Fearsome fairies

There was an enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which popularised depictions of benevolent winged friends and things of fragile beauty. But in wider folklore, the creatures of the fey are of a much more unsettling and otherworldly stock. Taking inspiration from folk tales and medieval legends, writers of weird tales and ghost stories such as Arthur Machen, M.R. James and Charlotte Riddell proved that fairies, elves, goblins and their ilk were something to be feared and respected as our ancestors did.