laitimes

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

author:Another world adventurer M

Most people don't believe in the existence of little fairies or elves. And often without thinking, these creatures exist only in fictional fantasy worlds, and some video games or fantasy novels often use them for commercial purposes. However, there are stories about these fantastic creatures in most ancient cultures, especially in European regions such as Germany, Scandinavia, and Ireland.

A historical analysis of Irish folklore suggests that the little fairy is not entirely fictional and is actually based on real-life creatures.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

In the legend of the little fairy, and in the story of the little fairy, these ghostly creatures often have a nature that is somewhere between spirit and man. In general, the little fairies either have a human-like appearance or a spiritual-like creature, with common similarities. In some form or other way, the little fairy is a worldwide phenomenon that has some common universal characteristics wherever they appear. In many ways, the little fairy is similar to humans. Euphemistically speaking, the little fairy is called "little people", "good people", "fairy people".

origin

The word "fairy" originated in medieval English as farie, as well as fairie, fayerye, and feirie, all borrowed directly from the old French faerie. In medieval English, the word referred either to magic, or to the land of magic, or to a collective noun of people who lived in wonderland.

The most famous is the Gaelic or Irish folklore little fairy Tuatha Dé Danann. It means the tribe of the goddess Danu or the people of Sidhe, which means senzuka. Although in ancient times they were actually called gods and goddesses, there is a theory that the little fairies were the result of the degeneration process of the ancient gods.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

Knight of Wonderland, Irish Immortal Tuata de Danan (1911)

Surviving examples of myths and legends have been found in medieval parchment manuscripts. One of them is the "Book of Invasion" (Lebor Gabála Érenn). The book was written in the 11th century by an anonymous person who compiled centuries of oral stories about the earliest peoples who lived in Ireland and England. The story of six peoples in ancient Ireland appears in this epic.

Each of these six waves of "Irish masters" has some connection to the story of Noah and the Flood (today, we don't know how much of this is true and how much of it was made up by medieval Irish monks to make Irish history as important as the history of Israel). In each wave, women played a prominent role, reflecting the unique equality that existed before the island merged with the rest of Europe.

Initially, the fifth wave of conquerors was simply called Tuatha Dé (God's people), but because the Israelites were God's people, this created problems for Irish monks to tell their history. Thus, the early inhabitants of Ireland followed their lead deity and became Tuatha Dé Dannan (people of the goddess Danu).

Scholars today know the most about the last wave of conquistadors, the Milesians who arrived in Ireland from Spain in the 4th century BC. These people are the Celts. They replaced the "people of the goddess Danu", who were the ancestors of the Irish fairy.

"Immortal" people

To this day, one can see huge tombs and intricately carved tombs left by the former Celtic "immortals" in Ireland.

In addition to their wisdom, the sacred status of the people of the goddess Danu was enhanced by its astonishing beauty. The former Celtic men and women were tall and light, "with very white skin, exquisite features, blue, gray or green eyes, long blond hair, and this impeccable beauty can make mortals crazy". This is similar to some of the descriptions of elves today.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

Elves of Middle-earth

According to legend, they excelled in science, magic, and civilization. However, the people of the goddess Danu were not gods or goddesses themselves, but a druid race with a rare insight into the workings of nature. They are:

"A scientific nation that understands the laws of nature and is able to apply them." The people of the goddess Danu have a comprehensive understanding of the healing and power properties of plants and use them to treat various diseases, fatal wounds and cast spells. They were also very skilled craftsmen, musicians, soldiers and poets, and their weapons were considered the best and modern. Women have almost the same civil rights as men and participate actively in all men's affairs, even wars. They often speak as messengers in negotiations between the parties to the conflict and sit in parliament at the end of the peace. ”

The story goes that when the Miletus arrived, a terrible war took place:

When the invading Miletus (known in modern historians as gaels) overthrew the Danann, it was said that once the fighting stopped, a deal was made in good faith. But the Gaelic were cunning, and they offered that irish lands could be divided if they were allowed to make claims first. When the Danu agreed, the conquerors chose the land above the earth and then let the ancient gods preside over the land underground. Thus the people of The Goddess Danu were forced to leave the world through Sidhe (earthen mounds and tombs scattered throughout Ireland).

Forced to live out of sight, the people of the mythical goddess Danu continue to appear in Irish folklore in the form of little fairies, and the world they live in (Sidhe) calls a fairyland – Tir na n'Og is one of the names of such places.

What a wonderland is like

Forced to retreat, the Danann came to Wonderland, where they survived as "villains", i.e. little fairies.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

fairyland

Regarding the location of Wonderland, it is usually a separate area, located underground, with different locations. Although it is always underground, it is sometimes located on an invisible island, even underwater. In folk belief, this underground wonderland is considered to resemble the pre-Christian "otherworld" or underworld. In other words, in folk traditions, the dead are often part of the immortal realm. In Celtic mythology, the concept of "another world" is associated with "Apple Island," also known as Avalon (the island to which King Arthur returned) or Elysium. Thus, wonderland is a non-theological paradise, an aspect of purgatory or underworld, a correspondence to the fourth-dimensional hell.

Wonderland is a densely populated land of the dead where there is virtually no disease, no ugliness, no aging, and no death. In Wonderland, the land of the dead, time does not exist and is characterized by supernatural failures. In this otherworldly atmosphere, this little fairy land, is beautiful, pleasant and magical. In terms of social organization, Wonderland resembled feudal and medieval societies ruled by kings, with queens usually dominating. The Fairy Queen or Elven Queen and her royal court, as part of the Underworld, the King gave the administration of the kingdom to the Queen. Such social organization suggests an echo of matriarchy. The little fairies live like human mortals in fairy houses decorated with gold and silver. This is in stark contrast to the individual or isolated fairyes whose dwellings are caves, wells, woodlands, bushes, mines, ruins, barns, stonehenges, and tombs.

The entrance to Wonderland is usually through a pit, basin, cave, well, small hill, crevasse or summit. This entrance allows living mortals to enter the "Other World" or "Land of the Gods," a passage known as the Silver Bough. The people of the Goddess Danu of Ireland are said to live in sidhe or small hills, thus resembling underground people, cavemen, and Germanic dwarfs.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

The land of youth

A good example is the story of Oisín of Ireland, a poet of Finn. He fell asleep under a ash tree and woke up to find Niamh, the transfiguration queen of Tir na n'Og(meaning the land of youth), a land of eternal youth, who had summoned him to join her kingdom as a husband. He agreed, and found himself living in a paradise that would always be summer, where all good things were abundant and where time and death did not exist.

But soon he broke a taboo, and he stood on a wide flat rock, from where he could see the Ireland he had left behind. Ireland had gone so bad that he begged Niame to let him go back. She reluctantly agreed, but asked him to come back after a day with mortals. She offered him a dark horse that he could not get off and "gave him wisdom and knowledge far beyond that of mankind."

Once back in Ireland, he realized that decades had passed and no one knew or knew him. Inevitably, he dismounted, and his youth disappeared at once, becoming a frail old man with nothing left but his immortal wisdom. He would never be able to return to Tirnano's wonderland. In other variations of the story, the protagonist's feet turn to dust as soon as they touch the ground of consensus reality.

Fairy or elves really existed, and Ireland has their mythological origins

Osin and Queen Nyam travel to Tirnano.

This important and widespread folktale seems to imply that wonderland is the world of the dead, unaffected by the passage of time, and that it is impossible to return to the world of the living, because the bodies of mortals have aged and decayed according to the physical laws of this world. In the Japanese story of Urashima Taro, when the protagonist returns home, his elf bride even gives him a box with his years locked in it. When he opened it, his time was up.

These stories articulate the belief in another world, which was never heaven but was clearly ruled by an immortal race that could exert control over the consciousness of the individual, and that those who came to the fairyland might think they were still in human form, but were actually dead, existing in an immaterial form. At the end of the day, it is the birthplace of the little fairy; A place that is not affected by the passage of time and the death of the body. It can even represent the collective consciousness of mankind, transformed in the story into an understandable form that is essentially immortal, containing all wisdom and knowledge, as implied in The Story of Osin.

Read on