Dedicated to the study of fairy tales and fairies.              .

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Fairy Tale Stories      Children's Fairy Tales      Fairies       Faery Woodlands Magazine      Blog     About Norse-Franko-German Fairies Notes from Jacob Grimm's "Teutonic Mythology" In my opinon the greatest stufy of mythology and fairies, these are exceprts from the original work. The people prayed on the river’s bank; at the fountain’s brink they lighted candles and laid down sacrificial gifts… Above all was the place honored, where the wondrous element leaps up from lap of earth; a spring is in our older speech ursprinc, and also prunno.Often enough the first appearing of a spring is ascribed to divine agency or a miracle: Wuontan, Balder, Charles the Great, each made the reviving fountain flow out of earth for his fainting host. Other springs are charmed out of the rock when struck by a staff or a horse’s hoof; a saint plants a bough in the ground and the water bubbles up. Understanding the Fairies in Fairy Tales Much of the information used in our discussion on fairies comes from the study of Germanic Fairies The word fairy can be tied originally to a general concept of "fatedness." (Williams, 1991) Fairies the are the spirits which come out of the belief that there are many millions of supernatureal beings which control human fate. Fairies then are a series of spirits and souls of many types which can alter the course of human lives for better or for worse. Because they control human fate from secret it was believed that firies existed in a freer state then humans, able to to change shape, turn invisible, appear and disappear at will (Jacod Grimm). Becasue of their magical knowledge and capabilities fairies can be said to live in a hidden world along side the human world - living under stoves, at thresholds, within trees, rocks, mountains, caves, lakes, in invisible castles, underground worlds or realms in the sky. An Introduction to the Fairies in Germanic Fairy Tales The Proto-Germanic peoples find their origins in Southern Scandinavia around 1200 BC in a land which most likely was previously occupied by the Finno-Ugric peoples. What we see then are two strong influences on the Germanic with many aspects of their culture being adopted from the Finno-Ugric peoples, while at the same time they are an Indo-European people (for more on the Indo-European beliefs see Origins of Europe’s Fairies). It would be difficult to over emphasize the importance of the shamanistic beleifs of the Finno-Ugric peoples to the later belief systems of the Germanic peoples. Their lead deity Odin is clearly a shamanistic figure of Ugric origin. From the spirits of the rocks which were of such importance to the people of Iceland that they outlawed things such as dragon heads on ships which might frighten or scare the rock spirits to the importance of the World Tree it is often difficult to separate the Proto-Germanic belief systems from that of the Finnish peoples. Analysis of "Puss in Boots" Of all the tales of fairies collected by the brothers Grimm, none shows such a close relationship between a human and a fairy-like creature as “Puss in Boots” does. It is clear from the story that Puss is no ordinary cat, although Briggs does assert that cats were a form of fairy in their own right having a fairy court and their own set of magical powers. Still, it is rare for a cat to be so closely involved with human affairs. According to Jacob Grimm, Puss shares many of the features that a household fairy would have (Teutonic Mythology). He asks for boots, a symbol of his status as a fairy creature. Grimm asserts that it is often such boots that separate ordinary beings from fairies. What’s interesting in this as it relates to the story, however, is that these are not special boots.