I read a Loooong time ago, I belive it was in one of JRR Tolkiens non-fiction books about mythology, that there is a belief that ‘faeries’ are the angels that refused to take sides and prefered to stay neutral when the rebellion happened. They were cast to Earth but not considered “fallen” angels; not demons. They were also given until the end of Earthly time to make a decision. During that time they act as messengers between the Earth and heaven, like spiritual “gofers”.
Has anyone ever heard of this, and is there any biblical reference to support this.
The belief that fairies are the angels who refused to take sides was a common one during the 19th century, and was not an idea that can be credited to Tolkien.
I’ve seen this theme repeated a few times in Irish folk tales. They occur, usually, in those more humorous tales dealing with the “wee folk” or sidheóg rather than the more serious tales dealing with the Sidhe. William Butler Yeats makes mention of this point in the Introduction to his Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, and several of the stories he included (as well as others I’ve encountered) make the same point.
I’ve never encountered the idea outside those (Irish) tales and would be interested to know the work where Tolkien addressed it.
There is no scriptural support for it. (Heck, most of the stories regarding angels and fallen angels in both Jewish and Christian traditions are found outside Scripture, which really has very little to say on the subject.)
It’s also a big belief in many Irish faerie tales. I’m sure many other places believe the same as well, but faeries have had a big huge influence on the mythical stories in Ireland. I haven’t heard about them being able to “Make their decision at the end,” because, well, at the end, Good wins, no? So, umm…why not just wait till Armageddon’s over and say “Yeah, we’re with you God.”
Also, in many Irish stories, they’re not necessarily “messengers between heaven and Earth,” more like mean little bastards and cruel tricksters who can make you lame with one little thump and cause you to die a horrible, painful death…
Like I said, mean little bastard. But if you get on their good side, they give you some pretty impressive cows.
I did not say it was credited to Tolkien, I said I read a Non-Fiction book by him about mythology. (Remember that Tolkien was a linguist and translator before he was a writer) I wish I had the reference, it is a VERY rare book of his where he talked about mythical creatures and the social and other reasons the myths came to be. Here’s the story: I was 12 and lived at the local library. The library was building a new building so they were renting an industrial building in the mean time. They had none of theyre regular books out, only the older books that normally wouldnt be in circulation. I asked the librarian for any Tolkien books other than [the one’s ive read] and she gave me that one. It was a very wonderfull book, IMHO.
CoderSlave is the essay (well, it’s really the text of a lecture given in the 1930s) that you are thinking of called “On Faerie Stories”? This is quite widely available in collection form as
part of “Tree and Leaf”, and also as part of “The Monsters and the Critics”. These are now both back in print, at least in the UK.
In Persian folklore, the Peris are a race descended from fallen angels who will not be allowed back into Paradise until they attone. In other contexts (fairy tale collections and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, for instance), Peris are just treated as Persian fairies. I don’t know where the Peri legend came from, but it should be pretty easy to research.
On Fairy Stories has never been remotely rare. Tolkien was not really “a linguist and a translator.” He was a professor of English, specializing in Old English, at Oxford (and at Leeds for a few years before that). He also worked a few years as a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary. Indeed, it’s strange to say that he was “a linguist and a translator before he was a writer.” He began writing the legends of Middle Earth (which were eventually published as _The Silmarillion) in his late teens, long before he became a professor. And if you mean before he became a full-time writer, well, he was never a full-time writer. He was already retired before he received any significant amount of money from his writing.