Fairy dust...Fairy dust...Fairy dust...plim!

The word fay came to English around 1400 (as fai, fay) from Old French faie or fee (Modern French fée), earlier from the Vulgar Latin feminine fata, referring to one of the Fates, personifications of destiny (the Greek Moirae); cf. the Italian Fata Morgana used as a translation of Morgan le Fay.

English fairy (Middle English faierie) was borrowed ca. 1300 from Old French faerie "land of the faie, enchantment", a noun denoting the general class, activity or habitation of the faie (faierie being related to fai as e.g. yeomanry to yeoman, foolery to fool, or nunnery to nun). From adjectival use ("fairy gold", "fairy queen" etc.) from the 15th century applied to the class of supernatural beings inhabiting faerie, re-interpreted as derived from fair, singular fairy with a new plural fairies. The term fairy tale is a translation of the Conte de feés of Madame d'Aulnoy (1698). The spelling faerie first appears 1590 in Spenser's Faerie Queene. From Spenser's use, the spelling with -ae- came to be used in a dignified or poetic sense as opposed to "vulgar" tales. J. R. R. Tolkien makes use of the distinction, in On Fairy-Stories defining Faërie as "the realm or state in which fairies have their being", depicted (under the name of Faery) as a mystical or visionary state in his Smith of Wootton Major. Fairy Land is used by Shakespeare as an apposition, in the 19th century contracted to fairyland.

A fairy (also fey or fae or faerie; collectively, wee folk, good folk, people of peace, and other euphemisms) is the name given to an alleged metaphysical spirit or supernatural being.

The fairy is based on the fae of medieval Western European (Old French) folklore and romance. Fairies are often identified with related beings of other mythologies (see list of beings referred to as fairies). Even in folklore that uses the term "fairy," there are many definitions of what constitutes a fairy. Sometimes the term is used to describe any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes: at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature.

Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and as having magical powers. Their origins are less clear in the folklore, being variously the dead, or some form of angel, or a species completely independent of humans or angels. Folklorists have suggested that their actual origin lies in a conquered race living in hiding, or in religious beliefs that lost currency with the advent of Christianity. These explanations are not always mutually incompatible, and they may be traceable to multiple sources.

I am very much connected with the Fairies. Upon occasion I do, whenever I have a chance, a ritual to the Fairys...What I don't understand is all this thing about the Fairies being 'glitterised' and 'pinkerised'...Fairies are very serious beings and I really don't personally think of them as pinky and glitter. In fact, did you realised that almost all Fairies that appear on drawings and pictures (well..I'm really not talking here about the glitter ones) are females? Are the Fairies all girls? Well I really don't think so...

Karagan