Fairy

(fa're.) [A.S. ferhth.] A fay, or imaginary being | or spirit. It is generally difficult to give any scientific definition of the nature of a superstition, because its phenomena are continually varying according to time, place,and other conditions. The F. superstition especially defies definition, because it was the peculiarity of the creatures to whom it referred that they followed no regular law, human or divine, but obeyed the impulse of their own caprice; hence every P. tale differs from another. Fairies, however, were generally supposed to a ume a human forın, though they were of an extremely diminutive size; to be distinguished by a variety of fantastical actions, good or bad; and always to exercise a magic power over mortals. The F. superstition peculiarly belongs to modern Europe. We find nothing like it among the idolatries of the heathen referred to in Scripture, nor does the word occur in the English Bible, or its equivalent in the original texts. In cla ical mythology, there is nothing nearer to it than the nymph of the fountain or grove among the Greeks. [s. 354]