Fairies : Real Encounters With Little People

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable look at fairies
Review: I really enjoyed this book on fairies. The author did an excellent job of tying in a wide variety of legends, stories, tales, myths, and unexplained phenomenon (even crop circles and UFO's get a mention). Unlike many books of this genre - there is little fantasy or frou-frou, Bord instead lays more trust in themes which commonly reoccur in fairy encounters.

In all, this is an excellent book, and it is well worth the money. I will fault the binding though, the glossy pages of photos in the book were quick to fall out and I was by no means rough with the book.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable look at fairies
Review: I really enjoyed this book on fairies. The author did an excellent job of tying in a wide variety of legends, stories, tales, myths, and unexplained phenomenon (even crop circles and UFO's get a mention). Unlike many books of this genre - there is little fantasy or frou-frou, Bord instead lays more trust in themes which commonly reoccur in fairy encounters.

In all, this is an excellent book, and it is well worth the money. I will fault the binding though, the glossy pages of photos in the book were quick to fall out and I was by no means rough with the book.

Rating:
Summary: Of course there must be Fairies!
Review: In a universe as vast as ours, with its billions of galaxies, and as ancient as ours with an age that could well be infinite, common sense ought to tell anyone that anything is possible, even Fairies.

Modern 'education,' sadly, seems bent on the production of persons with closed minds (they call it 'skepticism), and whose common sense evaporated long ago.

I've never seen a Fairy, though I would very much like to. And I take it as a very healthy sign that books such as this are still being written. Perhaps there's some hope for us yet!

Rating:
Summary: A good collection of accounts, with insufficient theory
Review: This is a good collection of accounts of fairy sightings, including several from the past few decades, but it is unfortunately short on theory and structure. The first may be forgiven, since Bord states clearly at the beginning and end that she has been unable to reach a conclusion about what fairies might be, or even if they exist outside of human imagination. Fairies are, in the current state of knowledge of human perception and experience, indefinable: one cannot be sure if they are as one observes them, or if the viewer's preconceptions determine the manner in which they are seen. Until our perception or equipment improves, in other words, we cannot know if they are more or less as we see them or as we believe we should see them.

Even given these premises, the book could have been better organized, by having been constructed around the distinct theories on the nature of fairies. The book would have been better had it been divided into chapters on fairies as nature spirits, as manifestations of electromagnetic or other energy, as possible UFO occupants. Instead, the book moves from one idea to the next: a given element in one account reminds Bord of another sighting, the characteristics of which remind her of UFO occupants, which topic she picks up and plays with for a short time, without finishing any of these ideas. It is as if these ideas were will-o'-the-wisps, pulling her first this way, and then that: charming, but disorganized and hard to follow.

The strong points of this book are its thorough bibliography (including information about the first and latest printings), definitive endnotes, and index. The photographs included are valuable as curiosities only, since such photos are easily faked, as the author herself points out. The author also makes a point of distinguishing between folktales and actual accounts, though it is difficult to tell the difference at times. The appendix of fairy haunts in Britain and Ireland omits this distinction, merely listing a few dozen places associated with the fairies, without, however, giving sources for this information. The author's pleasant style, her discussion of the various theories regarding fairies, and the bibliography all make this book a good introduction for anyone interested in learning about fairies.

Rating:
Summary: Informative Faery Book
Review: This is a great faery book, and seems to get its base root from Ireland. It has interesting and "unexplained" faery photos in the middle of the book, and some interesting encounters with faeries told inside of this book. Although I love faeries, and believe in them, I didnt like this book that much because they made faeries sound like all myths and legends.