When you hear the phrase top 10 things about fairies, you might picture glittering wings and tiny shoes. In reality, the folklore surrounding these elusive beings is far richer, darker, and more complicated than the sugary stories we hand to children. Below we unravel ten startling facts that will make you see the fairy world in a whole new, unsettling light.
Uncover the top 10 things that reveal the hidden side of fairy folklore
10 The Fairies Were Descended From the Fallen Angels
In the latter half of the 19th century, storytellers across Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Isle of Man proudly recounted a celestial pedigree for the fairy folk. According to their lore, a proud angel sparked a rebellion among the heavenly hosts. So many followed him that the Son cried, “Father! Father! The city is being emptied!” prompting God to slam shut the gates of both heaven and hell. Those who had already slipped out of heaven were trapped, while the rebels, unable to reach hell, were hurled into the earth’s fissures, becoming what we now call the Fairy Folk—condemned to dwell underground and permitted to surface only when the Fairy King allowed.
This mythic ancestry neatly explained the astonishing power attributed to fairies, some of whom were believed capable of unmaking the world at a whim. It also justified their ambiguous moral standing: neither wholly benevolent nor wholly malevolent, neither of this realm nor the next, earning them the moniker “The Middle Kingdom” among traditional believers.
9 Fairy Sightings
One might assume the question “Are fairies real?” is merely academic, yet scholar Simon Young has catalogued a staggering array of sightings spanning continents and centuries. During the Boer War years (1900‑1901), a five‑year‑old boy reported nightly columns of tiny soldiers marching over his bed, accompanied by splendid martial music. Decades later, in 1951, he—later identified as Cambridge historian Victor Purcell—swore under oath he would attest to the truth of his experience in any court of law.
Across the Irish Sea, a Welsh fisherman once encountered an elderly, diminutive male figure in a stream who chattered, “Catch him, Tommy, I like to eat trouts, Tommy!” The fisherman, irritated, turned his line and was startled to see the fairy vanish in open country. The witness, Commander T. A. Powell, later demanded, “How did he know my name?”
8 The Leprechaun Hunt of West Limerick
Near the famed fairy hill of Knockfierna, schoolboy John Keely sprinted to the Mulqueen residence, insisting he’d seen a fairy. The family sent him back to confront the apparition, which replied, “I am from the mountains, and my business is none of yours.” The following day, two fairies materialised at the crossroads between Ballingarry and Kilfinney—six miles from Rathkeale—leaping with skipping ropes and displaying a height comparable to a man’s. Eyewitnesses, including Robert and John Mulligan, described them as roughly two feet tall, bearing hard, hairy faces, lacking ears, dressed in red with a white cape, and wearing knee‑breeches and “vamps” for shoes.
The spectacle, dated to late August or early September 1938, drew crowds from across Limerick. Locals chased the leprechauns believing they guarded treasure; folklore claimed that capturing one and keeping it in a box for a year and a day would compel the creature to reveal its hoard’s location. (Any health‑and‑safety advice? We’re all ears.)
7 Fairy Music
On the Isle of Man, the Manx once pressed their ears to Dalby Mountain’s earth, claiming they could hear the “Sounds of Infinity” (Sheean‑ny‑Feaynid). While many attribute these murmurs to tidal movements over pebbles, some suggest a deeper, otherworldly resonance. W. W. Gill recorded a remote fairy‑haunted triangle of hills and a river valley where locals gathered to hear an uncanny “singing,” described as human voices in distant unison exhaled mysteriously from a steep bank called the Granane.
In 1922, Oxford composer Dr. Thomas Wood vacationed on Dartmoor with friends and heard an ethereal melody drifting overhead—faint as a breath, then swelling before fading after twenty minutes. With no wireless sets in sight, Wood quickly transcribed the music, swearing “I am prepared to say on oath that what I wrote down is so close to the original that the authors themselves would not know the difference.” Decades later, American author Chris Woodyard performed Wood’s transcription on an electronic organ, and musicians are invited to arrange the piece for two violins for another “first.”
6 Fairy Poltergeists
Do fairies exist? Poltergeists certainly do, and within fairy‑infested regions a noisy, violent spirit is often identified as an angry fairy. While many poltergeists are notorious for wreaking havoc, numerous accounts describe them leaving gifts or performing household chores—perfectly mirroring the dual nature of fairies, who can swing from benevolent to malevolent in an instant.
Renowned fairy scholar Katharine Briggs recounted a childhood friend who visited the elderly ladies of Denton Hall near Newcastle in the 1890s. The women spoke of a “silkie” (what Briggs termed a Northumbrian brownie) that both complicated servant management and assisted with chores like cleaning grates and laying fires. Described as draped in grey silk, the silkie would appear on the stairs. During World War II, the friend returned to find the new occupants never saw the silkie but heard persistent banging that drove a son to flee his room. A recent staff member confirmed the hall remains modestly haunted today.
5 Fairy Landscapes
In Ireland, the very countryside bears the imprint of fairy presence. Fairy forts or hills dotted the landscape, and in 1911‑12 Athlone councillors refused to sell a house built beside a local fairy hill. Fairy trees—often thorny—were equally sacred; roads had to bend around them. A drunken farmer in County Antrim who felled such a tree awoke the next morning with his head turned backward, a cautionary tale of disrespect.
The most perilous of all were fairy paths, invisible routes traversed daily by the “good people.” Unwitting homeowners sometimes discovered that part of their house lay across such a path, prompting a ritual of opening back and front doors at the prescribed hour to allow the fairies to pass unseen. One dramatic incident involved Paddy Baine and his young bride, who endured violent hammering that threatened to collapse a wall. Wisewoman Mairead ni Heine explained that a corner of the house obstructed the fairies’ progress; a stonemason trimmed the offending corner, restoring peace.
4 Changelings
The notion of a “changeling”—a fairy‑substituted child—was far from whimsical folklore. Throughout the 19th century, parents convinced their infant had been swapped by fairies would subject the alleged changeling to brutal treatments hoping the true child would be returned. Methods ranged from immersing the child in poisonous foxglove extracts, exposing them to freezing weather, laying them on scorching shovels, or abandoning them at the tide’s edge. Many infants perished.
Researcher Susan Schoon Eberly demonstrated that many of these “changeling” cases involved medical conditions such as phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic disorder not obvious at birth. Families often found their baby appearing unusually wrinkled, unusually hungry, and lacking speech—symptoms that, in a superstitious context, seemed to confirm fairy interference. While some parents rationalised the belief as a way to explain the inexplicable, others may have subconsciously sought to rid themselves of a demanding, insatiable child.
3 Bridget Cleary
Most changeling tragedies involved infants, yet the 1895 case of Bridget Cleary stands out for its horrifying adult dimension. Michael Cleary of Ballyvadlea, Tipperary, convinced his fever‑stricken wife Bridget was a fairy. Influenced by local believer Jack Dunne, Michael subjected Bridget—then 26—to degrading “fairy tests”: stripping, manhandling, threats, force‑feeding, and even a chamber pot hurled at her. He allegedly proclaimed, “She is not my wife… she is two inches taller than my wife.”
On March 15, as Michael threatened Bridget with a hot stick, her clothes ignited. He doused her with lamp oil, burning her to death. Her hastily buried body sparked a media frenzy in England, portrayed as a “medieval witch burning” that allegedly proved Irish incapability of self‑governance. Neighbours jeered at his trial; though he could have faced the gallows, the jury deemed him manslaughter‑guilty—perhaps recognizing his genuine belief in Bridget’s fairy status. He received a 20‑year sentence and later emigrated to Canada.
2 Fairy Animals
Beyond the human realm, the fairy world extended to a menagerie of uncanny creatures. In County Cavan, a farmer reported his chickens slain by “fairy foxes,” while in County Clare a rabbit hunter fled in terror upon realising his quarry were fairy‑born. Fairy dogs, however, could be benign. Welsh variants were white with red ears; Manx counterparts wore white coats and red hats. In 1899 on Scotland’s Lewis island, a bitter dispute erupted over a fairy dog’s tooth: Kate MacCaskill threatened neighbor Mrs Mackay, vowing to drop the tooth down her chimney, igniting the house.
Seals also entered fairy lore. Some traditions held that during the original fall of the angels, Lucifer’s minions transformed into fairies of air, earth, and water. The selkie myth tells of seal women who became human wives, provided the man concealed their seal skins. In 1839, seal‑hunting was banned along County Mayo’s coast after two boys claimed a white seal, while they were killing seals in a cave, rose and pleaded, “Spare your old grandfather, Daniel O’Dowd!” The seal argued it was condemned to wander nightly as atonement for past sins.
1 Biddy Early
“Biddy Early beat all women. No one could touch her.” Born in 1798 and orphaned early, Biddy Early rose to fame as Ireland’s most celebrated folk healer and “Fairy Doctor.” While many attributed her powers to fairy contacts, the exact source remains mysterious. An astute herbalist, Biddy treated countless ailments, accepting only gifts of meat and whiskey. When a complaint exceeded her abilities, she would admit it openly.
She also displayed clairvoyance. When affluent visitors offered cheap whiskey, she chastised them for hiding a pricier bottle in their luggage. She “converted” a hostile priest by revealing intimate details of his life, and once paralyzed a priest and his horse on a bridge, forcing the man to beg a passerby for Biddy’s release. Rumour has it that a member of the English royal family travelled to County Clare solely to consult her. After decades of ecclesiastical opposition, twenty‑seven priests attended her funeral in 1874.
Top 10 Curious Encounters With Fairies
About The Author: Richard Sugg is the author of thirteen books, including Fairies: A Dangerous History (Reaktion, 2018), Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (3rd ed., 2020), The Smoke of the Soul (2nd ed., 2020), Bloodlust (2020) and Ride Your Horse Through the Chocolate Sauce! His work has appeared in The Guardian, BBC History, The Lancet, The Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, The New Yorker, and on international radio and television. You can watch him discussing fairies here, at London’s Conway Hall in November 2019, and follow his updates on Instagram and Twitter.