John T. Kruse - Beyond Faery

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Beyond Faery: Exploring the World of Mermaids, Kelpies, Goblins & Other Faery Beasts 2020 by John Kruse.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2020

E-book ISBN: 9780738766355

Book design by Samantha Penn

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Cover illustration by Dominick Finelle

Interior illustrations by Wen Hsu

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kruse, John T. author.

Title: Beyond faery : exploring the world of mermaids, kelpies, goblins &

other faery beasts / John T. Kruse.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Publications,

[2020] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: This book

explores some of the more fearsome beasts that have been known to meddle

in human affairs. The author reveals the secret lives of merfolk and

meremaids, river sprites and kelpies, hags and banshees as well as hobs,

goblins, bogies daemon dogs, and many more. These are the magical

creatures that tend to terrify instead of help, and learning their ways

may be just what readers need to survive an encounter with one of these

other-world beastsProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020030013 (print) | LCCN 2020030014 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738766102 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738766355 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Animals, Mythical.

Classification: LCC GR825 .K73 2020 (print) | LCC GR825 (ebook) | DDC

398.24/54dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030013

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030014 Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publishers website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Sue, for her love and support, Rhiannon,

Fliss, and the Lady of the Elder Tree.

Contents

Water Beasts

: Merfolk

: Meremaids

: River Sprites

: Kelpies

: Water Horses and Bulls

: Other Water Monsters

Land Beasts

: Hags

: Hobs and Goblins

: Bogies

: Daemon Dogs

: Fae Cattle and Other Beasts

: Wills of the Wisp

: Perilous Places and Threatening Things

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank my publishers for giving me the idea to write this book in the first place. The core of the text represents material cut from my book on Faery. Separating it and focusing on the subject of faery beasts alone has deepened my knowledge of this vast and fascinating subject.

I would also like to acknowledge the valuable resource that is the Paranormal Database, a huge catalogue of hauntings and mysteries across the British Isles. I should also admit my debt to Katharine Briggs. Her A Dictionary of Fairies is very often the point of departure for my research, and she supplied many valuable clues for developing this book. Not least amongst these was her decision to interpret faeries as broadly as possible: her inclusion of such a variety of beasts encouraged me to be equally bold in my approach to the subject.

Introduction

English author Maurice Hewlett, in his 1913 novel Lore of Proserpine , called for a book that described the physical laws under which faery life lives. He even suggested a title for it, The Natural History of the Preternatural, donated to whoever felt up to the task of supplying what Hewlett felt to be lacking. This present book may not be a complete natural history of all of faery kind, but it offers readers a field guide to the faery beasts, describing their habitats and their habits.

Definitions

What is a faery? What isnt a faery? At the far boundary of supernatural beings, it can be very hard to make firm distinctions, and it is a difficulty that we humans have had for many hundreds of years. As Ill describe later, whether a creature like a boggart is a faery or a ghost, for example, was a question never fully settled in Lancashire. In this book, Ill be dealing with a spectrum of preternatural or spirit beings that fit less easily into the category of faery.

In the recent book Magical Folk , faeries are defined as magical, living, resident humanoids. If we accept this, we would certainly incorporate in our list all the spirits that people would immediately imagine if they heard the word faery. Winged flower faeries, gnomes, brownies, elvesgoblins evenwould all be included.

What about mermaids though? Theyre humanoid, definitely, but they are also part fish and live mostly in the sea, although they can survive perfectly well on land. Are they faeries in the narrow sense of the word? Probably theyre not, but they are amongst the host of creatures associated with the faery realmsharing many of its features and magical propertiesand which fascinate the many people who are attracted by faeries as well. We need a broader definition of the word faery, it would appear, and, fortunately, that is not far to seek. Faery derives ultimately from the Latin word fata , the name of the Fates. In medieval French, this became fe , meaning magical or enchanted. In turn, this produced fayerie , a state of enchantment, a word which itself evolved to denote a place and then the people living within itour faeries. If we use faery and fae in that older, wider sense, it is very suitable for talking about the beasts I am going to discuss. They are not faeries but they are faeryenchanted or invested with glamour.