Sex, drugs, and fantasy – The Victorian obsession with FAERIES

By Dani Harper

"Lily Fairy" 1888 by
Luis Ricardo Falero
[Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

We’ve been Disneyized almost from birth to think of faeries as pretty little beings with gossamer wings. They live among flowers, drink dew, and leave a trail of magical dust wherever they go. But it’s not really Mickey’s fault.

Blame it on the Victorians.

During the nineteenth century, there was an enormous revival of interest in faeries. They appeared in abundance in Victorian art and literature. But not as they once were! The faeries of legend were powerful. They almost never had wings—they didn’t need them. Beauty? The terms faery, fairy, and fae cover an enormous variety of creatures throughout the UK and Europe. Tall and short, exquisite and repulsive, dark and light, hunched and scrabbling, gigantic and toothy, two-legged and four-legged... Some fae beings, like the Pooka, changed shape so often that their true form can’t be agreed on. Whatever their appearance, most faeries were amoral creatures, recognizing neither right nor wrong according to petty human standards. Yet they often abided by ancient laws that were a mystery to mortals.   

One thing above all:  faeries were not to be trifled with!

But trifle with them is exactly what the Victorians did. First, they recreated faeries to be pretty, sweet-natured, and innocent. They gave them wings—but diminished them in stature. Cute was name of the game. Like Beanie Babies and Pokémon, faeries became a highly fashionable obsession and a cultural phenomenon. But why? Nineteenth century society was extremely uptight about a lot of things – science, technology, and progress in general. Class distinctions and proper etiquette. Oh, and sex. The Victorians were synonymous with sexual repression.

Illustrations from "The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby" by Charles Kingsley, illustrated by Warwick Goble [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Enter the magical and sensual world of the faery. A perfect fantasy, one which was socially acceptable to indulge in. Certainly no one questioned the art of the period, where faeries might appear wholly or partly naked… It’s rumored that Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, counted 165 or so nude faeries in the 1849 painting "The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania" by Sir Joseph Noel Paton (a portion of which appears below).

"Study for The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania" By Joseph Noel Paton - Unknown, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=111976

"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!” ~ William Butler Yeats

Hand in hand with this delightsome escapism was a renewed fascination with the paranormal. In addition to experimenting with the supernatural through spirit rappings, table tipping, and séances, many notable people argued for the reality of faeries on scientific grounds. One of the top proponents of their existence was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author and creator of Sherlock Holmes. 

It is also a fact that Arthur’s father, Charles Doyle, firmly believed in faeries, and produced many paintings of them throughout his life. He was just one of countless artists who based their entire careers on producing fanciful artwork of the faery realm. More than a few of these paintings, however, were known to have been produced under the influence of drugs. In Victorian England, laudanum, cocaine, morphine, opium and many other mind-altering substances were readily available, and famous faery artists such as John Anster Fitzgerald and Richard Dadd experimented with drugs freely, citing them as sources of inspiration. 

"The Stuff that Dreams are made of" By John Anster Fitzgerald, 1858 - http://art-magique.blogspot.com/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20746146

Perhaps that’s why some of the major faery works included not only the beautiful but the ugly. Demonic-looking creatures appeared side by side with lovely and innocent sprites. Grotesque beings interacted with sublime. It’s no surprise that a number of famous faery artists (including Charles Doyle) ended up in asylums for the rest of their lives.

Or perhaps it was just a little revenge exacted by the real faeries…

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Hi, I’m Dani Harper, and I bring ancient faery legends to modern-day America with my Grim Series.  Storm Warrior, Storm Bound, and Storm Warned are available on Amazon.  Watch for Book 4, Storm Crossed, in 2017.  Check out all my novels on my Amazon Author Page, or go to my website at http://www.daniharper.com

The Grim Series by Dani Harper

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