There is a class of stories to which I’ve referred several times in my posts, the so-called ‘ainsel’ theme, which hinges upon this point. Similar magic applies to human names, which should in all cases be withheld from the faes. “That’s not my name!”- Grumpy fairy by Linda Ravenscroft Human Names For that matter, the few names we have for faery royalty- Mab, Oberon, Titania– are all imported from outside the British Isles. This could well be because they wished to preserve their power and mystery from us untrustworthy humans. On this point, I think that it’s also highly significant that the evidence from the Scottish witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries regularly refers to the existence of a king and queen of Elfame, but these royal personages never have a personal name. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t detract from the significance of personal names in Faery. The lines in these two ballads are obviously very similar there may well have been borrowing from one song to another, in fact. Before he leaves her, the knight is asked for his name by the shepherdess and he responds, evasively:īut when I come to the King’s fair court, In another example, also from Wales , possession of the fairy maiden’s name constrained her to marry the man who discovered it (Rhys, Celtic Folklore, p.45).Ĭoncealment of identity by this simple strategy is found in another ballad, The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter, although in this case a seducer is trying to avoid taking any responsibility for a child he has fathered. Welsh brownie Gwarwyn-a-throt exemplifies this: he is overheard by his intended victim foolishly repeating his name to himself, gloating that it is a secret- and so he is undone. Fairies often conceal their names from humans in order to preserve their power, but are as often careless in doing so, meaning that they are outwitted in the end. We know already the power of names in Faery. These lines very strongly imply that, as part of his kidnapping and detention, a change of name has played a part. The fairies will change his form to try to scare her, but additionally he advises her: His sweetheart, Janet, agrees to help save him and bring him home but he warns her of the obstacles she will face in attempting this. In the traditional Scottish ballad of Tam Lin, a handsome human boy has been abducted to Elfland to serve in the fairy queen’s retinue. The Ting Tings, ‘ That’s not my name’, 2008
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