Who is queen of fairies

But what need, though, do the faes really have of rulers? In the Middle Ages, monarchs were required to perform several purposes within their simpler states:. None of these functions seem especially essential to Faery as we generally conceive it.

Writing in the late s, he titled his justly famous book The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns and fairies. Perhaps those termed king and queen in Faery are simply those of the most distinguished character or the greatest magical power.

This was my conception of Queen Maeve in my story Albion awake! In chapter 9, in response to being called Fairy Queen, Maeve replies:. I have powers, but I do not reign.

My people are a commonwealth- a secret commonwealth. In conclusion, the main influence upon our conceptions of Faery as a stratified and monarchical society, with a royal family, a court, nobility and attendants, seems to be European society during the medieval period, channeled through contemporary literature.

Should we continue to talk of kings and queens then, or is it simply habit? Do the terms have anything to do with contemporary perceptions of fairy?

What do readers think? Elsewhere I discuss fairy kings and that famous fairy queen Titania. An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries , which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.

Very interesting thoughts here. The idea of fairy monarchy is a bit more well established in the Irish material, although that could still be as you say based in human expectations and mirroring of human society. Definitely worth contemplating though. He had been told who the strangers were, and, after gazing for a moment in silence, he began to pray. No sooner did he do so than the two fiddlers crumbled into dust.

Such is the story of the two fiddlers who spent a hundred years in a fairy dwelling, thinking they had played music there for but a single night. You should really read it. So, in folklore we have the fairy queen that is depicted as a victim or seductress or quiet beauty and always, gorgeous, of course. Is that just an echo of the times the folklore was captured in?

Arrogance warred with the aura of power surrounding her. He was escorting a young girl who looked about twelve, her smooth, ebony skin and carefully arranged ringlets setting off an extremely formal gown of pale purple silk…the Queen entered. Claret hair blew around a white face inset with sapphire eyes, and he found himself halted once again by her cold beauty.

She was the High Queen. Hers was the unchanging, the heart of Faerie, the voice of the world removed, and she was the Unchanging Queen. There are other books, of course, but these have always been my favourite. But not because of the fairy queen s in each: those are horrible depictions of women, truth be told. Okay, we could have gone with the books, but I think the way Cate Blanchet portrays Galadriel is what made this a memorable fairy queen.

You really should see the movies — this is one powerful Faery Queen. She rose from being kind and sweet, to being powerful and protective of her own even after being betrayed by the one she loved. Her character growth is amazing and the story far more believable than the original Disney version.

She is kind, powerful and puts the needs of her people first. It is something her heir emulates even before she knows that she will be queen…. In movies, the fairy queen is graceful, beautiful, powerful and merciful. Which begs the question: why is she better depicted in movies than in literature and folklore?

Formal name: Queen Andromeda used to seal compacts, curses, etc. Known as: Mae. Weaknesses: none known. Mae is the all-powerful queen of the fae. Though she shares the responsibility of Faerie and all fae with the Dark King, it is on her mercy fae and others fall when they have transgressed. She makes the rules; she enforces the rules sending the Assassin or the Seelie Knights after the perpetrators.

Even Ankou, King of the Dead, defers to her. She can be volatile, merciful, caring and careless depending on her mood. The Rift was caused during one of her careless moments. She is Faerie. Everything lives and dies by her whim. Everything comes into being or disappears at her command. When she decides to interfere in the Mortal Realm it is rarely a whim: she had foreseen something in her waterfall that is the Eye of Time, and it had most likely been confirmed by one of her Seers or even the Fates.

Mae is a powerful, independent woman in charge of a whole race of beings. The four books will be published in the next two years. You can read a rough version of book one on Wattpad. It was a firm favourite with readers when first published — it rose to 1 in Fantasy for months. The Afrikaans version is still 11 in fantasy…. She plays a major role in a few books in the series The Adventures of Christi and Saphira. The series will be published after the Saphira series has been published.

What do you think of the Faery Queen? What do you think about the fact that Fairyland is usually ruled by a queen instead of a king? Sign up for my newsletter and receive a free ebook. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address. Excerpts may be used, provided full and clear credit is given with direction to the original content. Want to know what my writing is like? Sign up to my newsletter and get Unseen Faery Tales 2 for free. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform.

By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Skip to content. Ana Queen of the Fairies in Romany gypsy folklore. Joan the Wad Queen of the Cornish piskies.

Mab A name for the fairy queen in English folklore, especially popular in sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature. Oona also Oonagh. Queen Clarion. Queen Tara. Get it here. Like this: Like Loading In another life. Perhaps you were part of the faery realm in another lifetime, Ronel! Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Follow my podcast! He describes Queen Mab as a midwife of the fairies, as tiny as the stone in a ring, who travels at night in the half shell of a hazelnut turned into a wagon and pulled by atoms Shakespeare, Mercutio credits Mab with bringing dreams both good and ill and also with matting the hair of horses and of lazy people into elflocks1 Shakespeare, During the two centuries after Shakespeare wrote of her Mab appeared in other literature as the Queen of fairies, either of all fairies or particularly of the tiny ones Briggs, Rather oddly given her literary roots as a midwife, bringer of dreams, and punisher of the lazy in modern fiction she has repeatedly taken the role of villain, influencing how some people today may perceive her.

Diana is often associated by early modern writers with both fairies and witches so there is a certain logic to this idea. Arthurian Fairy Queen: Morgen la Fey2 Morgen le Fay is a character first found in Arthurian stories, specifically the 12th century works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, where her name was initially spelled Morgen le Fay.

The name Morgen is generally believed to mean 'sea born'. Interestingly morgens are a kind of Welsh water fairy roughly similar to a male mermaid Briggs, Geoffrey was collecting local stories from Wales and publishing them in France and while he certainly didn't invent Morgen for his Viti Merlini there is no way to know for certain how much or little he shaped the character as he preserved her; which in fairness is true for all of the Arthurian characters he wrote about.

That aside however Geoffrey's Morgen was a priestess, one of nine sisters connected to Avalon. In the 15th century Morgen would be renamed Morgan by Thomas Malory and recast as King Arthur's scheming half-sister who was set against both Arthur and his wife Guinevere. She is also strongly associated with magic, enchantment and in some cases with deception. Her role even in Arthurian mythology is complex and she is viewed in some stories as a wise and ambiguous Otherworldly figure while other stories paint her as devious and dangerous.

In modern material her character is no less complex and she may be viewed by one source as a goddess, by another as a human character, and by a third as a Fairy Queen.

She has been immensely popular over the years both in Arthurian re-tellings as well as in fairy-themed fiction and she may appear in these works in a variety of different guises, sometimes good and sometimes evil. There are hundreds of new Arthurian novels where Morgan can be found and it would be beyond the scope of this work to list them here. Gloriana is an unusual Queen by many measures, ruling over a largely chaotic and lawless Fairy where her power seems limited to directing a handful of knights in a drive to bring perfection to chaos Erickson, Her realm is also in many ways a representation of imagination itself rather than intended to describe an actual fairy realm and no matter how much good is accomplished by her knights ultimately nothing changes.

In those books she is a difficult character who uphold an ideal of perfection that is often harmful to those she rules over. Pop-culture Fairy Queens: The Queens in Modern Writing Fairy Queens are often featured in modern works of fiction, although without grounding in the older source material. We have touched on a few of these as we looked at the specific literary Queens, but here we can take a better look at two examples of how these popular culture appearances play out.

The summer Lady is initially Aurora, but she is killed during one of the books. The winter Lady is Meave. We can safely conclude form this, I think, that Butcher was drawing largely on Shakespeare for his Fairy Queens, although it is a bit of a question why he chose Mab as the Queen of the Winter Court.

The Grey Court is ruled by Oberon, the most powerful of the three rulers, and the Grey is a neutral court that takes in anyone; it is neither good nor evil. Like Butcher Bell was looking at the older literary Queens for inspiration, blending Shakespeare and Spenser together for her world. Butcher assigns that role to Mab, while Bell envisions Gloriana as the Queen of the good fairies although good in this context may be debatable.

In both examples we see the author using literary queens as a springboard for their imagination to create new versions of Fairy Queens that fit the needs of their specific plots.