What do you think?
Rate this book
Personnel of Fairyland: A Short Account of the Fairy People of Great Britain for Those Who Tell Stories to Children
228 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
About the author
Katharine M. Briggs
44 books114 followersEarly Life Katharine Briggs was born in Hampstead, London in 1898, and was the eldest of three sisters. The Briggs family, originally from Yorkshire, had built up a fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries through coal mining and owned a large colliery in Normanton, West Yorkshire. With such enormous wealth, Katharine and her family were able to live in luxury with little need to work. Briggs's father Ernest was often unwell and divided his time between leafy Hampstead and the clear air of Scotland. He was a watercolourist and would often take his children with him when he went to paint the landscape. An imaginative storyteller, he loved to tell his children tales and legends; these would have a great impact on the young Katharine, becoming her passion in later life. When Briggs was 12 her father had Dalbeathie House built in Perthshire and the family moved permanently to Scotland; however, tragedy struck when he died two years later. Briggs and her two sisters, Winifred and Elspeth, developed a close bond with their mother, Mary, after this - all living together for almost fifty years. As Briggs and her sisters grew older their main passion was for amateur dramatics. They wrote and performed their own plays at their home and Briggs would pursue her interest in theatre throughout her education. After leaving school she attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, graduating with a BA in 1918 and an MA in 1926. She specialised in the study of traditional folk tales and 17th-century English history.
The Folklorist Briggs continued her studies largely as a hobby, while living with her sisters and mother in Burford, Oxfordshire. She collected together traditional stories from across the country and the wider world, but did not publish them yet. Together she and her sisters performed in plays with local amateur dramatics groups and Briggs wrote historical novels set during the Civil War (also unpublished). When the Second World War started Briggs joined the WAAF and later taught at a school for the children of Polish refugees. After the war Briggs threw herself into her folklore studies, completing her PhD on the use of folklore in 17th-century literature. In 1954, the first Katharine Briggs book was published, titled The Personnel of Fairyland, a guide to the folklore of Great Britain. This was followed by Hobberdy Dick (1955), a children's story about a hobgoblin in Puritan England. Though these books brought a small amount of interest, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s, following the deaths of her sisters and mother, that Briggs became a renowned folklorist. In 1963 she published another children's book, Kate Crackernuts, and became involved with the Folklore Society of the UK, later being elected as its president in 1967. Now a preeminent expert on fairy stories and folklore, she began to lecture across the country and by the 1970s she had been invited to give lectures in the United States and was regularly interviewed on television. In 1971 she published her masterpiece, the four-volume A Dictionary of Folk-Tales in the English Language. This work remains the definitive collection of British folk stories, becoming a vital resource for writers, academics and storytellers. Katharine Briggs died suddenly at the age of 82 on 15th October 1980. At the time of her death she had been working on a memoir of her childhood days in Scotland and Hampstead, where her love of folklore began.
Information taken from http://www.foliosociety.com/author/ka...
The Folklorist Briggs continued her studies largely as a hobby, while living with her sisters and mother in Burford, Oxfordshire. She collected together traditional stories from across the country and the wider world, but did not publish them yet. Together she and her sisters performed in plays with local amateur dramatics groups and Briggs wrote historical novels set during the Civil War (also unpublished). When the Second World War started Briggs joined the WAAF and later taught at a school for the children of Polish refugees. After the war Briggs threw herself into her folklore studies, completing her PhD on the use of folklore in 17th-century literature. In 1954, the first Katharine Briggs book was published, titled The Personnel of Fairyland, a guide to the folklore of Great Britain. This was followed by Hobberdy Dick (1955), a children's story about a hobgoblin in Puritan England. Though these books brought a small amount of interest, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s, following the deaths of her sisters and mother, that Briggs became a renowned folklorist. In 1963 she published another children's book, Kate Crackernuts, and became involved with the Folklore Society of the UK, later being elected as its president in 1967. Now a preeminent expert on fairy stories and folklore, she began to lecture across the country and by the 1970s she had been invited to give lectures in the United States and was regularly interviewed on television. In 1971 she published her masterpiece, the four-volume A Dictionary of Folk-Tales in the English Language. This work remains the definitive collection of British folk stories, becoming a vital resource for writers, academics and storytellers. Katharine Briggs died suddenly at the age of 82 on 15th October 1980. At the time of her death she had been working on a memoir of her childhood days in Scotland and Hampstead, where her love of folklore began.
Information taken from http://www.foliosociety.com/author/ka...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 5, 2016
A book written so that the children of her day could hear more variety in their folklore, and rather more native folklore than foreign.
She divides up the tales by type, but warns us that the folklore of Great Britain is very sloppy in classification. And the fairies are most introduced by tale. Like the little boy who wanted a tankard of ale for his sick mother, and his tankard was such that it drained an entire cask of ale -- but the lord had promised the tankard, and so they broached another, and it filled the tankard with one drop, and later the little boy rescued the lord from captivity in France. Brownies who fetch midwives in bad weather, who disappear when they are named or given clothes, who plague families and move with them. Rescuing a "merrymaid" by bring her back to the sea, or rescuing the souls of drowned fisherman that another sea-dweller caught.
She divides up the tales by type, but warns us that the folklore of Great Britain is very sloppy in classification. And the fairies are most introduced by tale. Like the little boy who wanted a tankard of ale for his sick mother, and his tankard was such that it drained an entire cask of ale -- but the lord had promised the tankard, and so they broached another, and it filled the tankard with one drop, and later the little boy rescued the lord from captivity in France. Brownies who fetch midwives in bad weather, who disappear when they are named or given clothes, who plague families and move with them. Rescuing a "merrymaid" by bring her back to the sea, or rescuing the souls of drowned fisherman that another sea-dweller caught.
June 4, 2024
Another classic fairy lore book from the Queen of fairydon.
August 28, 2015
Briggs is apparently one of the major figures of folklore as an academic discipline, with a PhD from Oxford, and later president of the Folklore Society. The Personnell of Fairyland is an odd little volume. Even if it doesn’t quite match modern standards, the organization and ‘facticity’ of the book make it clear that this is a serious and scholarly collection of British fairy-stories. However, the subtitle is “for those who tell Stories to children,” and every third story or so has a darling little woodcut illustration.
As expected, this is a book of fairy tales. Each individual story is brief, and I recall the longest being no more than seven pages or so. The stories are divided into four major sections, heroic fairies who have great and mythical powers, brownies or little fairies who work in great swarms, tutelary families connected to a particular family or house, nature fairies, and finally assorted giants, witches, and monsters. Additionally, there’s a dictionary of different types of fairies. Generally, the stories involve humans interacting with fairies, sometimes tricking them but usually being tricked by the Fair Folk. There’s some deaths and maimings, although less than you’d see in unbowdlerized Grimm’s fairy tales. The worst thing that English fairies do in these stories is abandon humanity. Some of the tales are in plain English, some in dialect, without much pattern or explanation as to why.
As an introduction and basic reference, this is a decent enough introduction to English fairies. However, it entirely lacks context, and unless you are a particularly gifted reader, I can’t see reading these stories to children.
As expected, this is a book of fairy tales. Each individual story is brief, and I recall the longest being no more than seven pages or so. The stories are divided into four major sections, heroic fairies who have great and mythical powers, brownies or little fairies who work in great swarms, tutelary families connected to a particular family or house, nature fairies, and finally assorted giants, witches, and monsters. Additionally, there’s a dictionary of different types of fairies. Generally, the stories involve humans interacting with fairies, sometimes tricking them but usually being tricked by the Fair Folk. There’s some deaths and maimings, although less than you’d see in unbowdlerized Grimm’s fairy tales. The worst thing that English fairies do in these stories is abandon humanity. Some of the tales are in plain English, some in dialect, without much pattern or explanation as to why.
As an introduction and basic reference, this is a decent enough introduction to English fairies. However, it entirely lacks context, and unless you are a particularly gifted reader, I can’t see reading these stories to children.
January 4, 2020
I have established that “fairytales” are devices used to tell a happy ending. At least one story in particular is traced to this tradition. Take Sir Orpheus from the Ovid. In the original, at the end, he looks back and she isn’t there, but in the adventure version it’s given a happy ending where they live together happily ever after. In this way the fairy tale itself can be criticized for displaying unrealistic-ness. That’s the main difference between a folk story and fairytales. Any regular story from folklore, technically, can’t be considered a fairytale simply because they’re both two types of stories.
Perhaps at some point one starts to wonder what stories children know, then discover the reality of the situation. It has been suggested that fairytales aren’t worth it because they paint too hopeful an imaginary picture of reality and its consequences. The truth is, most of our English stories, and fairytales, are based on the French chivalric romance, including the King Arthur-Roland connection.
Perhaps at some point one starts to wonder what stories children know, then discover the reality of the situation. It has been suggested that fairytales aren’t worth it because they paint too hopeful an imaginary picture of reality and its consequences. The truth is, most of our English stories, and fairytales, are based on the French chivalric romance, including the King Arthur-Roland connection.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews