the remains of twelve Neolithic humans were discovered, along with a quantity of Neolithic and Bronze-Age pottery and the bones of long-extinct animals. The link between fairies and the Bronze-Age burial mound, Willy Howe, has already been discussed, whilst Pudding Pie Hill near Thirsk represents another example. Originally a Bronze-Age barrow, this site was reused by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the Dark Ages and excavation revealed several burials, accompanied by rich grave goods. Significantly, local folklore had long claimed that if a person ran round the barrow nine times and stuck a knife in the top, they would be able to hear the fairies babbling within.
This relationship between ancient burial sites and the fairies is repeated across the British Isles, and it may be relevant that in some northern traditions, the fairies are regarded as the spirits of the unbaptised, pre-Christian dead. Some folklorists have even suggested that oral transmission of fairy legends preserved a corrupted memory of barrows and so forth as burial grounds, long after their actual history had been forgotten. A similar (albeit largely discredited) theory holds that the fairies originated as an ancient folk-memory of conquered races who took refuge in rock-shelters and caves during the waves of prehistoric migration and invasion. This hypothesis ably explains the fairies’ connection with rocky and subterranean places, but such a reductive rationalisation cannot do justice to the diversity and dynamism of the fairy tradition through the ages.
It may simply be that fairy locations were classically liminal and so inevitably became associated with the supernatural in the pre-modern psyche. Such symbolism seems to be an intrinsic feature of the collective consciousness which manifests in diverse cultures across time and space. This would account for the fact that fairies are also similarly associated with water sources. The Queen of the Craven fairies was believed to dwell behind the picturesque waterfall of Jennet’s Foss near Malham, whilst across the county, they were especially thought to congregate around wells. For instance, the fairies were believed to wash their clothes in Claymore Well near Kettleness. On their washing days, their efforts to beat the linen dry with a battledore could supposedly be heard as far away as Runswick Bay.
A particularly famous watery encounter with the fairies occurred around 1815 at White Wells, an eighteenth-century spa-house on the edge of Ilkley Moor. The keeper at White Wells at that time was named William Butterfield, described by somebody who had known him as ‘a good sort of a man, honest, truthful and as steady and as respectable a fellow as you could find.’ It was Butterfield’s habit to open the door to the bathhouse at White Wells early in the day, but one midsummer morning when the birds were particularly active, he found the job unusually tricky. On that particular day, his key merely spun round in the lock and would not cause the lever to turn. At length, he admitted defeat and decided to apply brute force to the situation, but whilst he succeeded in pushing the door ajar, it was pushed right back again.
Jennet’s Foss near Malham, home of the Fairy Queen. (Kathryn Wilson)
Losing his patience, Butterfield gave the door an almighty shove and it flung open to reveal a staggering sight:
Whirr, whirr, whirr, such a noise and sight! All over the water and dipping into it was a lot of little creatures, dressed in green from head to foot, none of them more than eighteen inches high and making a chatter and a jabber thoroughly unintelligible. They seemed to be taking a bath, only they bathed with all their clothes on. Soon, however, one or two of them began to make off, bounding over the walls like squirrels.
Hoping to communicate with these strange creatures before they left, Butterfield greeted them, but inevitably this only provoked greater haste. ‘Then away the whole tribe went,
This relationship between ancient burial sites and the fairies is repeated across the British Isles, and it may be relevant that in some northern traditions, the fairies are regarded as the spirits of the unbaptised, pre-Christian dead. Some folklorists have even suggested that oral transmission of fairy legends preserved a corrupted memory of barrows and so forth as burial grounds, long after their actual history had been forgotten. A similar (albeit largely discredited) theory holds that the fairies originated as an ancient folk-memory of conquered races who took refuge in rock-shelters and caves during the waves of prehistoric migration and invasion. This hypothesis ably explains the fairies’ connection with rocky and subterranean places, but such a reductive rationalisation cannot do justice to the diversity and dynamism of the fairy tradition through the ages.
It may simply be that fairy locations were classically liminal and so inevitably became associated with the supernatural in the pre-modern psyche. Such symbolism seems to be an intrinsic feature of the collective consciousness which manifests in diverse cultures across time and space. This would account for the fact that fairies are also similarly associated with water sources. The Queen of the Craven fairies was believed to dwell behind the picturesque waterfall of Jennet’s Foss near Malham, whilst across the county, they were especially thought to congregate around wells. For instance, the fairies were believed to wash their clothes in Claymore Well near Kettleness. On their washing days, their efforts to beat the linen dry with a battledore could supposedly be heard as far away as Runswick Bay.
A particularly famous watery encounter with the fairies occurred around 1815 at White Wells, an eighteenth-century spa-house on the edge of Ilkley Moor. The keeper at White Wells at that time was named William Butterfield, described by somebody who had known him as ‘a good sort of a man, honest, truthful and as steady and as respectable a fellow as you could find.’ It was Butterfield’s habit to open the door to the bathhouse at White Wells early in the day, but one midsummer morning when the birds were particularly active, he found the job unusually tricky. On that particular day, his key merely spun round in the lock and would not cause the lever to turn. At length, he admitted defeat and decided to apply brute force to the situation, but whilst he succeeded in pushing the door ajar, it was pushed right back again.
Jennet’s Foss near Malham, home of the Fairy Queen. (Kathryn Wilson)
Losing his patience, Butterfield gave the door an almighty shove and it flung open to reveal a staggering sight:
Whirr, whirr, whirr, such a noise and sight! All over the water and dipping into it was a lot of little creatures, dressed in green from head to foot, none of them more than eighteen inches high and making a chatter and a jabber thoroughly unintelligible. They seemed to be taking a bath, only they bathed with all their clothes on. Soon, however, one or two of them began to make off, bounding over the walls like squirrels.
Hoping to communicate with these strange creatures before they left, Butterfield greeted them, but inevitably this only provoked greater haste. ‘Then away the whole tribe went,
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