Minor/Major Project: Idea and Research

How to Catch a Fairy

My idea for third year is a short animation, similar to an old public information video, in which a narrator guides a wannabe fairy catching into trapping and capturing a not-so-Tinkerbell fairy, and with each attempt he meets his demise.

Compared to kind and innocent fairies usually shown in media, much of the original folklore surrounding fairies mostly focuses on protection from the fairies/fae. In Celtic mythology, fairies are mostly noted on their malice and mischievous deeds. Some folklore includes Goblins, Piskies, water-based fae, such as the Kelpie, which lure children, men and women to a body of water and drown them, another involves swapping a human baby in place for an ugly fairy, named a Changeling, and a fast and brutal fairy called a Red Cap which is armed with sharp teeth and claws, which gets it name for once killing it will mop up the blood with it's cap, dying it red.

In folklore fairies have been shown to range in size, such as small as a flower, a human child, and as tall as an human adult, and that they can change size and form at will.

Fairies are believed to be spirits of the dead, guardians of nature, a supernatural race, and even demons.

Protection against fairies was prominent in folklore, and many techniques in repelling fairies consist of hanging a wreath of St John's Wort above a house's door, hang an iron horseshoe, ringing silver bells to which the sound frightens off malevolent, give offerings of honey, milk and bread on the doorstep, never enter a fairy ring (a circular mound in the ground which people believed if entered the fairies could 'spirit away' the intruder never to be seen again.) and sprinkling salt on the windowsill, and turning coats inside out.