The image of the fairy that we have today is perhaps the sparkling Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, or the cutesy fairies and kindly fairy godmothers that populate Disney movies, but until the Twentieth Century fairies were part of a much darker and more eerie mythology: sinister spirits which stole children, drove people insane, blighted cattle and crops – and drank human blood.
According to early folklorists fairies were part of a middle nature between human and angels, or pehaps were actual fallen angels to whom the devil gave power and knowledge and sent to earth to work evil. They were malevolent creatures whom humans had to ward off to avoid falling under their baleful influence. If a human inadvertently stepped into a fairy ring in the woods they would become invisible and be forced to dance until they died of exhaustion.
In this talk Sam George will discuss the true origins of fairies in folklore, before their rebranding by J M Barrie and Walt Disney.
Tickets £12 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to the King's Chaplaincy Trust.
Sam George
Sam George is Associate Professor in Research and the Convenor of the popular Open Graves, Open Minds Project at the University of Hertfordshire. Known on social media as ‘The Coffin Boffin’, Sam founded the gothic research group Open Graves, Open Minds with Dr Bill Hughes. Her interviews have appeared in newspapers from The Guardian and The Independent to The Sydney Morning Herald, The South China Post, and the Wall Street Journal. She is currently completing a book on the cultural history of the shadow and a Gothic history of fairies for Bloomsbury.
| Ticket | Event time | Cost |
|---|---|---|
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WINGED FIENDS
The Dark Origins of the Fairy |
13:30 - 15:00 | £12.00 |
Address
Guys Hospital Chapel, Entrance via the Courtyard, St. Thomas Street, London, SE1 9GU
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London Bridge (Tube)
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