Celtic fairy traditions
Robert Kirk
The survey identifies Kirk as minister of Aberfoyle and author of the Secret Commonwealth. His account treats fairy tribes as intelligent created beings normally invisible to ordinary sight. Local tradition says the fairies took him in 1692 for examining their secrets. Evans-Wentz also records the possibility of sudden illness, preserving a difference between the legend and an ordinary explanation.
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In the sources
Principal account
ReportedThe survey identifies Kirk as minister of Aberfoyle and author of the Secret Commonwealth. His account treats fairy tribes as intelligent created beings normally invisible to ordinary sight.
Further detail
ReportedLocal tradition says the fairies took him in 1692 for examining their secrets. Evans-Wentz also records the possibility of sudden illness, preserving a difference between the legend and an ordinary explanation.
Context & interpretation
Evans-Wentz combines named informants, manuscript narratives, and his own psychical theory in a 1911 survey. This entry preserves those distinctions: collected belief and literary tradition do not establish the physical existence of an Otherworld.
Original passages
Source 1
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
been by the Rev. Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, in Perthshire.^ Another theory of the origin of fairies I took down in theOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 116
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0116
- Original scan leaf
- 117
- Recorded leaf number
- 117
- Current Reader position
- 112
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
people said he was taken because the fairies were displeased with him for prying into their secrets. At all events, it seems likely that Kirk wasOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 121
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0121
- Original scan leaf
- 122
- Recorded leaf number
- 122
- Current Reader position
- 117
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
A. E. in the Fairy-Faith
The poet A. E. supplies a visionary language for the Otherworld.
Same subject and traditionDouglas Hyde
Collector who distinguishes reliable folk testimony from conclusions drawn from it.
Same subject and traditionWilliam Butler Yeats
Poet and guide whose local knowledge informs the fairy survey.