Do You Know Fairies and Giants?

Flower fairies

Perhaps you think of Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, the Good Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell when you imagine a fairy. But in fact, fairies don’t like to be seen by people at all.
These tiny creatures can appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. You may never know if you’ve seen one or not! But you can be sure of one thing: there is a wealth of fascinating lore about these little people who can vanish at will.

WHO’S WHO OF FAIRIES
The Banshee: This Irish fairy is more often heard than seen. Her mournful wail, called keening, is heard outside the home of a dying person.

Goblin

The Bogeyman: Also called bogies or bugbears, these fairies are nasty to children and frighten them in the dark. Only children can see their furry bodies and fiery red eyes.
Brownies: Brownies are helpful little men with brownish skin and brown clothing. They have been said to visit farms in Scotland and do household chores while the family sleeps. All they ask in return for their work is a bowl of cream.
Changelings: A changeling is a fairy child who takes the place of a human baby who the fairies think is being fussed over too much. The baby is then used to “strengthen” the fairy race.
Dwarfs: These aged creatures of the mountains are miners with magical powers. They won’t appear aboveground in daylight because they’ll turn to stone. They wear long clothes to cover their feet, which are deformed or point backward.

Leprechaun

Elves: Elves are merry creatures who live in colonies under the earth. They love parties, music, and dancing, but they kidnap people who are caught listening to their music.
Flower fairies: In the gardens of China, flower fairies dress like young girls and spread the scent of flowers as they dance.
Gnomes: Gnomes are bearded men with broad, leathery features who never age and who always wear hoods. They guard hidden treasure in the woods and hills where they live.
Goblins: Goblins, the thieves of the fairy world, have a bad reputation. They have deformed bodies with huge, bulging eyes and live in underground caves.
Huldre: These Icelandic fairies look like beautiful girls from the front, but in back they may have cow tails or they may be one-sided. They demonstrate that beauty is only one part of something.

Sandman

Jinni (genie): In Arabian folklore, these spirits have supernatural powers and can appear in many shapes and sizes. They may be good or evil, depending on their Master. They live in unusual places like empty bottles.
Leprechauns: These clever, independent little men wear three-cornered hats. They are shoemakers who make only one shoe, not a pair. Every leprechaun has a hidden pot of gold.
Menehunes: These hard-working Hawaiian fairies work at night building bridges and roads. They are small, dark-eyed creatures with shaggy eyebrows and deep, gruff voices.
Monaciello: This Italian fairy is dressed in a hooded robe. It comes out at night to lead poor and needy people to hidden treasure.

Trolls

Pixies: These green dancing fairies have a king, a queen, and a full royal court. Pixies live in England, where they pull pranks on people.
Sandman: He travels the world over, sprinkling sleep dust in children’s eyes to help them fall asleep.
Tooth fairy: No one has seen a tooth fairy, so their appearance has not been described. When a child’s tooth falls out, the tooth fairy takes it away and leaves a reward in its place.
Trolls: Trolls, usually men, may be huge or tiny, but they are all stingy and nasty. They hate the light and loud noises.
Vilas: These fairy sisters live in the Alps, where they heal the sick and foretell the future.
Wanagemeswah: Thin as a knife, this fairy lived among the Penobscot Indians of Maine in the U.S.
Will-o’-wisps: Will-o’-wisps are mischievous fairies who light up on dark nights. They snatch the lights of travelers and try to lead them astray.

One-Eyed Giant

Fairy Lore
Fairy food is milk, cream, and butter.

Many small cottages in Ireland built in a “fairy path” have front and back doors directly opposite each other which are left ajar to allow fairies free passage.

Fairies love to dance and are fond of the music of fiddles, harps, tambourines, and cymbals.

“Elf locks” are tangles of hair made by pesty fairy elves.

A sock under the bed helps to keep troublesome fairies away.

GIANTS
Giants have enormous size and strength packed in a human form. They can roar like thunder, make the earth shake, and snack on grown people. Their characteristics depend on their nationalities: Irish giants are pleasant, English giants are openly evil, and Welsh giants are clever and cunning.
All giants have a keen sense of smell, and they are always smelling out little boys (fee fi fo fum). But their brains never match their bodies. The smallest person can always outsmart the most terrible giant. Giants are proof that intelligence is more important than size.

Gentle Giant

WHO’S WHO OF GIANTS
Super Giant Atlas was one of the Titans in Greek mythology. After the Titans lost a battle with the god Zeus, Atlas’s punishment was to carry the earth on his shoulders for eternity.
Man-Eating Giant An ogre is a man-eating giant. Rakshas was an ogre who lived in a palace in India. His gold and jewels made him rich, but he was dirty and dumb. Like all ogres, he enjoyed eating people.
One-Eyed Giant The Cyclops was a man-eating giant who had one eye in the middle of his forehead. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops captured the hero Odysseus, who escaped after he put out the Cyclops’ eye.
Giantess Most giant wives are depicted as stay-at-homes who spend their time making bread out of ground-up human bones. Befri, a French giantess, carried off young girls who did not want to spin thread into cloth. But Grendel’s Mother, in the story of Beowulf, was an ogress who could sneak up on sleeping warriors and eat 15 of them at a time. She was killed by the hero Beowulf, who used a magic sword of the giants to slay her.

Biblical Giant

Biblical Giant Goliath, a warrior giant, terrorized whole armies with his size and strength. Only a young boy named David would challenge him. With a slingshot and a stone, David beat Goliath.
Gentle Giant Paul Bunyan, an American folk hero, was a giant of the north woods. He was taller than the trees, and when his footprints filled with water, they created the ten thousand lakes of Minnesota.
Cold Giant Jack Frost is an enormous, hoary giant whose cold breath freezes the earth, covering it with frost. His fierce roar can shatter icebergs.
Mountain Giants Yeti, the Abominable Snowman of Tibet, Yerin, the Wildman of China, and Sasquatch, the Big Foot of America, are all mysterious giants who live in the mountains. There are many stories of sightings or attacks by these mysterious creatures.

Giant Lore
Albanian giants are as tall as pine trees, with black beards that reach to their knees.
They catch men to eat and women to fan the flies away.

Mountain Giant

Scientists have found gigantic skulls and enormous jaws that may have belonged to a race of giants half a million years ago.

Gruagachs are Scottish giants and giantesses.

ACTIVITIES:
1. Discuss if people still believe in fairies and giants today. Why or why not?
2. Find Folktales and Fairytales with Fairies and Giants in them. How do they make the stories more

Man-Eating Giant

interesting, frightening or delightful?
3. Create an Art Exhibition of different types of Fairies or Giants.
4. Can you classify Fairies and Giants as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, clever or stupid?
5. Create an original Fairy or Giant and describe it. You can even write a story about it or develop a puppet play around it.