The Sea Prince and the Fire Child

I love faeries, and anime, and this is the perfect combination of both. Alright, there are definitely some flaws in the movie. The colours are kind of faded, the bad guy is cheesy, and as is typical of 80 cartoons the girl just whines instead of doing something, among other things. My mind was telling me this as I was watching... but a stronger voice drowned that one out and was wishing I'd seen this movie when I was five years old. I would have loved it then. I still appreciate it now, but there's something about a child's perception that makes magic come alive and this story is full of magic.
It's about the son of the sea king and the daughter of the fire queen. As legend has it, the king and queen are siblings and were very close and always together. The wind saw this, became jealous of their happiness and told lies to each of them making them distrust the other. They quarrelled and the fire queen went to live in the sky and the sea god the sea, and the wind was banished to the depths of the sea and his eye was removed. One day the prince of the sea goes to a forbidden place and sees the fire child watching over the eternal flame. He comes back the next day and they fall in love, and from there they try to find a way to make their impossible love work.

One of the things I love about anime is that it's not disnified. What I mean by that is that a romanticized ideal is achieved, but not without cost. There isn't a false message that you can have your cake and eat it too. You should strive to achieve your desires, but you have to know that there may be a price to pay. This isn't ominous by any means, don't take it the wrong way, the movie isn't sinister and won't worry a child. The moral isn't that bad will always come from getting something you want, but more that sometimes you have to choose between two things you might like and if you choose one you might mourn the loss of the other, even though the choice you made was the best one and is what will make you the happiest. This isn't always the message in main stream films. Most of the time the idea expressed is that you go through a tough phase, but then by making the right choices all goes well in your life, happily ever after, without regret or pain or thoughts of what if. The story end with the idea that the couple will always be happy in their paradise, but in real life situations life isn't so black and white, and it's refreshing to see films reflect this every now and again, especially films for children.

The fire people are all faeries, and all except for the fire queen have a sprite-like appearance. The prince is human looking, but very lanky, and all of his subjects are fish (so both boys and girls will watch). It was a great film full of fantasy, adventure, whimsy, and romance. Also animated by Sanrio but not necessarily faerie related are the films ringing bell and the legend of unico. Both are good to look out for.





the trailer is in Japanese, as the movie originated from Japan, but there is a dubbed version (on youtube at the moment, but i didn't say that) that will be easier to watch for the average North American.

The Derbyshire Fairy

Fairy corpse found! ... or not according to hoax-slayer.com, but in either case it's an interesting tidbit



The article is on this site - http://www.hoax-slayer.com/derbyshire-fairy-hoax.shtml

The Secret of Roan Inish

I was fortunate to have seen this movie young. This is an extraordinary movie about a young girl who goes looking for her baby brother who was taken away by the sea. Despite the fact that there is no actual magic that happens in the movie, this is one of the most magical movies I've seen.

The girl's name is Fiona and she goes to live with her grandparents for a while because her father is too busy with work to care for her. While with her grandparents she visits an island her family used to live on, also, the island where her younger brother was taken away by the sea. She snoops around the island and catches glimpses of a small boy she suspects to be her brother. as it turns out selkies have taken him away. So the girl, with the help of her cousin, begin to make the abandoned houses on the island habitable again so that they can move back, thereby getting the girl's brother back from the sea. This film is subtle, yet superbly effective in giving you that evanescent, magical feeling. The use of storytelling is capitalized upon as the primary means of introducing the girl to stories of selkies and to the history of the island and the people on it. So many movies try to capture that evasive 'something else' but end up being fake and cheesy but this one makes the cut. The soundtrack is amazing as well. A great collection of celtic folk music.

Cicely Mary Barker

Cicely Mary Barker (1895- 1973) is the creator of the famous flower fairies. Her work is almost like a fantastical flower taxonomy, as she draws a flower or plant of some sort and then creates a corresponding fairy to be a spiritual representative of sorts. I love flower fairies because of the art style, I don't know if it's Victorian or what, but it's old school and I like it. I also like the joy and motion the fairies display as they frolic among the flowers or the pensive serenity of those who are just sitting or standing.



the website is http://www.flowerfairies.com/

there are also several books out as well, a good one to look for would be The Complete Book of Flower Fairies, but not all of the fairies are in this book and the newer edition cropped some of the pictures. There is also the option of looking for the books that are just one category of flower fairy, like flower fairies of the spring or flower fairies of the summer, if you get all of those you'll have all the pictures, but if you want an overview the new edition isn't bad.

The Fairy Faith

I came across this film two years ago and purchased it on a whim as it was a documentary on faeries, two things I love. Well, more accurately, the film isn't about faeries themselves, but about the belief in faeries and the superstitions people hold and sacred places, etc.

The narrator takes the viewer around various places in Canada and the U.K., talking to people who believe and looking at locations of relevance. The film doesn't try to convince the audience of anything nor disprove anything. It attempts to achieve an unbiased perspective, taking in the opinions of those who believe and those who don't (mostly the believers though as we're looking at the belief, not a criticism of the belief). I think it successfully documents the fairy faith and does a good job of taking seriously subject matter which the majority of western society sees as nothing more than fantasy and idle past time. I would recommend this to everyone interested in fairies, and anyone with an open mind, because though it isn't asking for the viewer's belief it is asking for the viewer's acceptance of the belief.



the film's website -> http://www.thefairyfaith.com/

The Chronicles of Faerie by O.R. Melling

I believe I was in the 8th grade when I first read the Chronicles of Faerie, and I loved the entire series, and still do to this day. Melling is known for these books and they have been translated into many different languages, you can see which ones and the corresponding cover art on her website. The series written for young adults.

The books are not one single story cut up into four books, rather, each of the books feature different characters (minus the last two) and though the characters from previous books make a cameo here and there, each book can be a stand- alone novel. What ties the books together is the world that they share. The books take place chronologically, so by reading them in order the reader will get a better sense of the world they're stepping into. The first two books, The Hunter's Moon and The Summer King, are similar in plot. there are two girls (in Hunter's Moon they were cousins, in Summer King, sisters) and one of the two girls gets taken away from the other and brought to the faerie realm. The reader is left with the girl who is left behind and that girl undergoes a journey to attempt to get her friend back. The last two books in the series, The Light-Bearer's Daughter and The Book of Dreams, focus on only one girl named Dana and her unique bond with the faerie realm.

The series has always had a special place in my heart and I always remember it fondly. It was an exciting read full of magic and traditional celtic folklore and belief and just a tiny bit of romance, enough for a tomboyish fourteen year old not to get too squeamish when reading it. The faeries in this book aren't all sugar and cream either. These was some of the first books I read that had vicious faeries in it, where the faeries weren't good or bad necessarily, but could 'shed blood without blinking an eye' i think it says somewhere. It was a gateway into discovering that not all faeries are going to be flower fairies or friendly forest spirits, and that even the good faeries could be vicious. I like to think of it as true faerie nature, but that's just me.

anyway, it's a light yet memorable read and I recommend it if you haven't read it yet. the ordering is The Hunter's Moon, The Summer King, The Light-Bearer's Daughter, and The Book of Dreams. The book beneath called The Chronicles of Faerie has the first three books, as the fourth one hadn't been released yet, and then the fourth was released alone in the same format. there is one book with all four called The Golden Book of Faerie, but I think it's out of print.

here's her website, http://www.ormelling.com/index.html

The Cottingley Faeries

Remember Brian Froud's Lady Cottington Series? well it was based off of this real life event. These two girls, the Cottingley sisters, staged the photographing of faeries.

http://www.cottingley.net/index.shtml

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/photo_database/image/the_cottingley_fairies/

Darby O'Gill and the Little People

A classic faerie movie made in 1959. Darby O'Gill and the Little people is about an old man named Darby O'Gill and his attempts to outwit the leprechaun king into giving him three wishes. A young Sean Connery plays the part of a travelling man who comes to work in Darby 's place, as his landlord feels that Darby's getting too old to work. Connery starts falling for Darby's daughter Katie and their love carries on as a sort of side story. the high point of the film is when the banshee comes by one night for-telling Katie's death, and so Darby finds the leprechaun king to use his wish. an amazing, timeless film that captures the magic of leprechauns and the dynamic of a close knit town, as well as emphasize the power of story telling. a must watch.



here's a clip from the movie

Faerie Houses

Ever dream of having a faerie to come visit your backyard? well, faerie houses are the way to go. a faerie house is essentially a little house you can make, either out of natural materials like twigs or tree stumps or from old milk cartons or bird houses. after  you get your house, you can decorate it with different thing you find outside, like twigs, leaves, walnut halves, etc. and put a little something special inside to entice faeries to come visit, like sugar or dried cranberries or the like.

wikihow has a pretty straight forward 8 step guide to building your own faerie house. great for beginners. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Fairy-House

there's also a series of children's books by Tracy Kane about fairy houses, great to get the kids involved.. or more involved than they already are.



this site is another good faq for beginners http://www.fairywoodland.com/page.php?Fairy___Fairy_House_FAQs&page=4 I'm not crazy about the majority of the examples of houses they have on the website, but the furniture and other accessories are cute.

Brian Froud

anyone who knows anything about fairy culture, and even some of those who don't, know of Brian Froud. he's famous for his fairy art, and for good reason. there's something very primal and organic, but at the same time, beautiful about his work. in addition to his art, he was also a part of the films dark crystal and labyrinth.

he has several books out, all of which i have.

Faeries, Good Faeries Bad Faeries, Goblins, Runes of Elf Land, Brian Froud's World of Faerie, Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book, Lady Cottington's Fairy Album, Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy letters, and so on.

my favourite of these would be the cottington books, not because the other books aren't just as wonderful, they are, but because the cottington books have more of a narrative. they follow the tale of a girl as she deals with these pesky fairies that follow her around... even though she keeps trying to squish them. it's sweet and funny and whimsical. Lady Cottington's Fairy Album is one of my favourite books, and was my very first Froud.



http://www.worldoffroud.com/index.html