just fairy things

[theunfairfolk]

ok what about swan maidens are they more in of a cursed situation like werewolves?

or are they actually swans wanting human partners?

sorry my understanding of this myth creature is more from an animated movie than actual folklores

oh sincere! sincerity! oh shit i was being funny! i could've been infodumping this whole time?? fuck

swan maidens come from a variety of fairy tales, the most famous (european) one probably being Swan Lake. in that case it was a curse situation, so a sorcerer had cast a spell on them to only be women when the light of the moon touched them. the rest of the times they were swans. this is cause they ran away from arranged marriages or cheated on their boyfriends or shit (the sorcerer was a sexist read The Black Swan by mercedes lackey for an amazing adaptation of swan lake). there's also stories of boy swans though! like The Six Swans (also bc of a curse). and there's leda and the swan where zeus turns into a bird to seduce* this woman, leda.

overall i know of instances of individual characters transforming into various birds as a power they have but i dont know of any staple myths about Swan People as like. a race. maybe cause we have angels for that niche? or maybe cause we have bird ladies in the form of harpies and stuff. most stories of bird people are about curses.

AND to answer your previous question about selkies: they are a different class of "underwater person" than mermaids. mermaids are permanently half fish half person, selkies are either 100% seal or 100% person; they have a magic seal skin they put on to transform. you could trap them as humans if you steal it. a lot of stories about them center around fishermen trapping them as their wives. 👎

*i am using this term delicately, how consensual the sex was is up to interpretation

[alpdruck]

Anon would probably be interested in Volsunga Saga and Volundarkvida.

[theunfairfolk]

i love this website so much bc an anon can be like "hey what's the difference between a pixie and a fairy?" and then the notes will be people recommending a 13th century germanic tome written in bone by an ascetic. as some light reading to get started.

[deep-state-partisan]

[themysteriousmurasamecastle]

[catcvlts]

[lunarriviera]

look I don’t want to tell anyone what to do but if you go down that path you will wake up a thousand years later and all your great-grandchildren will be dead

[optimysticals]

But I get a thousand year nap out of it?

[frei-rancken-deactivated2020062]

That’s not the intended use Sir

[dalniente]

But I get a thousand year nap out of it???

[lynati]

One person’s bug is another person’s feature.

[justfairythings]

look i'm booping you back as fast as i can

[justfairythings]

oh no

[justfairythings]

oh no

[justfairythings]

look i'm booping you back as fast as i can

[justfairythings]

oh no

[justfairythings]

look i'm booping you back as fast as i can

[justfairythings]

walrus

[calico-heart]

I know unicorns in modern media are kind of regulated to cutsie, MLP, rainbow plastic toys, or shitting rainbows, 'lets go to candy mountain' but man. I WISH more fantasy media would put them in unironically. There is so much symbolic and narrative potential in a creature that is, depending on your mythology:

A guardian of wild spaces, the embodiment of nature untouched by mankind's industry and greed. Fewer and farther between.

The ideal of "Purity" made manifest, elusive and powerful and hunted for fruitlessly by many a person. To kill. To actually kill. Living symbol of the oh-so-coveted Purity, not treated as a sacred thing to protect, or even predated for food to survive off, but a trophy for knights and lords to boast about.

So absolutely fierce and deadly that no one smart dared to fight it fairly. A gentle maiden had to betray it into resting in her lap so that a man could spear it while its guard was down.

Able to heal any wound no matter how severe - it promised miracles, if you could find one.

A creature who's magic vanished if it was captured or killed. In trying to take control of it, you destroyed it. Some things can only be given by free will, and no amount of personal desire or brute force can change that.

[justfairythings]

hi dr zach. please cite me whenever you want

[johnnycrass]

faeries are not real but i wish thwy were so i could spray one with raid

[helloitsbees]

harry houdini to his wife after a long exhausting dinner with arthur conan doyle

[tategoi]

Every cat believes herself to be the chosen one. Surprisingly enough, this is actually correct. It's just that each one is chosen for a different quest, and they're all so much work to discover in the first place, and there are rarely any consequences to not completing it if you just ignore the signs. So they rarely bother.

But she was still chosen.

[tategoi]

All cats are prophets. All cats receive divine transmissions and higher truths, but unfortunately it's only the ones directly pertaining to them. The great tragedy of their species is that they will never develop a meaningfully complete mythology. One cat alone assumes she's entirely normal and her perceptions are standard. Two cats in a apartment might begin to discuss some things, though they'll remain generally unbothered by it all. Larger groups in a home or barn will usually begin to cobble dream, true vision, and superstition into something resembling a low-commitment cult. Cats have folklore, sure, but the teachings remembered enough to be passed on are scattered in origin and intention. Only in large feral colonies do they begin to gain the ability to contextualize their individual divine experiences, and maybe start thinking about what they could do with it. The problem is that cats will never get anywhere with this because they're terrible communicators.

[justfairythings]

i think totoro ate those little girls

[tatzelwurming]

just found a pile of fresh grapes on some paving stones in the middle of woods because, you guessed it, god loves me the most and wants me to prosper over others

[tumbwr]

​animals before being captured

[justfairythings]

What do you think of "benevolent" fairies, like the doñas de fuera from Italy?

that neither you nor i can possibly understand their true motives and shouldn't trust like that

[justfairythings]