At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things (Paperback)

~ Diane Purkiss (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a scholarly overview of the role that fairies have played in culture from the past to the present."

- Publishers Weekly

"At the Bottom of the Garden is brilliant, always on the move, and bone-chilling. There's nothing cutesy about this highly suggestive, provocative scholarship; the creatures animating this book are about as cuddly as scorpions, wee rattlers, and black-widow spiders. Purkiss has written a witty and compelling work that will fascinate readers and haunt our imaginations."

- James Kincaid, University of Southern California, author of Erotic Innocence

"Enchanting . . . witty . . . full of surprises and delights."

- The Times

"Fascinating . . . . Rigorously researched . . . . Highly recommended."

- Choice, Nov. 2001

"Illuminating and enormous fun."

- Spectator

Product Description

At the Bottom of the Garden is a history of fairies from the ancient world to the present. Steeped in folklore and fantasy, it is a rich and diverse account of the part that fairies and fairy stories have played in culture and society.

The pretty pastel world of gauzy-winged things who grant wishes and make dreams come true—as brought to you by Disney's fairies flitting across a woodland glade, or Tinkerbell's magic wand—is predated by a darker, denser world of gorgons, goblins, and gellos; the ancient antecedents of Shakespeare's mischievous Puck or J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. For, as Diane Purkiss explains in this engrossing history, ancient fairies were born of fear: fear of the dark, of death, and of other great rites of passage, birth and sex. To understand the importance of these early fairies to pre-industrial peoples, we need to recover that sense of dread.

This book begins with the earliest manifestations of fairies in ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. The child-killing demons and nymphs of these cultures are the joint ancestors of the medieval fairies of northern Europe, when fairy figures provided a bridge between the secular and the sacred. Fairies abducted babies and virgins, spirited away young men who were seduced by fairy queens and remained suspended in liminal states.

Tamed by Shakespeare's view of the spirit world, Victorian fairies fluttered across the theater stage and the pages of children's books to reappear a century later as detergent trade marks and alien abductors. In learning about these often strange and mysterious creatures, we learn something about ourselvesour fears and our desires.

"Fascinating . . . . Rigorously researched . . . . Highly recommended"
Choice, Nov. 2001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814766862
• ISBN-13: 978-0814766866
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #705,194 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The dark side of Faery, March 20, 2002

By	Kelly L. (www.FantasyLiterature.com) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things (Hardcover)

Faery lore is a complicated thing--a mishmash of myths, beliefs, and tales that don't always add up to a coherent whole. Much has been written about the connection between faeries and half-remembered indigenous gods, and about the possibility that faeries were actually an ancient race of humans banished to the wilds. The market is filled, today, with books of beautiful and sweet faeries. But there is no other book like this one.

Diane Purkiss's theory is that the faeries are reminiscent of the demons of the Mediterranean culture--the lamashtu who steals babies away into death, the lamia who seduces and devours men--and that faery lore deals with the same issues as these earlier myths. The faeries, she contends, were an explanation for why beautiful young people were taken away in illness and death. She tells heartbreaking stories of women who tortured and abandoned their sick babies, thinking them changelings; she disturbs us with the tale of Michael Cleary, who killed his wife and honestly seemed to believe his *real* wife would return to him now that he had disposed of the faery impostor. A far-fetched belief? Perhaps not; fairy stories of the time seemed to advocate just such actions. Purkiss takes us on an uncomfortable journey through the most brutal of faery myths, then into the Victorian age, when faeries became a symbol of idealized childhood. But there was a dark side to this as well--onstage "faeries" were played by street orphans who lived incredibly hard lives, and Barrie's _Peter Pan_ takes on a very different undertone when it comes out that the children in the play were based on children Barrie had known, who had *died young* and therefore stayed forever young.

I would have given this book five stars for its unique and disturbing perspective--it ought to be on the shelves of faery enthusiasts if only for balance--but I subtracted a star because Purkiss insists that her theory is the only valid way to look at the fairy-faith. There are many different beliefs that shaped the concept of the faery; I applaud Purkiss for digging into some of the darkest ones. But, as I said before, balance...balance...balance.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars an essay, not a history, November 29, 2001

By	Maren "Maren" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things (Hardcover)

I picked up this book thinking it would be an light-hearted, fun history of fairies, and was certainly not prepared for the author's rather darker take on the subject. However, I was willing to give it a try, despite the heavy academic tone.

Purkiss starts off well, drawing interesting parallels between the demons of the ancient Mediterranean world and later Celtic and European fairy beliefs. However, she skims right over the Middle Ages, a time which, to my mind, really represents fairy lore at its most prototypical, and launches into a rather tedious examination of the role of fairy stories in the Scottish witch trials. It was not until I looked up Purkiss' bibliography that I realized this was a subject she was very well-versed in, and it is at this point that the book really suffers.

Throughout the rest of the book, Purkiss insists on tying everything back to these Scottish tales, though I do not think they are particularly representative of fairies in general. Even at the end, she is still remarking upon stories which are "like Bessie Dunlop's", despite the fact that fairy beliefs existed long before Bessie did, and therefore it is not really correct to use the Scottish stories as a measuring stick for all fairies.

However, this is the period of time in which she chooses to fix her idea of the "real" fairy, and this is the problem with the book. Purkiss is obviously disgusted with the modern concept of sweet, tiny flower fairies, which has its roots in Victorian times. Instead, she believes the "real" fairies were the dark, malicious, death-bringing fairies of medieval Scotland, and does not fail to let us know this by continually dismissing literature and folk beliefs throughout the ages as not true to her "real" fairies. She disparages Shakespeare and Spenser for modifying older fairy beliefs, and spends the latter part of the book exploring what is "wrong" with fairy lore as it evolved.

The problem with this, of course, is that there *is* no One True Belief in fairies. That's like saying that because the Christian religion started out differently, we should all worship exactly as they did in the 1200's. Beliefs are evolving and changing, and the current folklore of fairies is that they are small, sweet, and occasionally mischievious. Purkiss may not find that view to her liking, but it's just as silly to ask us to see the cruel Scottish fairies as the "real" belief as it would be to restore the practice of indulgences, or exorcism.

She's erudite and knowledgeable, and some of her parallels, such as comparing fairy abduction to alien abduction, are original and thought-provoking, but she heaps endless criticism on those who stray from "real" fairy beliefs while letting her own views prejudice her exploration of fairy history, rather than simply letting the tale tell itself without judgement.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Read, Great Resource, May 6, 2004

By	Elizabeth A. Denton "shadowkithain" (Homewood, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things (Hardcover)

A fantastic resource for skeptics and believers in the hidden world alike, At the Bottom of the Garden tracks the reasons behind the fairy mythos from ancient roots to present day UFOs. Despite criticisms of Purkiss's scholarship, the book sheds more light on the human condition than anything else, and is an excellent resource for writers and others who are trying to understand the way human need creates myths.