Exeter New Approaches to Legend Folklor The Exeter Companion to Fairies Nereids Trolls and Other Social Supernatural Beings: European Traditions (Hardcover)

Fairies elves and other magical beings... they re so much more than just children s tales. For centuries Europeans believed in a parallel supernatural realm inhabited by these beings who lived much like humans in their own communities. This social supernatural world mirrored ours with troll weddings pixy battles nereid picnics dwarf migrations and the like. Social supernatural beings were thought to interact with the human world in profound ways: they whipped up storms ensured good harvests and healed (and all too often caused) illness. The Exeter Companion to Fairies Nereids Trolls and other Social Supernatural Beings dives into the rich folklore and oral traditions around the social supernatural across Europe; in fact it pioneers the term social supernatural as a folklore and supernatural category. Bringing together eighteen experts this is the first comprehensive Europe-wide look at these beliefs and practices. Through in-depth studies the volume explores how diverse cultures from Ireland to Ukraine and from Norway to Greece envisioned their supernatural neighbours and how these parallel societies reflected human concerns and desires. Our authors employ ancient medieval modern and in some cases contemporary material to tease out the hidden people from obscure and all too often forgotten sources. The book resurrects captivating stories and traditions. For anyone fascinated by European folklore magic and mythology it provides a rich research seam with up-to-date bibliographies for a dozen European countries. It will be of use to folklorists historians ethnologists sociologists and also the general reader interested in the supernatural beliefs of traditional European societies.