Prince Arthur and the Fairy Queen byJohann Heinrich Füssli, c. 1788

TheFairy Queen orQueen of the Fairies is a figure from Irish and Britishfolklore, believed to rule thefairies.

Folklore[edit]

InIrish folklore, the last High Queen of theDaoine Sidhe - and wife of the High KingFinvarra - was named Una (or Oonagh, or Oona, or Uonaidh etc.)^{[citation needed]} In theballad tradition ofNorthern England andLowland Scotland, she was called theQueen of Elphame.

The character is also associated with the name Morgan (as with the Arthurian character ofMorgan le Fey, or Morgan of the Fairies), or a variant ofMab. In theChild BalladsTam Lin (Child 39) andThomas the Rhymer (Child 37), she is represented as both beautiful and seductive, and also as terrible and deadly. The Fairy Queen is said to pay atithe to Hell every seven years, and her mortal lovers often provide this sacrifice. InTam Lin, the title character tells his mortal lover:

At the end of seven years
She pays a tithe to Hell
I so fair and full of flesh
I fear it be myself

Literature and media[edit]

BothEdmund Spenser andWilliam Shakespeare used folklore concerning the Fairy Queen to create characters and poetry, Spenser inThe Faerie Queene and Shakespeare inA Midsummer Night's Dream. InThe Faerie Queene, Spenser's fairy queen is named Gloriana, and is also referred to as Tanaquill, which "appears to be an epithet for Gloriana, Queen of Faeries" derived from the name of the wife ofTarquinius Priscus.^[1] She is the daughter ofOberon, who in Shakespeare's later play is married toTitania, a name derived fromOvid as an epithet of the Roman goddessDiana. Diana was regularly portrayed as the ruler of the fairy kingdom in demonological literature, such as KingJames VI of Scotland'sDaemonologie, which says that she belongs to "the fourth kind of spirits, which by theGentiles [non-Jews] was called Diana and her wandering court, and amongst us is called Fairy (as I told you) or our good neighbours".^[2]

20th century[edit]

In one of the earliest of thePeter Pan novels,The Little White Bird, authorJ. M. Barrie also identifiesQueen Mab as the name of the fairy queen, although the character is entirely benign and helpful. In Disney'sseries of films based on Tinker Bell, a fairy character originating in Barrie's novels, the fairies are shown to be ruled by aQueen Clarion. In Brandon Mull'sFablehaven series, the Fairy Queen is an essential part of the plot. The characterErza Scarlet fromHiro Mashima'sFairy Tail earned the alias "Titania" due to her power.^{[citation needed]}

InFoxglove Summer, part of theRivers of London series, the protagonist Peter Grant is captured by the Fairy Queen and taken off to her Kingdom (analternative reality orOtherworld where Britain is still covered with a massive unbrokenprimeval forest, with no sign of the familiar towns and villages).

Neopaganism[edit]

The concept of a Dianic queen of spirits influenced the neopagan cultures developed fromCharles Godfrey Leland's concept ofAradia "Queen of the Witches".^[3] TheFaerie faith developed from the same source as theMcFarland Dianic tradition.

References[edit]

• Articles with short description
• Short description with empty Wikidata description
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021
• Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022
• AC with 0 elements
• Fairy Queens
• English legendary creatures
• Irish legendary creatures
• Female legendary creatures
• Fictional queens