First, I'm thrilled with the great comments I am seeing on the blog.
Onto the topic for this post: fairies as usual suspects, or, you might say, blame the fairies. To expand a little on an earlier post, I'm pointing out here that people who believed (or said they believed) in fairies could sometimes convince fellow villagers to blame fairies for what the real perpetrator actually did wrong. The thing is, the actual wrongdoer may have believed in fairies him or herself, but would blame fairies, because they were so conveniently not real.
Example: A child shows up in a field with a giant, unexplained bruise, and mother and father say, "The fairies punched and kicked him last night." In this case, the parents know full well how their youngster got the bruise -- Dad had a bad night at the local pub and took it out on the boy, but they know the villagers frown on outright child abuse. So the fairies take the blame.
Here's another example, a very common one: A woman has a baby and all is well. But as the baby begins to grow, she bears a distinct resemblance to the neighbor fellow down the street, and not the mother's husband. To explain this away, the mother would spread the story around that fairies took the baby away and left a "changeling" or imposter baby instead.
Did these stories really work? I'm not sure. But they do help explain why the idea of fairies and their powers have such popularity in folk stories.
24 comments:
This is so crazy. People have lost their minds. I hope people didn't actually believe this stuff. It's so unfair that people always blame other people or things for their mishaps. They shouold just be honest and take their punsihment. Like the lady with the "milkman baby." What a crock? There are many things today that people call on to clean up their messes. When someone kills another they are always looking for an excuse. They say they are mentally insane or they didn't know what they were doing. Another excuse they use is saying that they didn't know any better because they only saw it in a video game or a movie. If you are old enough to watch a movie that is violent then you should understand right from wrong. In the old days I thought punishments were given more accordingly than today. That is why it shocks me that people would even try this. Blame a "crazy" happening on a mythical creature. They always have studies on this and haven't found causation so they just need to stop with the excuse making and grow up!! Courtney T
I agree with Courtney on this one. People need to stand up and take some responsibilty for what they did. Just becuase the village didnt agree with something or someone why would they come up with some story out of left field about the fairies? I cant believe that people actually believed someone when they blamed the fairies. Has anyone ever seen one of these fairies? No and just like the story of the little boy whos faher hits him but blamed it on the fairy. That is really strange to me. Maybe people believed this kind of stuff back in the old days maybe its just a fable. But these poeple need to wake up and realize whats really happening here. Stories like these always amaze me and make me question our society and the stories we tell. I cant believe people actually bought these stories, I hope in todays culture people dont just blame the fairies for their wrong doing. I've never seen it but if I do I am sure I will look at them like they are crazy.
s.curtis
Wow, I am no so sure about this one. I don't know if I believe that. It's a shame that people would let a figment of one's imagination take the fall. Especially when the person knows good and well they are guilty. It's just like people today who are always trying to blame someone or something else for their mistakes. Some people never want to admit their faults. I don't understand how these stories could actually work. Where are the people who saw the fairies? To get away with these stories they must have had someone that believed them. Helen F.
If people actually believed in fairies then it would make sense, obviously. God, being the largest fairy of them all, takes a lot of blame today in some cases. What can't be explained usually ends up with a conclusion of "It's God's design". Terrorist acts are based off the idea that the suicidal perpetrator will be given a number of virgins upon death, or at least this is the common view. Therefore, since God is rewarding the terrorists for their acts, God is to blame for the acts themselves.
Fairies never existed and never will be seem because they are not true. Back in the old days people were not as bright as they are today, so believing something like this for some may have been easy. True fully their may have been certain reasons to believe there were fairies. An example might be their was a dog that annoyed everyone with its barking and one day got lost chasing an animal and the people may believe the fairies took it away for peace. Straight up child abuse is not something to blame on the fairies. It is sad that we have to blame others for our own wrongs actions. Looks like nothing has changed and it never will. People will find something else to blame for their mistakes. Like example in the old days it was easier to blame the fairies because really what’s going to happen. For one thing almost everyone believed in them and what punishment were you going to get. Nothing is going to happen if you’re caught doing something wrong who cared. It was survival of the fittest back then. In those days the only ones who got punished were witches. In conclusion fairies are not real but I’m sure they were fun to blame excuses on.
J. Matthews
I wonder if this idea of blaming some sort of magical and mysterious creature is responsible for ideas of other mythical entities. Today when a person is murdered brutally it is assumed that the culprit is an insane person who is mentally unstable for some reason. It is possible though, that in the past someone was cut open and drained of their blood, and the one who did it could not easily cover it up. How could they get away with it? Perhaps he told the people in his town that a beastly humanoid with fangs burst through the window in the dead of night. Someone then named this evil vampire. It is possible. People certainly have very good imaginations.
I always assumed that mythical things were originally created to be the subjects of exciting stories, written to entertain people. That is certainly how they are used today.
Another thing that is similar to this is the idea of demons, although many people still believe in demons, at least compared to how many people beleve in fairies. In the past people thought someone was posessed, when today people believe something is wrong with the persons brain. Epilepsy, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders would have at some point in the past been blamed on a demon forcing itself upon someone. I can see why people would have believed things like this.
Wow. People back then were crazy. How can someone pawn their wrong doings off on an imaginary object? I don't get it. Why did they have to pawn their problems off on fairies and why not something else? Like another person maybe. I can't believe that someone back then would actually start a rumor or say that fairies punched my kid. Especially the sentence that said that a fairy took her baby and gave her an imposter baby. Who would say that? People were dumb to believe any of that. At least today people blame other people for their wrong actions. It doesn't make it any better, but at least they're not blaming imaginary creatures. I guess even back then people didn't want to be accountable for their own actions.
Krysta M.
If you look back to the age when people were blaming fairies for their problems, people believed in magic and miracles. There were common beliefs that house fires and other awful happenings were punishments sent from God. They also believed that the Devil was litereally hiding behind every corner tempting people to do bad. This is more than evident in the Salem Witch Trials. The women and men hanged during this time were thought to be witches, and this was in America, so this happened in the 17th century! That is fairly modern when we think back to when we conceive fairies to have been a part of people's lives. The point is, up until the Enlightenment, people used magic and religion to explain strange happenings. The Enlightenment put all of these stories to scientific testing, and discredited magic and myth. The point is, whether or not it is right to blame your problems on others is one thing, but whether or not people would have believed these stories is obvious. They had no proof that fairies did not exist. They had no knowledge of many concepts that we know about for our entire lives. Why not believe that fairies were the cause of their troubles?
Alicia K.
Consider this: If someone came back from a camping trip, showing off a battered cooler, and saying Bigfoot smashed up their campsite, would you consider it more Bears to be a more plausible explanation than Bigfoot? Yes. Does that mean you're completely convinced a Bigfoot type creature doesn't exist?
Not necessarily.
To me it's interesting how, as outlandish as the idea of blaming problems and inconvenient truths on fairies is, it just serves as very striking proof for the old adage "The more things change, the more they stay the same." People in modern times aren't any more intelligent than the people who believed in fairies, we're just much more educated. Keep in mind the world was a lot 'bigger' back then. Books were hand written rarities enjoyed only by very few. Many times common people could only afford the bare essentials required to keep their families alive, even if someone could scrape together enough money to send a child to school, the staggering mortality rate made it a risky investment.
And often even the best educated accepted the 'fact' that supernatural beings were very much a part of the world. In class, we talked about Arthur Conan Doyle, who less than 100 years ago wrote an entire book avowing the existence of fairies. I haven't read the book, so it would be interesting to know whether he thought of them as meddling, child abusing creatures or not, but the fact remains that Doyle, who was a practicing medical doctor before he became a brilliant author, believed in fairies.
And when you think about it. When he wrote that book in 1921, things were much, much different. Airplanes were still fairly new, computers were unheard of. When stop to think about the staggering amount of progress that has been made in the past 100 years, it's not so hard to believe that fairies were once considered quite plausible.
I can see how the existence of fairies could have been believed by many people hundreds of years ago because life was very different back then. Many phenomena we have scientific explanations for today, may have been inexplicable for humans that long ago. Humans tend to not like when something can not be explained so they either try to find the explanation or if all else fails, make up an explanation. For example, the death of an infant who is perfectly healthsy. Today we know this tragedy as SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). We still do not know the cause but we know that it happens to many unfortunate people each year. However, hundreds of years ago if one's healthy baby just died one day and there was no explanation maybe they would need a reason why or how it happened. So maybe they said the fairies did it. This kind of reasoning could be used for anything someone could not explain, like cows not giving milk, or chickens not laying eggs. I do not find the people who believed these things any less intelligent than myself just from a completely different century with a completely different set of beliefs.
c.schedler
Well I guess it makes sense for people to use anything they can as a scapegoat. If something is easily available for them at such a convinence then why not use fairies to help you get out of trouble of admitting to yourself the reality of your particular situation. Almost every culture has something particular that they have a “mythical” reason as to why it happens but in reality they actually is a scientific or logical reason to explain it. People used to believe that when you sneezed, the devil was trying to steal your soul and that’s why we say, “bless you”. Believing that and believing in fairies attacked your child in the woods is not so different. Sometimes people don’t want to face the actual reality because it’s too harsh to face so they use their imagination to help them escape.
g.dzonzi
I believe their stories did work. It's reminds me of religion and little communities today. If you grow up in a little community, depending on who you know and who you are will tell people whether or not to trust your story and not question anything. The same with religion and churches. I believe there are a lot of issues hidden from the members of the church. All that they need to hear is one priest giving the okay and hiding the truth to ones story. Not many people really dare to question a priest. I can't believe people would fall for stories like that. In the case of the little girl, Im sure child abuse wasnt as common as it is today. If some one were to use that excuse today, it is obvious everyone would see right through it. I think it also has to do with the different times. Back then it might have worked but today, they'd be busted.
Augusta Holland
I think people in those days that blamed fairies for their problems had nothing else to do. The fairies talk was great story telling to pass the time. It gave them something to gossip about. They didn't have television; so invention mythical creatures was kind of like a game. Maybe they would go out and try to find these so-called fairies or each day the fairies would do another bad deed. As far as the woman's baby resemblaning that neighbor, woman would use that fairies to cover up the cheating ways because back then cheating was kind of like a crime. So would blame it on fairies stealing there baby and giving them someone elses baby to spare their rep.
Jasmine Hughey:tues/thurs
The belief of fairies back then, was about equivelant to the idea of witches. If they had a problem with someone, the idea of the existance of witches made it very easy for them to get rid of that person. Similarly people could use fairies to make up for their mistakes, so they could keep their clean appearance. It did not matter if everyone believed in witches or fairies because more than likely they would use the fictional creatures at their convenience. It just shows how ridiculous people will be just to keep up their appearance.
This actually surprises me. I thought fairies were looked upon as good, wonderful creatures. It's interesting to know that, on the contrary, that they were seen as bad and evil wrong-doers. It's also shocking to know that people would believe in this. How could somebody believe that a women's baby looks like some random guys child...because of fairies. That doesn't even make sense. These people are obviously living sheltered sad lives. To be able to believe something like that, to be able to blame a small tiny fairy, and claim that it actually carried a baby..is rediculous. These people are obviously just trying to hide from the truth. What they think this is accomplishing them, I don't know. If somebody said something like this today, they'd be considered crazy.
N. Thornton
It is understandable to have kids believe in something such that of a fairy. Kids need to have an imagination. It also helped kids behave. When kids are bad Santa might not bring them anything except a lump of coal. Parents and any other people who blame fairies or other people for that matter are insane. I have to agree with everyone else. People should take responsibility for their actions. In the case of the dad who beat his son simply cause he had a bad day is down right crazy. That man should be locked up for good. What kind of man hits a child?
Carlos Delgado mon-wed
It is sad that people blamed fairies to excuse or hide their wrong doings. I’m sure it’s still the same way today but instead of blaming fairies we say “the Devil made me do it” or we deny that anything happened. People need to take the blame or responsibility for their misbehavior and admit that they were drunk, wrong, spineless, weak or whatever and possibly seek help or act more responsible. I just cannot believe that people actually thought that fairies beat up a little kid, or that the abuser would think others would believe such a silly lie. Shows how people even centuries ago didn’t like confrontation because they would have obviously known it was a lie. If the town’s people would’ve stood up when they knew someone was lying and said something than its likely the beating would have stopped or at least decreased. If more people would stand up for what they believe is right than the world would be a better place. We all have to be truth seekers— desiring what is right or we become an accomplice to wrong by refusing to acknowledge truth and thereby deceiving ourselves and harming others.
Isaiah Counsellor
I fully believe that people blamed things on fairies. And also that other people believed it. Some people today do still believe in fairies, despite having hardly any evidence for them. Back when people weren't so based on science they believed in other mystic ideas, such as the greek gods. There was no proof against fairies so why not believe your neighbor when they say a fairy must have taken something. It makes a lot of truths easier to face that way, naively, such as a boy being beaten by his father and it being believed to be a fairy. People still do this kind of thing today with superstition and good/bad luck. Every day people blame something that went wrong on their "bad luck." This can be seen as just as crazy as blaming something on a fairy.
I definitely believe that people blamed fairies for their misfortunes. It is always easier to blame something other than yourself when things aren't going your way. It's almost expected when children blame things on imaginary creatures, but it's kind of sad that adults did it as well. Obviously given it was a different time period and people were still very supersticious it is somewhat understandable, but isn't it just so much better for one's conscious to take responsibility when you mess up. Because once you start with just one lie, you will have to keep building on it with other lies just to keep anyone from finding out that you lied to begin with.
Kascha H.
I find it hilarious that people ever blamed anything on fairies. Did anyone actually believe them, or would they get the same puzzled, amused look that someone would give them today? Also, did the people who actually used these excuses actually think that they were going to be believed? I am not sure about anyone else, but if someone tried to explain something serious and even mentioned the word "fairy," I would not be able to contain my laughter. I would probably then try to find them some psychological help.
- Alex Pancheri
In present day children are taught to believe there are fairies, although these are good fairies. When still a child we believe the tooth fairy brings us money for our teeth. As adults we now they are not real but maybe back when fairies were blamed people really did not know if they existed. If you hear something enough times you begin to believe it as true, so I guess it was very likely they did believe fairies were real. People are always looking for someone else to blame, why not blame something that can never say they didn’t do it. I personally have never heard about bad fairies, only the good ones. I think it is good for children to believe in fairies and magical power or mystical creatures; it helps them grow and develop their imagination. It is not any different than believing in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny, it’s fun and exciting to believe in the good fairies. For the bad fairies, that is just some sad sap looking for someone to blame.
A. Freel
People could definitely fabricate stories about fairies as excuses for their own actions. Lying is easier than facing reality and accepting responsibility. A case example is Salem, Massachusetts during the “Witch Hunt” phase. People have conducted several studies on this period of time, and some of the most intriguing ones point out that a large number residents who made “witch” accusations did so because of quite mundane reasons (for example, land disputes). Outcasts in the town who were not liked (especially the more affluent ones) were accused of witchery and hanged.
This occurrence mirrors ancient tales where the populous blamed multiple gods for the outcomes of crops and family prosperity. If the weather was terrible, perhaps a god was angry and had to be given sacrifices. A more common and modern example is when someone misplaces an item, they say a “gnome ran off with it.” In these cases the supernatural becomes an explanation for occurrences where a natural answer is either unknown or not wanting to be known.
-Andrew S.
I think this just shows the ability to lie to hide the truth. However, I think it is a temporary solution to a bigger problem. I think that there are many issues when it comes to this blame on fairies. The craziest part is that it has happened before that people actually blamed fairies. I think everyone knew exactly what the situation was, they just did not want to see it like the person who made up the stories. I think it gave room for people to gossip so people ate up the fairy stories that the baby looks just like the milk man but he must have been switched by a fairy. Today people love that kind of story. That is exactly why we have trashy magazines, E! and shows like TMZ. If people did not feed off of it, there would not be shows and channels devoted to getting the dirt.
Marianne H.
I think that “changelings” are a really interesting part of fairy tale lore. I have heard “changelings” used as an explanation for children with developmental problems, or other noticeable “defects.” Not in contemporary conversations, but before human civilization had medical explanations for such thing. Historically speaking, women were giving birth to litters of children in their lifetimes, and the chances of chromosomal or problematic deliveries increases with age, and lack of quality of life.
I view “changelings” as part of a long history of people trying to explain what they cannot. Fairies in general also fall under this umbrella.
But the idea that people who used “changelings” as “excuses” are in some way stupid is unfair. I have read the comments left and it strikes me as interesting that people enjoy blaming others for a lack of understanding and knowledge. “Changelings,” and other similar explanations, were the best humans could come up with at the time, and we should not berate them for that. I mean, contemporary humans may seem “brighter” only because of technological advances, but we are also destroying our environment and estranging ourselves from our planet because of our “brightness.” Both physically and mentally. I think we would do well to have a little less certainty about many things.
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