So, the question stands: Do you use Fairies in your world? Why or why not?

See, with the help of Disney and other TV commercial companies, Fairies have been made out to be these pixie things that flutter around and create rainbows (not that it's bad to have pixie things that flutter around and create rainbows ), but I think there needs to be a wider variety of what Fairies are. I, personally, would like to read a book with Fairies that aren't pixie things. How would you go about doing that?

To answer my own questions; no, I do not use Fairies in my world(s). Mainly because I have no storyline with Fairies, I don't use Fairies for the same reasons I don't use Elves...I just don't feel the need. Perhaps, one day I shall go about creating a race of Fairies that goes against the clichés that Disney has made, but, for now, I'm satisfied with a world without Fairies. Though, that isn't to say that I don't enjoy hearing about how everybody else does Fairies in their world. It's always nice to hear of the new and bright ideas on HW.

Bethany Faith

*throws glitter everywhere* I am the first one to respond! COOL! Yup, I have fairies everywhere. Fighting fairies, king faries, queen fairies, and of course villianous fairies!

Carliss

I don't normally use fairies, but it's possible my Fae are sort of similar to fairies...but definitely not the little Tinkerbell type fairies. It might be fun someday to have a race of fairies that pulls from the older stories, problems with iron included.

I don't like using strictly Elves, fairies, or dwarves. Period. However, I do have a race of people who are similar to fairies. Although they are very different than the Disney version of Tinker Bell. My Oneedads have intense hearing enabled by their large, disproportionate pointed ears. They have luminescent skin and gossamer wings. They cover their skin in leather wrappings in order to blend into their surroundings. The Oneedads are expert assasins.

Not the traditional fairy.

I don't mind faeries as long as they're done right.... I know a girl who loves using them and hers are very good. My bondfaeries are based off traditional faeries with my own twist... going to get her to help me make them very good too.

I haven't ever used fairies. I won't say I never will, but if I do, they will a warrior race. Okay, now I have this picture of a warrior fairy, that is totally against how most people think of them. He actually pretty sweet looking.

It depends on whether you're talking about fairies, faeries, or fae(fay). I have faeries in the faerie realm, but I call them and other supernatural beings Entities and I'm working on a 1-10 classification system for them.

They're not fairies exactly... I have the Shaylia and the Syphi (that's plural form). A Shayli is a little more like a stereotypical fairy but the size of a human and strictly butterfly wings, a Sylph is the same size but has moth wings and is usually a ninja.

I use elves and dwarves with my own twists from regular literature, but I have not fairies. I see not a need for them.

Perhaps when I draw that picture of my Oneedads (like I told Jonathan I would), I will post a link in here to the ArtGuild.

Why did they outlaw the wands?

*likes the sounds of Shark's fairies* Actually, I'm rather liking the sound of everybody's fairies.

In my fantasy I have no fairies, although at one point, when there was still magic, in my world I did have some.
I have several short story ideas planed with fairies, ranging from evil demonic fairies to angelic Tolkienesque fairies.
Also I have my favorite one, which involves fairies that are so wild, mischievous, and forgetful it makes them scary.

Good idea.

Technically anyone who uses elves and dwarves is using fairies
Every race in my world of Fantasia is based on a different type of fairy from world folklore. There are dwarves, elves, dryads, gnomes, goblins, trolls, hyter-sprites, kinnaras, apsaras, maruts, poltergeists, and a slew of others. One of my worlds has a race inspired by the Australian bunyips. And my world of Mythica has a few including a race inspired by the Finnish Haltijas, and a race called the Faye. So yes, lots of races inspired by fairies But thus far no modernized tiny people with glittery butterfly wings, there are just so many types of intriguing fairies in the world that they kinda got passed over.

I have pixies. They're small humanoids with wings and as yet only vaguely-defined magical powers over the woods in which they live. In order to compete with larger and stronger races on the battlefield, they use huge metal walkers powered by magic. They may be replaced by another race in a future draft; I'm still deciding if they fit well with the setting.

Huge metal walkers? Sounds intriguing! Are they mechanical or do the faeries control the joints using magic?

I think the ultimate power source is magical, but after that, the operation of the machine itself is mechanical. I haven't explored the inner workings in detail yet, though.

I don't use fairies. I did in a few of my old fairy tales (the corny Prince Peter series. LOL), but I don't like the mental images they conjure up As a general rule I don't really like fairies, or at least the modern kind. I prefer the kind I read about in a book called The Perilous Gard. They are a lot like elves, I guess. If I ever wrote fairies in my story, it would be sort of like those fairies.

Yeah, same here.

My idea of someone who was able to do the stereotypical Fairies right is Scott Appleton in the book 'Swords of the Six'. He adds some stuff of his own as well as giving them sufficient backstory.

I think Luke the Mindwielder's fairies are well done in Circle of Three.

@Airi: I would love to see an Oneedad!

eru

I may be using fairies in an upcoming book, but I'm not certain yet. I haven't used them so far. I also do not like the "Tinkerbell image". My fairies would be a lot scarier and a lot more dangerous than Tink...

Cool! Be sure to tell us how they turn out.

Definitely! If I decide to use them, that is... I need to make up my mind.

So far, no, I haven't used fairies, mostly for lack of appropriate placement and need in my current storyworlds. However, if I do end up writing about them someday, I certainly wouldn't call them fairies, and I would introduce substantial modifications - for example, making them blue, as in the Inkheart trilogy.

It is only in modern times that fairy has become synonymous with little creatures with wings.

Ancient tales had them full sized and ranging from angelic to demonic to dead humans.

I read that wings were a recent addition, too. Ancient tales gave them magic that allowed them to move anywhere without the use of wings.

It's your fantasy. Make your creatures your own. IMO Your ideas sound interesting.

Didn't they used to be small, not tiny? (3 or 4 feet, not 3 or 4 inches?)

I have something similar to fairies, not exact fairies though; I guess that counts?

That's a tricky question to answer because it kinda depends on the culture. Most of the fairies in the British Isles are of smallish size (3 to 4 feet), but there are also many types of fairies, both in the British Isles and around the world, that are human size. There's a large variety, but smaller fae is definitely a common motif.

Mine are only like 3 1/2 feet tall.

I haven't fully fleshed out my ideas about fairies yet, but in my Shine Cycle there are Great Fairies and (I presume) lesser cousins. In some early material (that I might or might not end up using) Fairies and my angel-analogues, the Vaynar, acknowledge each other as something like cousins. A Great Fairy is sort of like a good dragon---a rare, solitary, comparatively ancient ("comparatively" because the world itself is less than two centuries old) being of immense power that one doesn't want to get too close to because it's dangerous by nature ("good, but not safe") but that you go in search of if you have a problem of that caliber and have exhausted all lesser solutions.

Are your greater fairies different in appearance to lesser fairies?

Like I said, I've thought very little about this---what I know about Great Fairies comes mostly from an off-hand comment about an applied-metaphysical working being well-nigh impossible under ideal conditions "with the help of a dragon and a Great Fairy thrown in for good measure"---but ...

Yes. Great Fairies are nearly "glorious and terrible" in appearance, though they can change their appearance (within reason) as they choose. Ordinary fairies are smaller; a few unusually large fairies might grow to be as tall as a short human being, but most are much smaller than that, though only an infant would be small enough to fit in your hand. Again, they have some slight ability to change their appearance, and can appear fearsome at need, but most of the time they tend to look almost whimsical. Sort of like our idea of pixies, but not quite so far in that direction.

Okay, sorry, didn't mean to put you on the spot. I missed the "these aren't fully developed yet" part.

I'm trying to remember... I read a book once where the fairies lived among humans and were basically the size of short humans.... The concept was very interesting, I wish I could remember the book.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about being asked questions like this; other than the history in outline, and a few concepts that come to me at random (like "dwarven crossbows" or how I handle elves and dwarves---I should start a new thread for that, to let you people sharpen my ideas), I tend to only do, or even think about, worldbuilding when a question (or something in the draft I'm writing) makes me come to specifics. And I like doing worldbuilding-type thinking like this (in moderation). Good question. The "not fully developed" (as you put it) disclaimer is more to give myself leeway to change my mind later; it's saying to myself, "this is brainstorming, not canon."

*laughs *

That's a good way to look at it. I agree, you should start a thread.

Haven't thought much about them yet...I will probably call them Faerie unless I get a better name. They will be 1-2 feet tall (just a little shorter than Gnomes) will have wings and they will be magical creatures, just been thinking about how magic will work in my book(s).

We have lots of magic threads, if you need some research.

I have faerie, yes. They are not the type of fairies people think of everday, with wings and that are only an inch tall. Mine are more human size, filled with magic, and made to live in a certain impossible habitat that any other creature would perish in. When I think of the spelling, "fairy," it reminds me something of Tinkerbell, which is why I prefer the spelling, "faery," because it sounds more...well, serious?

-Donn Q.

Donn, the way you call the Faeries is the same as me. I think little pixie, charming, glittery things when I hear fairy. Faerie is completely different.
My faeries are more serious, sometimes sinister beings. They don't really have wands, just long life and enhanced sensing. Solitary creatures.

How ... odd. I'll admit that the vast array of fairy tales we know from various different cultures, and the unfortunate pop-culture representations, have led to a number of divergent images associated with "fairy"---but ...

To me, "faerie", except for phrases like "Realms of Faerie" (where, were we talking about us, we might say "Humanity" or "Man" or "America" or "England") and the context of Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene (which was using a dialect of English that he invented for the purpose), simply sounds pretentious. If you want to avoid the Disney baggage associated with "fairy", "fae" is a perfectly good word.

On the other hand, if you feel up to changing the language, all the more power to you.

Fae makes me think more of a kind of Faerie. Like, there are forest people, river people etc... And they are all faeries. Faerie is a general turn I like to use, to include the different groups. Faes, to me, are more like elves than real faeries. It's strange, but I've always seen them as similar to the elves of Erindale in Lord of the Rings.

*bangs head against desk*
It's worth noting that in the fairy tales, from what I remember, "elf", "dwarf", and "fairy" were all basically synonymous. Until Tolkien changed all that. "Faerie" was a spelling of "Fairy" that Edmund Spenser invented for the supposedly-archaic "Old High English" dialect he made up for The Faerie Queene. And "fae" (if it's a singular noun at all---I shouldn't have mentioned it) is its own plural.

I have similar connotations as Way-chan. I see Fairy as being a pixyish, impish little character. I see Faery *loves that spelling * as being more elfin, willowy, and mystical, in a sense.

Fae makes me think of a people group, as opposed to a being.

I have developed more of a leaning toward fairy type creatures recently. Sometimes they are more nymphish, being the vague sentience of plants, rivers, and things. Other times, they are more as they originally were. Creatures like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty who is a proud creature from a vastly different culture who has powers to wield in favor of those who please her, and in harm against those who do not. Going through a series of rewritten fairy tales, I have a lot of fun opportunities to work with fairies as every day characters and as extraordinarily arcane beings.

I don't know much about her yet, but I'm going to name one Trickadee.

My fairies are evil fuzzy things with stingers. At least in Egnitheos...