#La Croyance aux Fées en Dauphiné

[luc3]

Belief in Fairies in Dauphiné*.

We believed and perhaps still believe a little in Fairies in Dauphiné. These are not the beautiful Fairies [from fairy tales] but rural fairies who live in a deserted place a little far from the village inhabited by men. In the mountains, Fairies make their home in the cracks of the rocks; in the plains and on the hillsides, they choose the groves. (…) A man born in the 1930s and 40s repeated to me what his mother told him : "The fairies live there, in the little ash and acacia woods, below the big fir forest. During the day, They stay on the branches and we don't see them; but in the evening, they come out and we can see them walking in the meadows." I asked this extremely serious, hard-working man, responsible head of a family, if he believed in the existence of Fairies. [We were in] the 1970s and 80s (…) Very embarrassed, this man replied to me (…) : “I have never seen them, but my mother had seen them.” (…) “I believe what my mother told me, but today it maybe no longer exists.”

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*Dauphiné is a former French province of the Alps, including Isère, Drôme and Ardèche, adjoining the two Savoies. It has long been the place of residence of the “dolphin” of Kings. This is where I live.

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This article that I "had" to post here, is taken from an introduction by C. Joisten to the "Fairies Banquet", a work of fiction written by Laurent of Briançon, which draws more from the satire of the power in place than from the work of a folklorist. However, research on this subject has revealed many elements of folklore.