History Scotland Magazine: Review - Scottish Fairy Belief, L. Henderson and E. J. Cowan

Scottish Fairy Belief

Lizanne Henderson and Edward J Cowan

Tuckwell Press, East Linton, 2001. ISBN 1 86232 190 6 xi + 242 pp, 11 b/w illustrations, 4 tables, 3 figures. Pb 14.99

In our modern, cynical, secular world, there is a need and a place for books like this. Academic historians can be too dismissive of the role of folk belief in the shaping of society, in its influence on custom and tradition, its moulding of attitudes and its framing of the world vision which individuals of all classes imposed upon the great unknown that lay outside their doors. In this deeply thought-provoking book, Henderson and Cowan force modern readers to confront their own modern attitudes and look at the world through different eyes.

What the authors have set out before us is an insight onto the mindset of a past society. They reveal a world in which individuals struggled to find terms of reference through which they could explain rationalise much of what seemed inexplicable or irrational in their daily existence. Fairy belief and witchcraft were media through which the unknown could be made understandable. They remained deeply troubling subjects to our ancestors, but they gave substance that could be managed or contained to something that was otherwise simply a black hole of the unknown.

In their exploration of Scottish Fairy belief, Henderson and Cowan strip away the modern romantic/ sentimental view of fairies and elves to expose something that is altogether darker. The world of Faerie that they present to us is not one of merriment and helpful magic, but one where capriciousness slides into malice, where the diabolical lurks close beneath the surface. It is not gossamer-winged sprites that inhabit the Scottish fairy realm, but soulless instruments of darkness that seek to lure mortal men to their ruin, who steal away human children, and who set at nought the dreams and aspirations of ordinary folk. And here, too, is set out the causes of the passing of this dark dreamworld, the onslaught of Calvinistic rationality and the cold, hard light of Reason.

This is a book that examines the stresses in Medieval and early Modern Scotland. It tells us much about the fears and pre-occupations of past society, about the daily lives and disappointments of people of all backgrounds. Moving easily between history and social anthropology, it uses its material to expose an aspect of Scottish life that has largely passed un-noticed by other academic historians. It must not be dismissed as an academic flight of fancy this is a book that takes us where few historical subjects can: into the minds of our ancestors.

Richard Oram,
University of Stirling