The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends – Katharine Mary Briggs
Internationally acclaimed as one of Britain’s most respected folklore scholars, Katharine Briggs(1898-1980) was also one of the most popular authors in the field. These “Selected Works provide facsimile editions of her landmark writings, spanning the whole of her publishing career, from 1959 to 1980. she draws upon folklore, oral history, and scholarly research to illustrate the extraordinary range of “others” once believed to live along side humans, though usually invisible. As in many things, different cultures all over the world held amazingly similar beliefs about this topic, considered rather esoteric today. This collection of tales and traditions is fascinating, but perhaps even more valuable is the appendix to The Vanishing People, in which she includes a glossary of the types of fairies (woodwives, water horses, and their like), an index of tale types (visits to fairyland, changelings, etc.), and an index of motifs (taboo, transformation, and magical substances, for instance.) Interesting reading and a great reference.
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