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IRISH MISCELLANEOUS FAERIES
While fairies from all over the world have their place in
the books of myths and legends, there are none quite as
popular as the fairies of Ireland. Irish fairies are
mischievous, kind, helpful, a little arrogant, and can be
beastly if you get on their wrong side.
Although most Irish fairies are classified as either
Trooping Fairies or
Solitary Fairies, there seems to be a
whole subset of miscellaneous fairies that don't seem to be
formally tied to either list.
While many fairies prefer to live in bands, large and
small, there are also individual fairies who live alone.
These individual fairies usually do not dress as grandly as
those of the bands. The lone fairies wear different outfits
of fox skins, leaves, green moss, flowers, moleskins, or
cobwebs.
Here is a partial list of Irish miscellaneous fairies:
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IRISH CLIPART
IRISH FAIRY
IRISH HOME
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AEVAL: An Irish fairy
queen from Munster. The name literally means burning
fire, which may have been a byword for the notion of
‘ardor’. |
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AIBELL: An Irish
fairy queen who played a magical harp that if heard by
humans they would die. |
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ANKOU (GRIM REAPER): Can be
found in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland. He is also
known as Father Time. He drives a black cart or
coach, and brings death. No one has ever seen his face.
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BALLYBOGS: Peat or bog
faeries. They have bulbous, mud-covered bodies and long
spindly legs and arms. They are known as boggles to
the Cornish, and in England are called boggans.
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BEAN-FIONN (WATER WOMAN): Known in Germany as the weisse frau and in England
as Jenny Greentooth. She loves to drown young
children.
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BEAN-TIGHE: Small, elderly
faeries, who are similar to Scottish brownies, and
spend their time in Irish homes performing household
chores. You can invite them to clean your home by leaving
out strawberries and cream.
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CHANGELINGS: The
sickly, deformed baby of the
sheoque fairy. The sheoques steal into your house in
the middle of the night and 'trade' their sickly baby for
your healthy human baby.
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FOMORS: An ancient
tribe of sub-aquatic monsters. Their name means the
'dark of the sea,' and they were thought to be the
opposite of all that is good in the world.
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FAR DOROCHA (DARK
MAN): He serves the Fairy Queen and is
the chief agent in mortal abduction...
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FAR LIATH (GRAY MAN): Appears
as a fog and covers land and sea with his mantle.
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GANCANAGH: He lazily strolls though lonely valleys
making love to the foolish country lasses and "gostering"
with the idle "boys."
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GROGOGH: He has the power of invisibility. The grogogh
loves to help with planting and harvesting as well as
household chores. |
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LEANAN SIDHE (THE
DARK MUSE): Fairy
mistresses who seek the love of men. Some say the same
Fairy Mistress as the solitary fairy
leanhaun shee...
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LESIDHE
: They are the
guardian of the forests and are always disguised in
foliage.
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SELKIES: The selkies are a gentle creature who are
seals by day, but, men and women by night. |
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SIDHE (GOOD PEOPLE):
Fairy people in the folklore of Ireland. Their name
comes from the mounds or ancient barrows known as sidh
where they are said to live and means "people of the
(fairy) hills".
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The
fairies all have vanished from the meadow and the glen,
And I would fain go seeking till I find them once again.
Lend me now a lantern that I may bear a light,
To find the hidden pathways in the darkness of the light.
Rose Fyleman, Alms in Autumn
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