The Fairies

by William Allingham, Michael Hague

An illustrated version of the nineteenth-century poem about the "little men" and the mischief that they do.

Genres: Poetry, Fantasy, Picture Books, Fairy Tales, Fairies

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1850

About the author

William Allingham was an Irish poet, diarist and editor. He wrote several volumes of lyric verse, and his poem 'The Faeries' was much anthologised; but he is better known for his posthumously published Diary, in which he records his lively encounters with Tennyson, Carlyle and other writers and artists.


Librarian Note: For the English physician go to William Allingham.

Reviews

[Claire S]

Interesting..

'Up the airy mountain / down the rushy glen / we daren't go a-hunting / for fear of little men'

from this was reproduced in 'Willy Wonka' and another piece.

a reviewer said it was about the 'real' fairies..

[Ehryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poem by William Allingham is one of my favorites but I felt like the illustrations didn’t do it justice and made the poem feel a bit stunted with lots of stops and starts. Michael Hague is a great illustrator but this one fell short.

[Connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doesn't grab us very well, though it is a good description of the *original* fairies (before they were disneyfied).

As noted, the poem concerns the theft and death of a young girl. She's shown waking up on the endpage, but really, it's clear that she's intended to have died. Read before you buy.

[Krystal Leonardo von Seyfried · Rating 2 out of 5]

didn't make anything rise up in me, unfortunately - i'm not too connected with the fae folk, regrettably. i need to work on that.

i kinda like the "crispy pancakes of yellow tide-foam" though i really don't know what that means - it makes me think of piss yellow ocean waves, lol. i like the whimsical energy present in the language but am a bit confused on that line. not sure what he was trying to do here? if only the color was white, it would seem way less like bodily fluid...

the last line...
"with frogs for their watch-dogs, all night awake"

i did like how creepy this one ends! it makes me see frogs staring creepily with big eyes, reminiscent of the grossly and creepily big eyed dogs in hans christian andersen's the tinder box lol

either way, okay poem. cute. hard though cause i've been reading lots of hans christian andersen lately and he's one of the greats lol

[BrandosEgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canon Gnome Information (1850)

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it was interesting that the female fairies in this book are all beautiful, but the male fairies were all funny-looking, not to put too fine a point on it. Now that I think about it, that is typical in a lot of fairy tales.

The poem itself I thought was sort of meh, though the part about eating sea-foam pancakes was kind of cool. That image has stuck with me.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun poem about "little men". Only available through interlibrary loan in SLC.

[♥Xeni♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting and endearing poem. I think I'll work it into a piece of calligraphy art or something, because it touched something within me.

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The poem in this book was ok. Didn't really stand out. Kind of nonsensical. It was the illustrations that boosted it up to a two star rating for me.