Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness

by Carole G. Silver

Teeming with creatures, both real and imagined, this encyclopedic study in cultural history illuminates the hidden web of connections between the Victorian fascination with fairies and their lore and the dominant preoccupations of Victorian culture at large. Carole Silver here draws on sources ranging from the anthropological, folkloric, and occult to the legal, historical, and medical. She is the first to anatomize a world peopled by strange beings who have infiltrated both the literary and visual masterpieces and the minor works of the writers and painters of that era.

Examining the period of 1798 to 1923, Strange and Secret Peoples focuses not only on such popular literary figures as Charles Dickens and William Butler Yeats, but on writers as diverse as Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charlotte Mew; on artists as varied as mad Richard Dadd, Aubrey Beardsley, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton; and on artifacts ranging from fossil skulls to photographs and vases. Silver demonstrates how beautiful and monstrous creatures--fairies and swan maidens, goblins and dwarfs, cretins and changelings, elementals and pygmies--simultaneously peopled the Victorian imagination and inhabited nineteenth-century science and belief. Her book reveals the astonishing complexity and fertility of the Victorian its modernity and antiquity, its desire to naturalize the supernatural, its pervasive eroticism fused with sexual anxiety, and its drive for racial and imperial dominion.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Folklore, Research, Academic, Fairy Tales, Fae

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 1998

About the author

Carole G. Silver is Professor of English and holds the Humanities Chair at Yeshiva University (Stern College). She is also Adjunct Professor of English at New York University. Among her publications are The Romance of William Morris and The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by William Morris

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In honor of Spain winning the World Cup I will write this review entirely in Spanish.


Wait, I don't know Spanish. Sigh.

Okay, go to one of those translator page things, and plug this in.

Silver's book is a good in depth look at the view that the Victorians had about fairy, folklore, and how such topics related to current events. I will say that the first chapter was a tough read. It was rather dull, but the infromation is needed for later in the book. The themes of the last chapter were detail with in a less boring way by Diane Purkiss in her At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things. Overall, however, this is a good read for anyone interested in fairies or the Victorians.

In particular, Silver's use of the fairy bride story and how it was related to the developing woman's rights movement was fasinating to read. She connects the swan maiden to the idea divorce and whether or not women should have that right. Additionally, she ties the ideas of dwarfs (dwarves) to the European exploration of Africia.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not about the -- ehem -- Good Folk and associated folklore, though there's quite a bit about them. (Such as vampiric fairy ladies, with a goblin child, who asked to warm their hands at a peasant woman's fire, and being invited in, would feed the goblin with the youngest peasant child's blood, fatally for the child, or the danger of telling strangers your name.)

Nor is it about Victorian thought, about evolution or divorce or race, or many other topics. It's about the collision of the two.

Folklorists who were quite certain that changelings sprung from an older race putting their wizened and unhealthy children in place of a plump and rosy Saxon baby, and others who regarded the deformed or ailing children to be in actuality, racial throwbacks. Folklorists who, agreeing that swan-maiden brides were a folk memory from prehistoric time, disagreed about whether the swan-maiden represented a superior or inferior race -- and others who disputed whether the magical brides who left on the violation of a prohibition were justified.

Quite a bit about ambiguous figures that draw on fairy lore. (Not always convincing argued, in my opinion.)

Discussions of the retreat of fairies and folklore about that.

[Willow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silver's study on the reception and belief in and about of fairy folk in Victorian culture was well researched if biased. I found the author's continual criticisms of "folklorists" annoying when her research clearly falls under the same category. However, I enjoyed her discussions of art and literature and found her interpretations interesting. I especially liked her work on changelings and the way in which she related changelings to Dickens's novels. I wouldn't recommend this for a pleasure read, as her style is not easily accessible. This book would be a ideal for those who are sincerely interested in studying Victorian culture in depth or folklorists.

[Steve Cran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and Secret Peoples is a book not only about Faeries but also about the Victorian beliefs and attitudes towards faeries. The Victorian beliefs tell us not only about faerie but also about the people who believed those beliefs. Victorian England could be a very racist, class conscious, sexist and snobbish. It was around the Victorian time that England's Empire was expanding and putting her into contact with new people and cultures. Many of them with far different customs and darker skins. The british did not always hold such a favorable view of these people.

The first subject tackled was who or what faeries were. Many thought them to be spiritual being or demon like creatures. There were some views that held them to be fallen angels or former gods. A common belief was that they were Tuatha D dnan. Indigenous people who fled to underground caves with the onslaught of foreign invader. With Pygmies being discovered in African areas the view became more prevalent. They were then thought to be Turanian stock people who were of short stature and inferior build and who inhabited Europe before the Indo-Europeans came. For while they coexisted but then the Indo_Europeans wiped them out. These Turanians taught the Indo_europeans herb lore and healing techniques. The worst in human behavior was attributed to faeries and dwarves. They were underground people who hated others, ate people and ravaged women. Smetimes they even took slaves.

The next topic is about faerie women entrapping men. There was a fear of feminine power. Faerie women were thought to be closer to nature and had more of an animal instinct. Men felt they could not be trusted. Women back then were also treated like property. In faery tales a fae bride will marry a man with certain preconditions andd then when those conditions are broken she up and up leaves with the man staying behind heart broken. Some times she took the children and sometimes she did not. This issue dealt a lot with female independence. Some felt this attitude of faerie women was a throw back to times when Indo Europeans came there would be intermarriages with the local people. Some say that an Indo woman would marry an indigenous man and set conditions. When the conditions were broken she left. Some times it was an Indo- man who married an Indigenous women and she set the standards. In the times when the Turanians ruled things Goddesses were powerful and sacrifices were made to them, women were in charge and had supremacy.

Changeling were faerie exchanges of human babies. There was a fear that faries would abduct a human child and replace it with one of their own who was sickly or a piece of wood that looked like their child. The child left behind was often prematurely aged and very ill. Often times it never moved, ate a lot and had an over sized head. To get their child back concerned parents would put the fae baby on a burning iron shovel or drown it. It was hoped that the faeries would come back with the human child and do another exchange. but this was not always the case. It now found out that most of these sick babies had legitimate health problems. Some of them untreatable.

Goblins and dwarves and other faery creatures were thought to be members of an indigenous race that was short on stature and intelligence yet had magical ability. With the discovery of pygmies in African and other historical literature making note of their existence in Egypt, parts of the Sahara and mention of them in other parts of Europe and Central Europe plus other places in the world, people began to believe that the faeries were either a missing link or something that developed along separate line. this lead to some of the worst in human behavior. Pygmies were sometimes capture an display as freaks in circus and side shows. Some were even put in a zoo. The Victorian put their worst fears into these pygmies. THey were looked at as subhuman, cannibalistic and barbaric.

The fae are thought to be cruel and merciless. They do not like humans. To trespass on their land, insult them or destroy their favorite tree could invite the worst of calamities up and to including death. To speak to a faerie was to invite a trouble maker intent on wreaking havoc. Faeries loved to haunt houses. Faeries are depicted i stories and art work as being war like and cruel, They hurt animals for the fun of it and often wage war on each other for no reason. Faeries supposedly feed off energy an will drain the nutrition from milk, energy from men and blood. Faeries might be best left a alone.

It is said that faeries are leaving England. Part of this is due to Victorian literature and children's stories turning them into Gossamer winged cuties. Some say that it is the Gospel and forms of Christianity that are driving them away. Other sayit is science and technology that kills the faerie faith and faeries along with it. Of course with the destruction of nature faeries are leaving. The faith is not so strong yet it is not gone. Some humans are trying to repatch the relationship.

I say this...belief is everything!

[Emma Desserault]

The book that is making me change my thesis topic (slightly). SO much good stuff in here.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the pleasures of parenthood is discovering new worlds through proximity to your child’s world. When my son was younger, he gave me a new-found love for sledding and snowball fights and led me to enjoy Dav Pilkey and Jeff Kinney. This summer, as he finished the first year of college he brought home the text from his English class, which he dismissively referred to as a book about fairy conspiracy theories. I was intrigued. Strange and Secret Peoples is not a book I would recommend that English Professors assign to their nineteen-year-old students in an introductory composition course, but it has its merits as it wends its way through the metamorphoses of English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish folklore during the Victorian Era.

The study of the folklore of Great Britain operates on a grid with four quadrants: a taxonomy of the strange and secret peoples that populate the British Isles: fairies, changelings, dwarfs, gnomes, mermaids, banshees, etc…; the cultural understanding of these strange peoples in folktales, myths and legends that influenced how people acted and understood their heritage; the treatment of these stories through the emerging sociological and scientific understanding of the world under colonial expansion and social Darwinian ideology; and their transformation through the process of literary and artistic representation during the period.

Through the process of describing folkloric figures in each of these quadrants, Silver presents a picture of the transformation of myth and religion during the Victorian era as folklore confronts naturalistic explanations and artistic representation. Though a nineteen-year-old would struggle with the literary, cultural and scientific references, the book provides an interesting perspective on the effects of industrialization and colonialism on indigenous cultures, including the indigenous cultures of the colonizers. I wouldn’t recommend this book to any but a small audience of people with peculiar interests in folk culture and cultural studies, but for those few who possess the interest, it is a good introductory work.

[Eric Wojciechowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drawing examples mostly from representions in folklore, art, literature and the like, this volume documents attitudes and beliefs regarding the Fae Folk in and around the 1800's. And there's no Tinkerbells here.

The volume opens with perhaps my favorite chapter (until the final) which discussed Victorian attempts to define and explain what fairies are. This depended on where the person was coming from. If they were highly religious perhaps the Fae were fallen angels. If the person was a scientist, perhaps considered a lost race in evolution's past. (The discovery of the Pygmy justified some in making that leap).

As noted above, most examples of the make up and behaviors of the Fae Folk were drawn from works of art, literature, poetry, and folklore. What I would have rather read were more accounts of alleged encounters with such creatures and testimony from witnesses. From that, a deduction of fairy properties could be had instead of from works of fiction. But there are not as many here as I hoped.

But that might really be the point. Lacking quality samples of alleged encounters leaves only fiction to draw data from. Like today's extraterrestrial interpretations and descriptions in science fiction versus some people's serious claims of alien abduction, without an actual extraterrestrial to examine, the only data on Twentieth Century opinions is mainly found in the human imagination. So too, the Victorians had no "bodies" to examine. With only folklore to guide them, belief in their actual existence was left to rationalizing imagination.

Reading fictional accounts of fairies satisfies the goal of this volume; which is to examine attitudes towards them in the Victorian age. The Fae weren't kind, mostly trickster, mostly selfish. They mostly preyed on human beings, stealing them away for their own purposes. And sometimes replacing those kidnapped with a changeling, one who looks like the stolen but isn't quite right.

The volume ends with a final chapter noting the path on which the fairies ended up no longer relevant outside children's literature. And one reason was the Cottingley Fairy hoax which convinced even the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle but later discovered to be a fraud. And so it seemed the first time the fairies were alleged to have been encountered and with photographic proof, they lost their magic and, as the author writes, "the tendency to render the elfin people material and/or scientifically inadvertently diminished their importance."

Perhaps the Fae Folk were only relevant and believed in while remaining out of reach. So, too, seems other creatures only known through folklore - Bigfoot, Chupacabra, the Greys, Loch Ness Monster, and the numerous gods of old. Then once truly examined by the light of reason and logic do they fade away, leaving only poetry and a good story.

[Corinne Sylvie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Excellent background reading if you're a Discworld fan or interested in Victorian culture, art, literature, or history. (I discovered this book in the bibliography of 'The Folklore of Discworld' by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson.) It also aligned nicely with 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clark, which I recently re-read.

The author, Carole G. Silver, pulls together a wealth of material (both primary and secondary sources) to analyse and describe the various ways in which people in Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales understood fairy folklore from about the mid-1800s to the early 20th century. She discusses how scientific and technological advances of the time impacted and were assimilated into fairy lore and speculates on the causes of "the great disappearance" of fairies from these regions.

The main topics covered include religious and scientific theories on the origins of fairy folk; changelings; fairy brides; goblins; racial myths / mythic races; evil fairies; and the disappearance of the fairies, all of which are discussed through various Victorian theoretical frameworks (e.g. scientific, anthropological, religious, colonial, evolutionary, folkloric, etc.). This book is richly referenced, which is great if you're looking for further sources on folklore, art, or literature from the Victorian era.

Some of my favourite parts of this book covered the heated debates among erudite, respected, and accomplished men of the time - arguing about the existence of fairies. For example, I didn't know that Arthur Conan Doyle was an ardent fairy believer and public supporter. He was one of many learned men who believed the Cottingley Fairy photographs were evidence of the existence of fairies and wrote publicly about this. It was fascinating to see how the Victorians applied scientific enquiry with seriousness to understanding fairies because this seems preposterous now. However, while this was often entertaining it was at times also disturbing exploring some of their conclusions (e.g. social Darwinism, ideas of racial superiority, and so forth).

I'd recommend 'Strange & Secret Peoples Fairies and Victorian Consciousness' to anyone with an interest in these areas. However, be aware that the author frequently refers to other works and sources (didn't worry me but I know this can make a book a little dry for people who prefer a more straightforward, less academic writing style).

[Jeff O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carole Silver's book Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness offers an engrossing examination of the ways in which fairy tales shaped and mirrored Victorian society's psychology. Silver explores the various ways that fairies, as eerie and fascinating characters, influenced Victorian literature, art, and society. Her analysis of the relationship between modern social challenges like industrialization, gender norms, colonialism, and folklore is deft. Through an analysis of the writings of well-known authors such as Dickens, Yeats, and Kipling, Silver demonstrates how fairies were more than just fantastical creatures; they were also powerful symbols that reflected the hopes and fears of the day. Her careful investigation and perceptive analysis make the book an invaluable resource for Victorian cultural history scholars.

However, readers who are unfamiliar with the subject or are casual readers may find the book's comprehensive analysis and scholarly tone challenging. A considerable amount of acquaintance with Victorian literature and cultural studies is necessary to fully appreciate Silver's wide use of literary and historical references. Despite this, her work is still interesting and approachable enough to draw in devoted readers who are curious about the social implications and deeper meanings of fairy tales. The fascinating book Strange and Secret Peoples provides a fresh viewpoint on how Victorians perceived and comprehended their quickly evolving environment via the prism of the paranormal.

[Santi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una lectura imprescindible, un libro seminal para cualquier persona interesada en el folclore, el evemerismo y las manifestaciones modernas de las creencias en lo sobrenatural.

Aunque, como me pasa a mí, no te interese especialmente la época victoriana, verás que es un texto fundamental: la base, reconocida o no, consciente o no, de prácticamente todos los análisis culturales actuales sobre las creencias en "la gente pequeña" y sus derivados.

///

An absolute must, a seminal book for anyone interested in folklore, euhemerism, and modern manifestations of supernatural beliefs.

Even if you, like me, are not particulalry interested in the Victorian era, you will find here a fundamental text. The basis, acknowledged or not, conscious or not, for every single current cultural analysis of beliefs in the "wee folk" and its derivatives.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for fans of fairy tales and folklore. Not primary sources, but probably more immediately accessible. Heads up for just A LOT of Victorian racism, but also suddenly clarified for me Madeleine L'Engle's weirdest and most off-putting (as in, it was the last novel of hers I ever read) A Wrinkle in Time sequel Many Waters.

[Sandra]

DNF. Not quite what I was expecting, much less folklore history much more sociology and analysis of hard to access works of the era. Too dry and not worth the work for my interest level.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and Secret People is solid piece of scholarship concerning the relationship between Victorian folklorists and fairies. Silver discusses what fairies represented in the immense intellectual turmoil of the period. The chapters cover topics like the creation of a British national culture palatable to the native elites, rather than imported French or German stories, as well as fairies as representations of anxieties about female sexuality, the lower classes, disabled children, and the pains of the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps the most interesting parts where the discussions of Darwin and the pseudo-science of fairies, and various attempts to link fairies to either a vanished race of pygmies similar to the tribes encountered in Africa and Asia, or the future spiritual evolution of the human race. Science-as-it-could-have been, rather than science-as-it-is. The final chapter concerns the fairies as always vanishing but never quite gone, and the way that they were finally relegated to nursery tales and robbed of all power.

I can’t fault Silver’s scholarship; I doubt that there is a single source that she missed. On the other hand, I think this book could’ve used more theoretical grounding, and more of a focus on the Victorian folklorists who recorded these primary sources. There’s too much analysis of the Victorian’s psychosexual hangups, and not enough of why the Victorians thought these stories were important. A second weakness is some unclarity in this very long period, and what may have changed between early Romanticism, the heights of Imperial power, and the pseudo-science of Theosophy and other spiritual practices.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series of academic essays by Carole Silver about the history and meaning of fairy-lore to the Victorians. I read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and wanted to know more about what the people of that time believed about fairies, why they believed it, and what it meant about their society. It talks about changelings, fairy brides, fairy people as foreign tribes, spiritual explanations, and so forth.
One idea I found interesting was the tradition that when the devils were cast out of heaven, it was one third of the spirits. One third became humans, and the last third remained neutral and became the fairies. One supporting evidence given for this was the scripture saying, "other sheep have I which are not of this fold; them also I must bring."
She also shows similarities between stories of UFO aliens, with their distorted human shapes, dimensional travel, and abductions, and the fairy stories.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is a nice survey of literary, cultural, and artistic representations of fairies in the long 19th century, the analytical aspects of the work are lacking. Silver relies on easy assertions as well as quick "perhaps this, perhaps that" comments on the motivations behind her subjects' choices, and this really renders the work to be less-than-convincing as a document of the anxieties and concerns that structured Victorian fairy paintings, stories, and folklore collections. She should have expanded her Freudian, Marxist, and feminist discussions to include more of the history of the time and really integrate fairy lore within the broader sociocultural milieu in which the book is set. I would have been fascinated to see how so many of her possible explanations might have been fleshed out into genuinely concrete discussions. There's a lot of promise here, but the book fails in its execution.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating investigation into Victorian beliefs in Spiritualism and the supernatural. Gloriously illustrated. Filled with such a plethora of beguiling quotes and references for further study, I had more rabbit holes to fall down than a trip to Wonderland would have offered. Unfortunately, the font was so small the text was barely legible. Would love to see a reprint in a normal-sized font though I think the book is too obscure to make that likely.

[H. Anne Stoj · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's probably closer to a 3.5 rating for me. I found the first, second, and fifth chapters to be the most interesting and helpful. I've liked to see the illustrations in color as many of them are paintings and the resolution isn't the best.

[Jeremiah Genest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating discussion of supernatural creatures in the Victorian age. Draws widely and is incredibly thorough.

[Bridgett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dry, and negative about folklorists, but very educational into the darker sides of fairy kind. Definitely a different approach from a lot of books on fairies, which made it interesting.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This presented interesting information I had not seen before. There is speculation about the role of women in society and the coonection with the fears men had.

[Andrew Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant eye opening book about Victorian fairy literature and art. Highly recommend.