The origin of the word “fairy,” as given by Thomas Keightley in his Fairy Mythology, and later in the Appendix of his Tales and Popular Fictions, is the Latin fatum, “to enchant.”  The word was derived directly from the French form of the root.  The various forms of the root were:—­

     Latin fatum, “to enchant.” 
     French fee, feerie, “illusion.” 
     Italian fata. 
     Provencal fada.

In old French romance, fee was a “woman skilled in magic.”  “All those women were called Fays who had to do with enchantment and charms and knew the power and virtue of words, of stones, and of herbs, by which they were kept in youth and in great beauty and in great riches.”  This was true also of the Italian fata.

The word “fairy” was used in four senses. Fairy represented:—­

     (1) Illusion, or enchantment.

     (2) Abode of the Faes, the country of the Fays.

     (3) Inhabitants collectively, the people of Fairyland.

     (4) The individual in Fairyland, the fairy Knight, or Elf.

The word was used in the fourth sense before the time of Chaucer.  After the appearance of Spenser’s Faerie Queene distinctions became confused, and the name of the real fairies was transferred to “the little beings who made the green, sour ringlets whereof the ewe not bites.”  The change adopted by the poets gained currency among the people.  Fairies were identified with nymphs and elves.  Shakespeare was the principal means of effecting this revolution, and in his Midsummer Night’s Dream he has incorporated most of the fairy lore known in England at his time.  But the tales are older than their name.

The origin of fairy tales is a question which has kept many very able scholars busy and which has not yet been settled to the satisfaction of many.  What has been discovered resolves itself mainly into four different origins of fairy tales:—­

I. Fairy tales are detritus of myth, surviving echoes of gods and heroes.  Against this theory it may be said that, when popular tales have incidents similar to Greek heroic myths, the tales are not detritus of myth, but both have a more ancient tale as their original source.  There was:—­

     (1) A popular tale which reflected the condition of a rude
     people, a tale full of the monstrous and the miraculous.

     (2) The same tale, a series of incidents and plot, with the
     monstrous element modified, which survived in the oral
     traditions of illiterate peasantry.