International Fairy Day

The recent history of International Fairy Day says that it was founded by a fantasy artist named Jessica Galbreth. Her art encompasses a wide range of fantasy creatures, including fairies. And the date was likely chosen because of its correlation with Midsummer.

But the background of this day goes back much further! Fairies have existed in just about every culture over the world, though they may have been called by different names.

What they have in common, no matter where you go, is that they are spirits that inhabit the world around us and often operate by strange and often odd laws. That’s about where the similarities end, and where the amazingly diverse concepts that are the fae begin.

We’ve all heard of the winged fairies that flit around flowers and are always drawn like butterfly winged cherubs of slight form, but did you know that Dwarves and Gnomes are also part of the fae family?

These creatures were common among the Germanic folk, and especially those who worked in mines and mountains. Knockers were a form of fairy that lived in mines and would ‘knock’ to warn miners of pending cave-ins and danger, hence their name.

The red-hatted gnomes that occupy so many people’s gardens were fashioned after creatures from the far north. These quiet and unassuming creatures were part of the dark northern forests and spent their time living near the homes of humans, which they’d sometimes help out.

There are even fae that lives in the oceans like the Irish Selkie, dark of hair and eye, these creatures were able to turn into humans. Turn into humans we say? Yes!

They started lives as seals and would take off their skin when they came ashore and take the form of beautiful women. If one was lucky enough to steal their skin, they’d be able to take a Selkie wife, so long as they didn’t let the skin be found!