Post by @the-fae-folk (2025)

It’s actually a really good question, but a surprisingly hard one to answer.Let’s take a step back and look at what people have believed that Fairies actually are. They are described as a kind of mythical creature that is metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. These strange folk don’t actually have one single origin but are an amalgamation of countless sources of Folklore from across Europe.There are even different explanations given to the origin or nature of Fairies. Describing them as demons, deities, fallen or neutral angels, spirits of the dead or never living, incarnations of nature, prehistoric precursors to humans, deified ancestors, or even beings from Otherworlds beyond our own.But what can they do? What do their powers and magics entail? Well lets start with the most obvious. Glamour is easily the most remembered of fairy magics, but what it actually is is a lot harder to define than you would think.Nowadays, contemporary fantasy has distilled the idea of glamour into a sort of powerful illusion magic with the capability to make a person see, hear, feel, taste, even touch something that is different in nature then they are perceiving. Sometimes this is combined with the idea that the strength of belief can make something true and that powerful enough glamours can transcend mere illusion to become reality.But older variations of glamour, while they include much of this idea of illusion magic, has some interesting variations on it. Sometimes glamour included actual shapeshifting to a form that wasn’t the person’s own. Or it was used in hiding and disguising or making things and persons invisible to human eyes. They were said to be able to change their size and make themselves appear very small or very large. Whatever glamour is, it seems to deal heavily with perception and charisma.Other powers that Fairies were said to hold depended on where the story itself came from. The ancient Irish Tuatha Dé Danann who are said to have become the Fairy Folk after being driven from their homeland were thought to have had supernatural powers and magical artifacts of incredible power. Dagda’s cauldron which produced feasts which no company left unsatisfied, the spear of Lugh which was said to have never been beaten in any battle it was used in, the sword of light from whom no one ever escaped after it was drawn from its sheath, and the Stone of Fál which would cry out beneath the king who would take sovereignty of Ireland.Norse stories lent some of their own myths to the idea of creating artifacts with power. Chains that cannot break, goblets that flow with the power of the whole sea, magical clothing that grants the wearer all kinds of powers.Some stories gave them magic of a much darker kind. The ability to inflict diseases or afflictions upon those who crossed them, or sometimes just for pure malice. Sometimes to injure or even kill humans or others of their own kind without ever touching them. Causing persons to sicken and die over time or become addicted through various magical methods (such as being tricked into eating fairy food), or being entranced sexually or romantically against your will or better nature. In some cases they even performed what might be described as a binding upon a person to force their will onto them, or break that will entirely and turn a person into a puppet.Nature based Fairy Folklore often depicted them as being personifications of natural forces such as trees, flowers, rivers, lakes, and hills. But sometimes they were shown as beings who simply were closer to and more knowledgeable about nature and therefore could control or influence it in ways that humans could not fathom.Wings, though common in Victorian artwork were actually incredibly rare in Folklore. Flight, on the other hand, was not. Fae were often depicted as having various means of travel. The taming of birds, beasts, and insects to carry them, or magical flying through the air, or even some means of teleportation were all mentioned ways that the Folk could travel with magic.A lot of fairy lore involves people attempting to ward off Faeries with charms and minor enchantments such as St. John’s Wort, Four leaf clovers, wearing your clothes inside out, or carrying iron or fresh homemade bread. Much of this sort of thing tends to contradict itself. For example some stories mention bells keeping fairies away, while others depict fairy queens and ladies with bells on the harness of their horse. Even the things that were “Known” about the fairies usually just led to more confusion. One knew that giving clothing as a gift to a house brownie would drive it away. But there was a difference of opinion as to why. Whether the inferior clothing offended them, or if they were so delighted by the gift that they took it and left. A stray compliment or complaint could drive away a house faerie just the same. One account mentions a farmer whose field was magically threshed by the Folk, only after all his corn was finished the threshing continued and he guessed that they were stealing his neighbor’s corn, leaving him the choice of offending the Faeries by telling them to stop, or offending them by profiting from the theft of corn.Its important to note that some of the powers the Fae were thought to have are only mentioned in passing or vaguely discussed. Given how often people who intruded upon Fairy Rings found themselves stranded from their own time or even outside time altogether, it is clear that the Fae have some connection to a temporal magic we don’t get a clear explanation of. Whether the person returns the same age a hundred years later, or before they were even born, or turns to dust the moment they leave the circle because they age all at once in a single moment, the idea of time magic is not to be dismissed.

Granting wishes, having prophetic or near prophetic knowledge, being able to exert control over beings whose names they discover, having all kinds of powers and restrictions related to contracts and deals...these are many of the abilities that never seem to have a clear cut explanation because much of the lore either ignores the details concerning the whys and wherefores of such powers, or changes depending on where each bit of folklore came from.

And they of course have the ability to traverse easily to whatever Otherworlds are mentioned and discussed in the multitudes of stories. Whether underground, hidden in secluded parts of the world away from humans, or in another world entirely they seem to have many gates and keys that humans have a harder time working with.There are a lot of different things that have been occasionally attributed to Fairies that are also given to other characters and peoples in stories. Herbal and spellcraft type magic usually reserved for witches, the broader swaths of sorcery most often seen in characters like Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings” who works mostly with very subtle touches of power and more his own influence and knowledge, ritual and ceremonial magic, and much else.In conclusion, it is interesting to see that while almost everything we have about the Faerie Folk agrees that they are incredibly powerful and dangerous to cross, we have very little concrete knowledge of what that power actual entails. For the most part it seems that the greatest danger from the Faeries is not their magic, but their inclination to play pranks upon humanity. Harmless or harmful, they kidnap and steal and mess up or break. They cause havoc and they fix at unexpected moments. It is possible that the nature of the Faerie power is not magic at all but simply a greater knowledge and understanding of forces of the world we cannot perceive. Like how an ant cannot fathom why the entire world seems to be having an earthquake, and no amount of explaining things like tractors and farms is going to make it understand, but at least if we could talk to it we might get it to figure out who was responsible, even if it doesn’t really know why or how.