Fairies

Fairies are mythical beings or legendary creatures, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural. Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term fairy offers many definitions. Sometimes the term describes any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes: at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature. In modern usage, faries are usually depicted as tiny human-appearing creatures with wings and the ability to perform magic.

Sourced

• Do you believe in fairies? If you believe clap your hands.
  Don't let Tinker die.
  • J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904); "Tinker Bell" thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

• When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies.
  • J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904).

• Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead.
  • J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904).

• Nicht die Kinder bloss speist man mit Märchen ab.
  • It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.
  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise (1779), III, 6.

• * * * Or fairy elves,
  Whose midnight revels by a forest side
  Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
  Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
  Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
  Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
  Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
  At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 781.

• This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites!
  We talk with goblins, owls and sprites.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (c. 1592-1594), Act II, scene 2, line 191.

• Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
  You moonshine revellers, and shades of night.
  • William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (published 1602), Act V, scene 5, line 41.

• They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
  I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
  • William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (published 1602), Act V, scene 5, line 51.

• Set your heart at rest:
  The fairyland buys not the child of me.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act II, scene 1, line 121.

• In silence sad,
  Trip we after night's shade:
  We the globe can compass soon.
  Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act IV, scene 1, line 100.

• O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
  She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
  In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
  On the forefinger of an alderman.
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act I, scene 4, line 54.

• Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
  In a cowslip's bell I lie;
  There I couch when owls do cry.
  On the bat's back I do fly.
  • William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610-1612), Act V, scene 1, line 88. Song.

• Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew
  And her conception of the joyous prime.
  • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book III, Canto VI, Stanza 3.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 253-54.

• Up the airy mountain,
  Down the rushy glen,
  We daren't go a-hunting
  For fear of little men;
  Wee folk, good folk,
  Trooping all together,
  Green jacket, red cap,
  And white owl's feather!
  • William Allingham, The Fairies.

• Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay!
  I had not been a married wife a twelvemonth and a day,
  I had not nursed my little one a month upon my knee,
  When down among the blue bell banks rose elfins three times three:
  They griped me by the raven hair, I could not cry for fear,
  They put a hempen rope around my waist and dragged me here;
  They made me sit and give thee suck as mortal mothers can,
  Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! strange and weak and wan!
  • Robert Buchanan, The Fairy Foster Mother.

• Then take me on your knee, mother;
  And listen, mother of mine.
  A hundred fairies danced last night,
  And the harpers they were nine.
  • Mary Howitt, The Fairies of the Caldon Low, Stanza 5.

• Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams.
  • Douglas Jerrold, Specimens of Jerrold's Wit, Fairy Tales.

• The dances ended, all the fairy train
  For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain.
  • Alexander Pope, January and May, line 624.

• But light as any wind that blows
  So fleetly did she stir,
  The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose,
  And turned to look at her.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Talking Oak, Stanza 33.