Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90413 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Synopsis
This fascinating book provides a rare glimpse into a world where fairies and elves, fauns and wraiths, and other ethereal beings were considered to be as real as any man or woman of the times.Written by a Scottish clergyman in 1692 (and later edited by the great folklorist Andrew Lang), the book has long interested scholars and charmed general readers alike.With the text newly edited and enhanced with appropriate illustrations, this new edition makes a wonderful gift book for anyone fascinated by the magical world of fairies and their kin.

Customer Reviews

The original fairy book
It's great to see a reissue of the greatest fairy book of them all, Robert Kirk's 1691 tome, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. This amazing book--with its descriptions of second sight, of doublemen or co-walkers, and of fairy lives, customs and even past-times--has an amazing backstory attached to it too. Kirk, seventh son of a seventh son(in the Highlands, almost a guarantee of psychic powers) was a bilingual(English and Gaelic) Episcopalian pastor, working at Aberfoyle in the Trossachs area of the Highlands. The material he collected in this book comes direct from his Highland parishioners but he also compiled it for the delectation of his enlightened and curious friends in England, so the book is an eccentric mixture of the very folkoric and the proto-scientific. (Kirk also had a metaphysical reason for compiling the book--and an interesting one, given the attitude of many religious fundamentalists today to such beliefs. He felt that if people discounted or ridiculed such beliefs then it wouldn't be long before they started discounting all supernatural things, including a belief in God Himself.) Anyway, not long after the publication of the book, Kirk was found stone dead one morning at the foot of the Dun Sidh (doonshee, or fairy hill) at Aberfoyle. Though his red sandstone gravestone is in the Aberfoyle cemetery(with only a mention of his work in translating the Bible into Gaelic, and not his fairy work), it's said that his body is not in that grave but that he was spirited body and soul into the great tall Scots pine that sits at the top of the Dun Sidh, surrounded by an army of little oaks. That was because the fairies were reputedly so angry with him for divulging their secrets! Today, the site is still extraordinary, spooky--with hundreds of wishes on ribbons tied to all those little oaks, and the Scots pine standing there alone..It's easy to believe in Kirk's curious and piteous fate.
A must-have addition for the library of anyone interested in fairies, Highland folklore, and myth. For those who are interested, I have a piece about Kirk on my site at http://users.northnet.com.au/~smasson And for those interested in reading novels inspired by this book, the greatest is Australian writer Christopher Koch's 'The Doubleman.'

A really rather extraordinary book
... written in the late 17th Century by a Scottish Episcopalian Minister with an apparently sincere belief in the world of the supernatural. At a time when witches were still being condemned, Robert Kirk was collecting the stories of his parishioners and fashioning them into an account of a parallel world of sprites, wraiths, fauns, elves and spirits. The book also includes an excellent introduction by Marina Warner.

Very short and not well explicated
As this little treatise was written over 300 years ago it almost needs translation for a lay readership. The introduction and the History of the Book and Author feel of almost equal antiquity and impenetrability. Together they are longer than Robert Kirk's essay. In fact little is said about Fairies and the "Good Folk" by Robert Kirk and rather more about native Scottish Seers and their feats and abilities. So this is a quirky and interesting read.It is especially striking that a man of the cloth was so comfortable to research these matters and report on them without expecting wrath or ridicule.