Fairy Ointment or "The Fairy Nurse" is an English fairy tale collected by

Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore. Jacobs ...

in his ''English Fairy Tales''. It has been told in many variants.

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University o ...

included one in ''

The Lilac Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections ...

''. The ointment itself, as a substance allowing a human to see fairies, occasionally appears in

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

literature. Folk-tales about such an ointment are found in

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

Synopsis

A midwife is summoned to attend a childbed. The baby is born, and she is given an ointment to rub in its eyes. Accidentally, or through curiosity, she rubs one or both her own eyes with it. This enables her to see the actual house to which she has been summoned. Sometimes a simple cottage becomes a castle, but most often, a grand castle becomes a wretched cave. In the variant Andrew Lang included, the woman saw a neighbor of hers, kept prisoner as a nurse, and was able to tell her husband how to rescue her, pulling her down from riding fairies as in

Tam Lin Tam (or Tamas) Lin (also called Tamlane, Tamlin, Tambling, Tomlin, Tam Lien, Tam-a-Line, Tam Lyn, or Tam Lane) is a character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. It is also associated with a reel of the same name, also ...

. Soon, the midwife sees a fairy and admits it. The fairy invariably blinds her in the eye that can see him, or both if she put the ointment in both eyes. In a Cornish tale a woman, Joan, is going to market to buy shoes, and calls on a neighbour, Betty, who has a reputation for witchcraft, to see if she will go along. Joan sees Betty rub an ointment into her children's eyes. When Betty is out of the room she rubs some of the ointment into right eye out of curiosity. Betty returns with a glass of brandy, and when Joan drinks the brandy she is amazed to see that the cottage is full of little people dancing and playing games. Betty says she won't go to market, so Joan goes alone. At the market, Joan sees Betty's husband, Thomas Trenance, taking "whatever took his fancy" from the market stalls and putting it into a bag, apparently unnoticed by the stall holders. She challenges him as a thief. He asks which eye she sees him with, and when she points to her right eye he touches it with his finger and she is instantly blinded.

Other uses

Fairy ointment also appears in many other fairy tales and books of fantasy, usually as a method for seeing through a fairy's magic. For example, in

Eloise McGraw Eloise Jarvis McGraw (December 9, 1915 – November 30, 2000) was an American author of children's books and young adult novels. Career McGraw also contributed to the Oz series started by L. Frank Baum; working with her daughter, graphic artis ...

's '' The Moorchild'', the protagonists enter a fairy hill in search of a stolen child, but are confused and hypnotized by the fairies' glamour until they smear their eyes with stolen fairy ointment. These tales, of the fairy or magic ointment, come under type: ML 5070 "Midwife to the fairies" (see also The Queen of Elfan's Nourice) It is Aarne-Thompson type 476*.D. L. Ashlima
Midwife (or Godparent, or Nurse) for the Elves: fairy tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther types 476*, 476**, and migratory legends of Christiansen type 5070
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References

External links

{{Portal , Children's literature English fairy tales English folklore French folklore Northumbrian folklore Scandinavian folklore ATU 460-499 Joseph Jacobs