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Originally Posted by Lalwende
What interests me is why Fairies were ever perceived as dangerous. The natural world at one time presented greater dangers than it does today
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Why are children afraid of the dark? Fear is not always rational; indeed, more often than not it is irrational – a fear of tiny, harmless spiders or grass snakes is hardly uncommon. Yet the unknown, even for the most rational of beings, has always presented a challenge to humans – space, darkness, science…fairies. They are an unknown quantity, and in times when people were far more superstitious and belief in such beings was far more widespread, certainly tales of fairies were not always of benevolent creatures ‘bestowing powers’ – the Morrigan, for example, a figure of Irish Mythology, has been described by some as a kind of fairy, yet by others she is likened to a hag, a crone, a witch, even a devil-like/ ‘wicked’ character. Certainly not someone you want to meet on a dark night. And the tales of fairies were so elaborated over time – from peasant storytelling, into folk-lore, and even into the works of essayists and scholars, and telling of everything from through kidnap, mutation, bearing illnesses, or simply playing havoc with the every day lives of humanity – that it is easy to see why fairies, this unknown, changeable quantity, were feared. Indeed, they were considered even to be part of the natural world, and were worse than animals in some respects because they had that one thing over animals that made they all the more terrifying because it is the one thing that we as humans have over the animal world: intelligence which is far more than simply instinct. They have this,
as well as the power of the natural world – and when you consider the power that this gives them, the consequences could be pretty scary.
This idea of the ‘unknown’ is retained to some extent, in the reactions of other characters to the elves: they are wondering and even a little afraid of these creatures who seem so ‘noble’. There is much Men do not seem to know about the race of elves (with the exception of Aragorn, naturally), and this causes fear and even distrust.
Earlier in the thread, the mention of Angels came up – the traditional, religious sense of angels, that is. This is a particularly interesting point, especially in relation to Tolkien’s elves. Consider: they are immortal and do not age, they cannot catch disease, they are incredibly wise, and what is more, they have some knowledge beyond that of men into Eru – who is basically a God-figure, the creator of Arda (although for a deeper discussion on that, consider Fordim’s ‘Is Eru God’ discussion!
). What is more, they are beautiful and glorious to the eyes of men. These are all angelic traits, traditionally. Even the idea that elves and humans could come together and have children is one that fits: in Genesis, angels and the ‘daughters of men’ had children, the Nephilim, who “were the heroes of old, men of renown.” (sorry, that was a slight deviation, admittedly). So maybe Tolkien’s elves are more reminiscent of the Judeo-Christian angels rather than of traditional ideas of fairies.
However…the two ideas are not mutually exclusive: in Elizabethan times, there were two main theories on fairies (which Shakespeare especially took into consideration in his writing of such fairy characters as Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Ariel in ‘The Tempest’), one classifying them into folklore ideas of nymphs, driads, fauns etc – and the other considering them to be fallen angels. Tolkien even, in one of his early works, refers to “The Holy fairies and immortal Elves” on this subject, and they are related to heavenly ideas such as the stars – the name Eldar, for example, and the roles of Galadriel and Arwen ‘Evenstar’. So maybe the similarities between Tolkien’s elves to fairies could also be a comparison to angels…?
However, this does naturally present a few problems – such as the slightly glaringly obvious fact that the fallen angels were those who fell with Lucifer and were therefore against God rather than with him. Bother.
However…maybe this was intentional on Tolkien’s part, to give the elves something more of humanity? After all, for all their loftiness, their distance, their mystery, the elves are still, at heart, very human creatures.