The Faces Of Evil: Fairies, Mobs, and Female Cruelty

Abstract Unlike The Revised Or composed fairy tales Victorians read in such profusion, the folklore they gathered was filled with sex and violence. Less expurgated than much Victorian fiction, permitted to be “crude” be cause authentic, Victorian folklore collections provide a set of insights into the ways in which a culture sought to externalize evil. For the fairies who most frightened the folk and fascinated the collectors were the ones perceived as cruel participants in antisocial acts. Whether they were hordes of “trooping” fairies (as Yeats called them) who traveled the air or misled travelers on the ground or took victims “away,” or whether they were solitary and human-size demonic creatures, the figures who most preoccu pied the Victorians were those capable of causing discomfort, serious in jury, and often death.