Research, in any context, I've discovered, is research. But it has its redeeming qualities. Faeries, ancient Celtic, Scottish, and English faerie lore, the folk faerie's transition into the Elizabethan faerie... I've discovered that it's all supremely fascinating to me. As is sifting through documents that once resided in George A. Ball, his wife Frances Ball, and Elisabeth Balls' desk drawers. The first time I ventured down into Collections in the basement of the Minnetrista main building and began looking through letters and invoices dating to the 1910s and 20s that had their signatures scrawled on the bottoms, I had a moment where I began to more fully understand why dramaturgs, historians, museum curators, and perhaps even archaeologists do what they do. It's that moment when you hold something between your fingers and try to wrap your brain around the fact that nearly a century ago, a fascinating human being was holding this same item for the first time. The biggest treat so far, I think, has been a few discoveries I made. In one box in a folder marked "Miscellany - Elisabeth," I found lots of loose sheets of paper with notes in her handwriting all over them. I found two or three half sheets with ideas for story plots scrawled on them, as well as an unpublished poem called "The Subconscious" that made me laugh out loud. I also found some correspondence between Elisabeth and her father, and some not-yet-transcribed correspondence between Elisabeth and her childhood and lifelong friend Emily Kimbrough that prove that both Emily and Betty were familiar with the story of Peter Pan.
I still have more to go through, and I have many transcribed letters to Elisabeth from her mother still to read, as well as some photographs to look through.Today I hit a milestone, however. Today I finally finished all my explicitly faerie-related research. I've made all the notes I plan on making and will be able to write a (hopefully) concise and helpful essay on the origin, appearance, dress, behavior, and dwellings of faeries that will help set a precedent and standard for Minnetrista faerie lore of the future.
The title of the books and journal and encyclopedia articles I've used are as follows -
Ball, Elizabeth. "The Fairy." Oakhurst Poems and Obiter Scripta of Elisabeth Ball. Ed. Hope Barnes. Pub. Rosemary Ball Bracken, 1984.
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.
Briggs, Katharine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies. New York: Pantheon Books, 1976. Print.
Briggs, Katharine. The Fairies in English Tradition and Literatre. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967.
DiTerlizzi, Tony and Holly Black. Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World around You. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005. Print.
"Fairy." Larousse Dictionary of World Folklore. Ed. Alison Jones. New York: Larousse plc, 1995. Print.
"Fairy." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. 15th ed. 2007. Print.
Feitchte, Mrs. “Our Fairy Lore.” Cosmopolitan Art Journal 3.2 (1859): 59. Print.
Hand, Wayland D. “European Fairy Lore in the New World.” Folklore 92.2 (1981): 141-148. Print.
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. Ed. W. B. Yeats. New York: Random House, 19--. Print.
Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1968. Print.
Latham, Minor White. The Elizabethan Fairies: The Fairies of Folklore and the Fairies of Shakespeare. New York: Octagon Books, 1972. Print.
Leach, MacEdward. "Fairy." Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1950. Print.
Narváez, Peter. "Fairies." American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996. Print.
Phillpotts, Beatrice. The Book of Fairies. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979. Print.
"Pixy." Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend. Ed. Maria Leach. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1950. Print.
Rabuzzi, Daniel Allen. “In Pursuit of Norfolk’s Hyter Sprites.” Folklore 95.1 (1984): 74-89. Print.
Silver, Carole G. "Faerie and Fairy Lore." Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art. 2nd ed. Denver: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print.
Silver, Carole G. Strange and Secret Peoples. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.
Susina, Jan. "Dealing with Victorian Fairies." Children's Literature 28 (2000): 230-237.Project MUSE. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. <http://0-muse.jhu.edu.oak.indwes.edu/>.
Swann, Marjorie. “The Politics of Fairylore in Early Modern English Literature.” Renaissance Quarterly 53.2 (2000): 449-473. Print.
Wilby, Emma. “The Witch’s Familiar and the Fairy in Early Modern England and Scotland.” Folklore 111.2 (2000): 283-305. Print.
Wood, Juliette. “The Fairy Bride Legend in Wales.” Folklore 103.1 (1992): 56-72. Print.
Now I have some more research on Elisabeth Ball to do, some research on the history of the Faeries, Sprites and Lights event itself to do, and some research on the faerie tea party to do. But those will be more fun because part of the research is conversations with the people who make the events happen and have been a part of their history since their inception. And then of course the actual writing and compiling of the thing. And by thing I mean Style Guide. We'll see how this goes! Hopefully I have something worthwhile to show for my efforts by the time this is over. :o)
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