562
(fôl) The Stone of Fal cried out under every legitimate king of Ireland who stepped upon it. See: INIS FAIL.
# 166
# 562: The city of Falias. See: Dana.
# 454: It was one of four cities from whence the Tuatha de Danaan came to Ireland. Its master of wisdom was called Morfessa, and it was from here that the Stone of Fal derived. See: HALLOWS.
# 454 - 562
# 562: The pearl of Beauty, wife of Mananan; sets her love on CuChulain; returns to her home with Mananan.
# 454: The sister of Labraid. She was given to CuChulain after he had helped Labraid. Emer taunted CuChulain about this new love and he relinquished her. She returned to Mananan, who shook his cloak between the lovers that they might never again meet.
# 266 - 454 - 548 - 562
See: PHARAMOND.
Even the most flaccid and degenerate of the literary fairies have some point in common with the fairies in folk tradition, but as a rule, the poets and story-tellers pick out one aspect from the varied and intricate world of fairy tradition, and the aspect chosen differs not only from poet to poet but from one period to another. The fairies of medieval romances are among the heroic fairies in type, of human size and often amorous of mortals, expert in enchantment and glamour, generally beautiful but occasionally hideous hags. Many of them are half-forgotten gods and goddesses, euhemerized into mortals with magical powers. The goddesses are more frequent than the gods. It was literary fashion which chose out this type because the romances derived from Celtic hero tales founded on the Celtic Pantheon; scattered references in the medieval chronicles show that very different types of fairies were available to the medieval poets if they had chosen to use them.
A different type of spirit, though no less true tradition, appears among the Elizabethan and Jacobean Fairies. It is true that Spencer uses the fairies, enchanters and witches of the Arthurian legends in the machinery of his FAERIE QUEENE, but on the whole the spotlight is turned upon the diminutive fairies. They appear in John Lyly's ENDIMION, in the anonymous MAIDES METAMORPHOSIS and the WISDOME OF DR DODYPOL, and above all in a MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Queen Mab in ROMEO AND JULIET is even more minute than the elves who waited on Titania. The Jacobean poets followed hard on the fashion. The diminutive fairies in Drayton, HERRICK, ET AL., made an extravaganza of Shakespeare's little fairies until, with the DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, they became miracles of littleness. Even Milton in PARADISE LOST used the elves to illustrate diminution and small size. The exception to these dainty and miniature fairies is the rougher, homely Hobgoblin, by whatever name he is called - Robin Goodfellow, Puck or the Lubbard Fiend. Since that period, the tiny fairies have constantly haunted literature. The 18th century was the first period in which books were written expressly for the edification of children. Educational text books had been written before - one of the first books printed was Caxton's BABEES BOOK to train pages in etiquette, and there were Latin and French conversation books, but works of fiction were first written expressly for children in the 18th century. At the end of the 17th century the sophisticated French fairy-stories of Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy were translated into English. They began as real traditional tales, polished to meet the taste of the French court, and they were equally popular in England. Half the court seem to have tried their hands at them, and as time went on they moved farther away from their original. The Fairy Godmothers, already at one remove from folk fairies, became relentless moralists, driving their protégés along the path to virtue. The trend persisted into the 19th century, and it was not until a quarter of it had passed that the researches of the folklorists began to have some effect on children's literature. The Romantic Revival, however, had begun before this to affect the writings of the poets. Collins, Scott, Hogg and Keats wrote in the folk-fairy tradition, and as the century went on writers of children's stories followed them; Jean Ingelow and J. H. Ewing are among the best. At the beginning of the 20th century, an extreme tenderness and sensibility about children almost overwhelmed the folk fairies and turned them into airy, tenuous, pretty creatures without meat or muscles, made up of froth and whimsy. Rudyard Kipling fought against this tendency in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL, and now in Tolkien, his predecessors and successors, we enjoy a world in which imagination has superseded fancy; but whimsy is still with us in the works of the weaker writers.
# 100
Fata Morgana is the Latin name for Morgan le Fay, the Arthurian version of the old Celtic Death-goddess, Morrigan or Mara. The term Fata Morgana is now applied to a certain kind of mirage, often seen in the Strait of Messina, said to represent Morgan's secret palace beneath the waves. It was Morgan who ruled the Fortunate Isles of the honoured dead, and who carried away the corpse of King Arthur to this western paradise.
# 701 p 247
Three triangles created the emblem of the Fate Goddesses: Weird Sisters (from the Saxon wyrd, meaning 'fate'). Three of anything arranged in triads suggested a total of nine, so in some traditions the Fate goddesses became nine, like the Nine Morgans of the Fortunate Isles in Celtic myth. - In Scandinavia, the sign of fate was called the valknut, Knot of the Vala. A Vala was either a female spirit ruling the fates of men-a Valkyrie-or her representative on earth.
# 701
A son of Vortigern.
# 156
The Fawn or Deer is a favourite form adopted by nymphs and fairies to allow them to escape. It was the shape taken by the fairy-mother to the Gaelic bard Ossian (Little Fawn), and she bore him while in this guise; for this reason he could never eat venison.
# 161
The Land of the Wee Folk; Iubdan, King of Faylinn.
# 562
'Fay' was the earliest form in which the word 'fairy' appears. It is generally supposed to be a broken-down form of 'Fatae', the Fates, which in Romance tradition became less formidable and multiplied in number. The word 'fairy' was originally 'fayerie', the enchantment of the fays, and only later became applied to the people working the enchantment rather than to the estate of illusion.
# 100
(fäd'elm nôy'hre) 'Fresh-Heart.' Daughter of Conchobar; wife of Cairpre Niafer.
# 166
# 562: Prophetess from Fairy Mound of Croghan, questioned by Maev: 'How seest thou our host?' asked Maev. 'I see them all be-crimsoned, red,' replied the prophetess. 'Yet the Ulster heroes are all in their pangs - there is none that can lift a spear against us,' said Maev. 'I see the host all be-crimsoned,' said Fedelma. 'I see a man of small stature, but the hero's light is on his brow - a stripling young and modest, but in battle a dragon; he is like unto CuChulain of Murthemney; he both wondrous feats with his weapons; by him your slain shall lie thickly.' (CuChulain, as the son of the god Lugh, was not subject to the curse of Macha which afflicted the other Ultonians.) At this the vision of the weaving maiden vanished, and Maev drove homewards to Rathcroghan wondering at what she had seen and heard.
# 454: She was the witch who had the fostering of Corc. It was while he was in her care that he gained his name for one night, when her sister witches were assembling, one of them called out 'I bless everything, except what is under the cauldron.' Corc was singed by the blast of the fire on one ear, thus earning the name 'Red'.
# 454 - 562
(fäl'e mid) (also Felim) Son of Dall; Conchobar's story-teller.
# 166
Finn and his Fianna Fin were in the Scottish Gaelic tradition translated into Finn and the Feinne, and the Fenian Brochs were said to be built by them. According to David Mac Ritchie, in his TESTIMONY OF TRADITION and other writings, the Feens were a dwarfish Ugrian people who were spread over Finland, Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, northern Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and who were conquered and driven underground by the Milesians or Scots. This follows the old Irish traditional history (see TUATHA DE DANANN) and is plausibly presented by Mac Ritchie with a wealth of evidence, though with more attention to that which confirms his theory than to that which tends to disprove it. He also makes the Silkies and Roane a part of the same pattern, Finmen and Finwomen in their sealskin kayaks. If we subscribe to his theory, we have to abandon the great figure of Ossian, towering on his white horse above the puny modern men, for a stunted, cunning Magician with almost superhuman strength of muscle, but we may leave them their music, tale-telling and wealth of golden treasure.
# 100 - 409
The Two Feet Symbol. There is reason to think that this symbol were earlier than any known mythology. The symbol of the feet or footprint is very widespread. It is found in the ancient Egypt, India, and occurs in rock-carvings in Scandinavia, and is found sculptured on dolmens in Brittany. In Ireland it passes for the footprints of St Patrick or St Columba.
# 562
See: MORGAN LE FAY.
In Wolfram's PARZIFAL, son of Gahmuret and Belcane. He and Perceval, his half-brother, went to Arthur's court after they met. He fell in love with the Grail damsel, Repanse de Schoie. He became a Christian and they went to India where they became the parents of Prester John. Because his parents were of different colours, Feirefiz was piebald.
# 156
Son of Dall, father of Deirdre; his feast to Conor and Red Branch heroes, where he bade Cathbad, the Druid, perform divination for Felim's newborn infant, Deirdre. 'The infant shall be fairest among the women of Erin, and shall wed a king, but because of her shall death and ruin come upon the Province of Ulster.'
# 562
Tristan's grandfather, father of Meliodas and Mark, according to TRISTANO RICCARDIANO. In the TAVOLA RITONDA, Felix was King of Cornwall and Liones. In Malory, Meliodas and Mark were brothers-inlaw.
# 156
(fâr), plur. fir (fîr) A man.
# 166
(fâr rô'gin) Great-grandson of Donn Desa; foster-brother of Conaire Mor.
# 166
The kingdom of Feramorc over which Scoriath is king. Maon taken to Feramorc.
# 562
# 166: (Fercartna)
# 454: He was the poet of Cu Roi. When he discovered that Blanaid had been responsible for his master's death, he seized her and together they plunged off the cliffs of the Beare Peninsula to their deaths.
# 562: Ferchertne (fâr'hârt ne) Chief poet and entertainer of Conchobar.
# 166 - 454 - 562
# 562: (fâr de'a) (Ferdiad or Fer Diad) Duel between CuChulain and Ferdia; son of the Firbolg, Daman, friend of CuChulain; rallies to Maev's foray against Ulster; consents to Maev's entreaty that he should meet and fight his friend CuChulain; the struggle; CuChulain slays Ferdia; buried by Maev.
# 454: The oldest friend and companion-in-arms of CuChulain, with whom he was taught at the court of Scathach in Alba. He was of Connact and found himself forced to combat CuChulain at the ford, when Ulster was being attacked by Maev for the possession of the Brown Bull of Daire. They fought for three days; at the end of each day thay bathed each other's wounds and slept in the same blanket. But at the last CuChulain used his great spear, the Cae Bolg, against which no man could stand. CuChulain had asked his charioteer, Loegaire, to incite his anger with insults and gibes and it was so that Ferdiad died at his friend's hand.
# 166 - 266 - 367 - 454 - 562
# 156: A ploughboy who aspired to knighthood, having seen Arthur and his knights. After various adventures he married Galiene, the Lady of Lothian. His horse was called Arondiel. A Knight of the Round Table of Cornish provenance, a follower of Tristan, was also so called, but this is probably a different character. See: BLACK KNIGHT.
# 562: Nemedian chief who slays Connan.
# 156 - 562
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