Baby Laughs and Butterfly Wings

Elves and Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker

I feel quite silly thinking about fairies sometimes because it seems like such a childish thing to do, especially considering the place fairies hold in popular children's literature.  For example, one of the most popular quotes from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie is:

When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.

I like how beautiful Peter Pan made the creation of fairies sound.  However, these fairies are not the type of fairies I base my spirituality on.  My fairies existed long before the first baby laughed; they do not look like miniature elves with butterfly wings either.  Though, I very much appreciate the imagery of fairies made popular in the beginning of the twentieth century by such authors and artists as Barrie and Cicely Mary Barker.

Barker's art in particular was quite influential on my cousins obsession with fairies (which I explain a bit in a previous post).  Prints of her images hung in their house.  They inspired my cousins, and as such inspired my beliefs in fairies as well.  When I was a kid I remember wanting to be pretty and kind like the fairies in her images seemed to be.   Her art still inspires me today.  The Elves and Fairies image above is the only sample of Barker's fairy artwork which is in the public domain; otherwise I would plaster my blog with them.  Even though the traditional fairies that she drew and painted are not the types of fairies I believe in today, I still like to think of them as the mascots for my type of fairies.  My fairies are completely abstract, but like Barker's fairies they are quite beautiful.