James Browne

Browne does beautiful water-colour paintings. The subjects in most of the paintings are fantastical but they all hold some element of whimsy.

http://www.jamesbrowne.net/index.php

Banshee (Bean Sidhe)

A banshee is a spirit from Celtic mythology. Traditionally the banshee takes the form of a woman and is known to wail a warning of death to those who are living. There are different beliefs as to what a banshee is, whether or not it is an ancestral spirit or a faerie from the other world. Some believe that only a select  few families can inspire a banshee to bring a warning of death, while others feel that it's just a matter of having Irish blood in you, no matter the family.



Not all banshees mourn. There are both joyous and mournful banshees. In Wentz's Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, there is a legend that after the Macleod's had borne an heir, a beautiful woman appeared at the castle, went to the newborn's cradle and chanted a series of verses over the baby. The verses fortold the future manhood of the young child and acted as a protective charm over the young one (Sleeping Beauty anyone?). After having done this she put the baby back into it's cradle and disappeared across the moorlands.

This website goes over the banshee in greater depth than what I've provided. http://www.myremoteradio.com/blog/the-banshee

And in even greater detail http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Banshee

A banshee makes an appearance in the book Hunter's Moon by O.R. Melling

Fairy Essential Oil Bottle Pendant

http://witchsupercenter.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=375

Bottle Fairy

Bottle Fairy is a cute comedy anime about four little fairies who live in jars on this high school boy's desk. The comedy style is similar to a more well known anime (for those who watch anime) called Azumanga Daioh. There are 13 episodes in total, one for each month of the year plus one extra, each about 12 minutes in length.



The fairies are from another world and in each episode they discover the major holiday or event of a certain month and try to understand what it's for and how to celebrate it. In this way, it is a good show to help westerners to learn about the different celebrations that happen throughout the year in Japan, even though the fairies don't go into more detail about what they think happens than what actually does. There are four main fairies, Kururu the blue bottle fairy, Chiriri the yellow bottle fairy, Sarara the red bottle fairy, and Hororo the green bottle fairy. Kururu is very energetic and is sort of the leader of the group, Chiriri is the reserved pretty girl, Sarara is the samurai fight to the death type, and Hororo usually has a vacant expression and is either thinking about food or something completely off topic. This show is an overload of cuteness. The characters are drawn in chibi form most of the time, which means that they are drawn as children with not a lot of attention paid to detail. The show is slightly non- tangential, but that is what adds to this style of comedy.



Here's the intro to the anime

Fairy Steps

Fairy Steps is a site that sells handmade shoes, clothing, bags, and accessories. The products are very organic looking, and some really look like it could be fairy wear. Really cute stuff.

http://www.fairysteps.co.uk/

Rosie Bair

Bair crafts cute little faerie figurines. My personal favourite by her is her line of splat faeries.



This is her myspace where she has some of her work up; http://www.myspace.com/widdlefaeriescom

She also has more of these figurines posted on this site http://www.landofmyth.com/index.asp

Kelpie

A kelpie is a being from Celtic folklore. They can have several forms, a horse, a human, a horse with a fish tail, but a horse is usually the common form. No matter the form however, the kelpie is always connected to some body of water. The kelpie is also known to drown people in said body of water once they get up on their back.



This site has some basic information

http://www.theequinest.com/kelpie/

http://www.jh-author.com/kelpie.htm



A movie with a kelpie (though it doesn't say that it is a kelpie at any point in the film) is Into the West. A story about two boys who find this horse which ends up bringing them back to their roots.

Kodama

A Kodama is a Japanese tree spirit. They live inside a certain tree and if you chop down that tree it's thought to be bad luck. The trees that do house the little spirits will be marked by a shimenawa, or a special rope use in the Shinto religion.



Kodama were made famous by the movie Princess Mononoke.

Hazel Brown

Hazel Brown's art is interesting compared to some other faery artists because while it is somewhat cartoonish and the figures look like they could have been painted for a children's book, it still has a wonderful prickly, ethereal feel to it.

http://www.faery-art.com/

Selkie

A selkie is a being that is caught somewhere between a human and a seal. They are shape shifters. Usually you will only see one as a seal but every so often one will take off it's seal skin for a time on land. This is usually what spawns the stories about them, for if a person can capture the hide of a selkie, that selkie will be under their power.

Selkies are faeries from predominately Scotland and Ireland.



A good site with a little bit of information is http://home.cogeco.ca/~eligio/selkies/selkies.html. it goes over some basics in a fair bit of detail.

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/ is another ok site and has just some basic information on orkney legend, a place on the northern most edge of Scotland.

I've also mentioned selkies before in the film The Secret of Roan Inish http://faeriesight.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/the-secret-of-roan-inish/ that is a phenomenal movie about selkies and this is the scene from the movie where the selkie legend is told. Parts 2 and 3 are on youtube

There are countless books on the subject, but a good one I have read is called Tales of the Seal People by Duncan Williamson. It is a collection of stories Williamson compiled when he went to Scotland.



Another good book is called People of the Sea by David Thomson. Again another collection as this guy goes around Scotland trying to find selkies.



There are also many newer fiction books that feature or have selkie cameos. A book that features a selkie is Seven Tears in the Sea by Terri Farley and a couple of books with selkie cameos are The Serpent's Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and the last book in the sevenwaters trilogy by Juliet Marillier, Child of the Prophecy. All fantasy books of course.