My great grandmother warned me about fairies. Some are kind, and beautiful, she said, while others are hostile to mortals. She would leave out a saucer of milk at night for the Brownie, but nothing more, in case he took offense.

For the fairy folk were capricious, willful and vengeful. They were quick to anger and easily insulted over trifles, therefore many little rituals had to be played out in the domestic chores to appease the watchful sprites, and my great grandmother knew them all. Did a Brownie accompany her mother from the Hebrides? Did a Banshee travel with her father from the west coast of Ireland? There was no need for such fairies to journey to Australia, for this land has many Nature Spirits, there are Elementals in the rocks who are far older than the Celtic Sprites.

Fairies are not little Tinkerbells at the bottom of your garden, they are spirits of nature, minor deities of the natural phenomena. They are the energies in earth, air, fire and water.

Here is a small list of the most common fairies you may happen to meet in modern times.

Water Fairies

Fairies can dwell in any element, but a great proportion of them are found in and around water. The river gods of ancient Greece are fairies, as are the water Nymphs, the Naiads and Hydriads, and the Nymphs of the Fen, the Heleads. The sea fairies were ruled by Poisedon and included monstrous creatures, elementals of whirlpools and tidal races like Scylla and Charybdis, shape-shifting dolphins and the enticing Sirens

In old places of Britain (and Brittany) you will find water horses and other spirits deep in the rivers and many are the wells in little-known places where a minor deity still reigns. On moonless nights in Ireland you may yet meet the Phooka, and the seas are still home to mermen and merrows. The Gwragedd Annwn inhabit Welsh lakes and streams like their cousins, the Necks, in the wild woods of Norway.

Trees and Forest Fairies

These fairies were known as dryads to the early Greeks. They are female spirits of nature, nymphs, who preside over the groves and forests. Each forest nymph is born connected to a certain tree which she will guard, either living in, or very close to it. Should the tree perish, she also dies. Sadly, many dryads have been lost to the world in this manner, but the gods will punish thoughtless mortals who would harm the trees.

Garden Fairies

Your garden is a miniature forest, and every flower, every tree, every plant, has its own fairy. If you want to attract fairies, keep a little wild part available, add a few beautiful beach shells and pretty stones to it, and a small earthenware bowl to collect fresh rainwater. These benign and beneficial garden spirits need a spot to rest and relax in natural surroundings. In some blessed parts of the world, a typical garden fairy can be a Leprechaun.

Household Fairies

The ancient Romans knew about Brownies, the small, hardworking fairies of houses and barns. The Roman household brownie was one of the benign guardian spirits, the penates, lares and genii who kept watch over the family. In Scotland the Brownies took on practical household management by spending the night finishing the housework that was left undone. (In the Brothers Grimm, it is the helpful Elves who finish the work of a poor shoemaker overnight, for there are no Brownies in Germany).

Recommended Reading

In Five Children and It (first published 1902) five children find a fairy while digging in the disused gravel-pit behind their new house. It was a sand fairy, so old that it had seen the days when Megatheriums walked the earth and Pterodactyls flew in the sky. But it was grumpy, cantankerous, conceited, mean and mischievous. And it could make wishes come true. In other words, a real fairy.