Before Disney Drew a Wing: Fairy Folklore in England

An ancient well called Venton Bebibell lies hidden near Men Scryfa in Cornwall. It means “the well of the little people.” Not fairies, not elves, and not the glittering creatures we all imagine with sparkling wings. The little people. It is said carefully, said with respect, because, I’m told, in the villages of southwest England, you don’t use the real name. You call them the Good Folk, the Fair Folk, or the Good Neighbours. You talk about them as if someone was standing behind you and you didn’t know what mood they were in.

Very different from the fairies I grew up seeing in movies: Tinker Bell with her pixie dust, Sleeping Beauty’s three godmothers, and even the wish-granting beings in every animated film that taught children to dream politely. Those fairies were fabricated and watered down until nothing remained but sparkle and benevolence. But the fairies who lived in English folklore for centuries before Walt Disney drew a single image were entirely different.

Those fairies were beautiful and dangerous. And the people who lived alongside their stories didn’t love them any less for it.

I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales and their origins, but I really began researching them when a romantic fantasy story idea came to me while visiting Stonehenge. What if the Druids lived alongside the fae? What if that boundary between realms was less of a wall and more of a sheer veil? As I studied fact from fiction, I discovered a rabbit-hole and a deeper appreciation for folklore. It became less about getting my facts straight and gathering information for my novel, and more about an ancient belief system—a way of seeing the world through the eyes of our ancestors.

Katharine Briggs spent her life cataloguing this. Her Encyclopedia of Fairies, published in 1976, remains one of the most comprehensive records of British fairy beliefs and the raw lore that has sustained our imagination. She documented the accounts people gave of their encounters with the fae, and the rules they followed to keep them happy. They even had protections against fairy harm or retaliation. Definitely not the three sweet godmothers. One thing I learned from Briggs’ research is that we should not dismiss the people who held those beliefs, or think the fae should be contained within the children’s section of a bookshop. After all, English folklore operated like a parallel religion to the growing Christianity. It had rules, hierarchies, sacred sites, and consequences.

I hope to honor those beliefs that bound villages and the countryside together.

Now, English folklore divides the fae into Trooping Fairies and Solitary Fairies. The Trooping ones are sociable, loving a good feast with dancing. They were aristocratic, and when discovered by humans, never promised to behave gentile. In contrast, the Solitary fae lived in a specific place, such as a bog, or a lake. Maybe even the roots of an old tree. Someone could share their land with a Solitary and never see it. But they knew it was around, especially if the animals avoided certain paths or hills.

In Cornwall, it is said the wells and springs were enchanted and held healing properties. If you approached, correctly. If not, you received a curse.

On the Somerset coast, fishermen walking from the village followed a ridge path that passed a pile of stones called Picwinna’s Mound. They’d throw a stone on the pile and make a request for a good dinner. The added stone was appeasing the good neighbor. The site is said to be the home of pixies, while others have said the unknown name refers to a white spirit. That gave me an idea and I infused it in my upcoming novel The Lion Throne Queen.

My research of fairies has also enhanced The Union of Immortals series. Not only the stories themselves, but the people, the communities that organized their daily life around these beliefs fascinates me. The fae don’t appear in the series, but their presence lies beneath the surface, impacting how Ailla sees life. She’s a seer. She connects to the gods. She carries the mark of the gods. And she definitely believed in the existence of the fae to make her life pleasant or disruptive.

I believe folklore asks us to stand on the edge and suspend so-called reality—to let our imagination escape to a world where the land is shared with us. If we honor those beliefs, if we pay attention to the subtleties of nature, then we might find magic at standing stones and wells. And in some ways, I think Disney asked us to do the same thing, to for a few moments pretend that fairy godmothers would appear and make our dreams come true. Even if it costs us something as simple as our belief.

If this kind of storytelling calls to you, where history dissolves into myth and the women at the center don’t run away, then you’re in the right place. Subscribe and join me on the Fated Edge.