Hi! I'm quite new to this, but I understand that Reddit has an infinite amount of knowledge and I need a bit of that. If you've ever tried to research species of fairies, you get lots of links to cheap copies of Hans Christian Anderson and Grimm brothers books. Which would be great if they were helpful at all, but not especially.
I'm looking for fairies, fae folk, and small people from different cultures. Especially from Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Switzerland, and France. If you know stories describing their personalities or appearance that would be helpful. Also books that aren't just assorted fairy tales would be really good.
What I'm looking for is anything that describes their personality, their appearance, what they wear, the jobs they have or what animals and plants they associate with, if they are nice or sneaky, the homes they live in, or any other details.
Stories, books, pictures are all helpful.
This was a discussion dealing with the importation of fairies/elves, etc. (the supernatural beings of nature) of Northern Europe into North American. If you're asking about indigenous supernatural beings of native culture, that would be another matter, but one should not properly refer to them as fairies or fae folk. Some were/are small, but they are not part of the European tradition of fairies.
The pre-industrial beliefs of France (except Brittany) and Switzerland tend to fall outside the proper distribution of the North European fairy, an entity that tended to be found in social groups reminiscent of human communities.
People more familiar with each of the areas you mention may be able to give you information on beliefs specific to those areas. They are outside of my research domain.
I've reached out to some folks who have more knowledge about Alaska folklore than I have. I'll let you know if they get back to me.
Just heard back from Sealaska Heritage Institute's Kathy Dye and quoting the email here:
During her field work in Alaska and Canada, [SHI President] Rosita [Worl], who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology, heard references to “small people” among the Inupiat/Inuit in both places. She recommended that you begin with Robert Spencer’s North Alaska Eskimo (title might vary from that) and that you also check E.W. Nelson’s book Bering Strait Eskimos.
Alex Dolitsky wrote about fairies in the Arctic in one of his books though the reference to fairies was summarily dismissed by anthropologists, she said. Rosita thought we might have this book in our library. I did a search and found Ancient Tales of Kamchatka and Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia by Dolitsky in the SHI library. (There is a link on our website on this page http://www.sealaskaheritage.org/institute/culture-and-history/programs/collections/library where you can search other titles as well).
Our library is reference-only (meaning you can request books but they must be reviewed on site, not checked out). I’m CCing Nadine Hafner, who manages our collections, in case she wants to weigh in.
So, if you want me to take a look at those books or want me to put you in touch with these folks at SHI, let me know.