Alexander Armstrong TV - Jeremy Paxman TV - Howard Jacobson TV - Brian Clough - Arthur C Clarke TV - Strand Magazine - J M Barrie - W B Yeats - Rose Fyleman - Joyce Kilmer - A E Housman - Marjorie Barrows - Robert Louis Stevenson - Charles de Lint - Authors Unknown - Elizabeth Dillingham - Richard Dawkins - Finding Neverland 2004 - Arthur W D Henley - Douglas Adams - Tony Robinson TV -
55% of Icelanders believe in elves and fairies. Iceland with Alexander Armstrong, Channel 5 2021
Richard Dadd was a phenomenally successful fairy painter who was admitted to the Royal Academy at the age of only 20. Jeremy Paxman, The Victorians IV: Dreams & Nightmares, BBC 2009
Of all the Victorian’s depictions of desire, perhaps the hardest to get our heads around today is fairy art. When the Victorians painted fairies as some of them obsessively did they weren’t just indulging in cloudish whimsy; they were confronting their deepest, sometimes their darkest, desires. Howard Jacobson, The Genius of British Art: Flesh, Channel 4 2010
The painter of urban puddles he might be, but Atkinson Grimshaw’s moonlit cities are essentially lyrical, congenial to the presence of fancifully conceived figures. Grimshaw’s fairies are as though bred by the city of Leeds itself. ibid.
For Richard Dadd fairies were an image that was always lurking at the margins of reality to rob men and women of their reason. ibid.
I do believe in fairies. And that is my outlook. Brian Clough
Francis Griffiths has brought her daughter to see the house in Cottingley where she lived with her cousin Elsie Wright during the First World War. Francis and Elsie used to go down to play by the Beck, the stream at the bottom of the garden, and it was by that stream they said in 1917 they took photographs of Fairies ... Francis and Elsie confessed the pictures were faked ... The case was cracked in 1928 with evidence from the Brotherton collection at Leeds University. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World of Powers
Fairies Photographed: An Epoch-Making Event Described By A Conan Doyle. Strand Magazine Christmas edition
Every time a child says, I don’t believe in fairies, there’s a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead. J M Barrie, Peter Pan, 1928
Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe, clap your hands! ibid.
Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. ibid.
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame. W B Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. William Butler Yeats, The Stolen Child
There are fairies at the bottom of our garden! Rose Fyleman, Fairies and Chimneys, 1918
The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light. Joyce Kilmer
The fairies break their dances
And leave the printed lawn. A E Housman
When the winds of March are wakening the crocuses and crickets,
Did you ever find a fairy near some budding little thickets …
And when she sees you creeping up to get a closer peek
She tumbles through the daffodils, a playing hide and seek. Marjorie Barrows
No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies. Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays in The Art of Writing
We call them faerie. We don’t believe in them. Our loss. Charles de Lint
And as the seasons come and go, here’s something you might like to know. There are fairies everywhere: under bushes, in the air, playing games just like you play, singing through their busy day. So listen, touch, and look around – in the air and on the ground. And if you watch all nature's things, you might just see a fairy's wing. Author Unknown
The Realm of Fairy is a strange shadow land, lying just beyond the fields we know. Author Unknown
Soft moss a downy pillow makes, and green leaves spread a tent,
Where Faerie fold may rest and sleep until their night is spent.
The bluebird sings a lullaby, the firefly gives a light,
The twinkling stars are candles bright, Sleep, Faeries all, Good Night. Elizabeth T Dillingham, A Faery Song
There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies? Richard Dawkins
I’m not Peter Pan – he is. Finding Neverland 2004 starring Kate Winslet & Johnny Depp & Dustin Hoffman & Julie Christie & Radha Mitchell & Freddie Highmore & Nick Roud & Joe Prospero & Luke Spill & Ian Hart & Oliver Fox et al, director Marc Foster, boy to assembled ladies and J M Barrie
Nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty. Arthur W D Henley, song 1934
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Fairies: for our forefathers they were spirits ... but with amazing abilities ... They could even disguise themselves as human. Tony Robinson's Superstitions, National Geographic 2014
For them, fairies could be objects of terror. ibid.