It seems we are always grasping for that faint faerie music, chasing will-o-the wisps, and straying from the path in search of wonder. Many artists, poets, and musicians, have alluded to Faerie in their work, inspired by the insistent call of the woods. I too am greatly inspired by faerie, and the forgotten wonder. Here I’ve collected a few of my favorite faerie quotes that I feel capture a bit of that wonder.
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” Neil Gaiman & G.K. Chesterton
“Come away O human child
to the waters and the wild
with a faerie hand in hand
for the world’s more full of weeping
than you can understand”
~W.B. Yeats, The Stolen Child
(I’m sure you’ve all heard this quote, but it’s still one of my favorites because of its beautiful imagery and melancholy nature)
“A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson,
I often time feel this way in the woods.
“Why should we strive, with cynic frown, to knock their fairy castles down?”~Eliza Cook
“I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” ~ W.B. Yeats. (Sometimes I feel this way when I share my art.)
“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ~C.S. Lewis.
(I love the idea within this quote, but then I was one of those who never stopped reading fairy tales.)
“Where the knotty hawthorn grows,
look for prints of faerie toes.
Where the grassy rings are green
moonlight dances shall be seen.”
~Dora Owen Children Children, Don’t Forget.
“I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic.” ~ Charles de Lint
“People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don’t have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I’m not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your subconscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even love.” ~Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl (My favorite C.d Lint Book)
“Fairy Song Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more! oh, weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.” ~John Keats
“In the darkest part of the forest’s heart,
In the bowels of a stunted tree
dwells the fairy fair with fiery hair
who bears the name of She” ~Jack Prelutsky, She
“Black berries’ juice for staining of lips; And scarlet O scarlet the wild rose hips.” Cicely Mary Barker.
“The written word is a fairy, as mocking and illusive as Willy Wisp, speaking lying words to us in a feigned voice.” ~Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (A truly wonderful and eerie book.)
Thank you for reading some of my favorite faerie quotes. Feel free to share. May your days be filled with enchantment.
~Autumn