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10[[quoteright:350: [[Literature/GoblinMarket https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c0887f0d_8284_4bac_a4b1_dab7c3926978.jpeg]]]]
11[[caption-width-right:350:''Lizzie utter'd not a word\
12Would not open lip from lip\
13Lest they should cram a mouthful in'']]
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16%% The Discworld quote is on the quotes tab. Leave it there and don't add it here.
17%%
18
19->''"Up the airy mountain,\
20Down the rushy glen,\
21We daren't go a-hunting,\
22For fear of little men."''
23-->-- '''The Fairies''', William Allingham
24
25Modern society has lived with the {{Disneyfi|cation}}ed version of fairies for so long – the {{Fairy Godmother}}s of ''Literature/{{Cinderella}}'' and ''Literature/SleepingBeauty'', Tinker Bell in ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'' – that it seems hard to imagine that some would consider fairies evil. And yet, some of them were.
26
27The fairies of old ''weren't'' [[FairyCompanion cute little bewinged pixies who fluttered happily around humans]]. Elves ''didn't'' [[ChristmasElves make children toys]] or [[HiddenElfVillage live deep in forests with no interaction with mortals]]. Often, they would interact with humans with no thought to the consequences of their actions, or they would be tricksters that deliberately delighted in the utter mess they made of mortal lives (such as the classic character Puck from ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''). At worst, they're like serial killers with magic: otherworldly horrors [[MuggleInMageCustody who kidnap humans for explicit use as playthings]] to torment, assault, rape, maim, or eat -- or sometimes to find even ''worse'', very abstract things to do to them (some stories in folklore get ''dark''). The Fair Folk almost always live in the LandOfFaerie, often have {{Faerie Court}}s and even full-scale {{Wainscot Societ|y}}ies, and may be depicted as an InhumanlyBeautifulRace. They are usually vulnerable to ColdIron, though not always (the Irish "Dullahan" are weak to gold).
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29For more information, including much of what used to be this page's description, please see [[Analysis/TheFairFolk the Analysis tab]].
30
31In a manner of speaking, the old tales of fairies have been replaced with {{alien|Abduction}}s. In both cases, you have [[TheGreys creatures]] who are ineffable and don't understand humanity, who randomly abduct humans, play with them, and return them with [[YearOutsideHourInside Time]] [[YearInsideHourOutside Loss]] and occasionally [[TouchedByVorlons strange powers/afflictions]]. Periodically, there are tales of those who have dealt with them and benefited, but for the most part, mundane people are merely their playthings. For more on this interpretation of this trope, see AlienFairFolk.
32
33Frequently found in concert with {{Grimmification}}, as the original folklore of the darker breeds of fairies needs little exaggeration. Compare and contrast FairyCompanion, FairyDevilmother (essentially the EvilCounterpart to the FairyGodmother), MageSpecies, OurElvesAreDifferent, OurFairiesAreDifferent, OurGoblinsAreDifferent, OurPixiesAreDifferent, OurMermaidsAreDifferent, NatureSpirit and AllTrollsAreDifferent. See also ChangelingTale, a specific subtrope having to do with fairy abduction, {{doppelganger}}s, [[InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers and the like]]. Not to be confused with ChangelingFantasy, which is a type of CinderellaPlot.
34
35All of the above aside, it's entirely possible for the fairies to be as diverse in their beliefs and actions as humans. There actually were plenty of myths and folklore about fairies who [[HouseFey helped humans]], though they were still believed to be dangerous if angered-- but then again, the belief that supernatural beings are helpful to humans that show them kindness and angry if neglected is ubiquitous in many traditional religions and folk beliefs, including {{Myth/Greek Mythology}}. Some fairies may be malevolent, but others may be friendly to humans, or at least willing to leave humans alone as long as the humans do the same for them. In some cases, the fairies may be more in conflict with ''each other'' than humans, and act accordingly. Indeed, the trope of entirely malevolent fairies can be just as divorced from traditional folklore as the bowdlerised 19th century fairies of Romantic literature, as both overlook the realities of a very complex series of beliefs and practices that ultimately date back before the arrival of Christianity in Britain and Ireland.
36
37Whatever the case, no matter how aloof, curious, silly, chaotic, flippant, ignorant, and/or light-hearted any may appear, they'll switch to their {{Game Face}}s if [[HorrorHatesARulebreaker fundamental rules are broken near them]] -- or even by them. Which will not go well for ''somebody''.
38
39TheWildHunt is an often-overlapping trope. {{Youkai}} are a rough Japanese equivalent while in the Middle East, [[OurGeniesAreDifferent the Djinn]] carry many of the qualities associated with the Fair Folk. TheGreys is a more modern trope with [[JustForFun/SciFiCounterpart many similarities]]. [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Demons]] -- when not TheLegionsOfHell — are often also portrayed this way (and sometimes there is rather little distinction). JerkassGods tend to be very similar, if typically a few steps higher in terms of power and awe (although the more powerful depictions of fairies may border on outright [[PhysicalGod Physical Gods]]). An extreme example may be a HumanoidAbomination.
40%%
41%% Do not add here that "eldritch" derives from "elven". This is 1) only a hypothesis, and 2) projects the Lovecraftian definition of "eldritch" back on pre-Lovecraftian usage.
42%% Even ''if'' "eldritch" meant "elven", that doesn't mean that people imagined elves as Eldritch Abominations.
43
44[[noreallife]]
45----
46!!Examples:
47
48[[foldercontrol]]
49
50[[folder:Animation]]
51* ''Animation/{{Mermaid}}'' is about a ''rusalka'', a Russian water spirit. [[SirensAreMermaids She's rather more like a siren]], having a fully human body, and using her beauty and singing to lure young men into the water, where she drowns them.
52[[/folder]]
53
54[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
55* In ''Manga/AhMyGoddess TheMovie'', the local DarkMagicalGirl Morgan Le-Fay is explicitly mentioned to be a fairy. [[spoiler: She is also TheDragon to Celestine, the [[AntiVillain anti villainous]] BigBad.]] Though she's more [[BrokenBird lonely and broken]] than properly evil.
56* ''Manga/TheAncientMagusBride'' is another example of classical ideas of fairies. They prefer being known as 'good neighbors' in this manga, hearkening back to more Gaelic mythology. The rest of the series so far has kept up with this trend, using terminology and creatures from British mythology as well as others. However, some fairies from the series do eat humans [[spoiler:including the titular ancient magus, [[DarkAndTroubledPast at least in the past]],]] and in the very first episode, a group of fairies attempts to spirit Chise away into the fairy world (while she technically isn't in any danger of death, the fairy world does twist humans who stay in it, turning them into fairies themselves over time.) And then there's Ashen Eye, a rather malevolent and cruel trickster who is pretty much the single darkest take on the Fair Folk this series gets.
57** It is also implied that most fairies by nature have a [[BlueAndOrangeMorality skewed understanding of morality]] compared to human norms and don't feel emotions the way humans do. Elias Ainsworth, [[HalfHumanHybrid who is at least part-Fair Folk]], starts with a bit of a LackOfEmpathy and when he does develop emotions, he is clearly puzzled by what he's experiencing and unaware of how to deal with it. When he [[spoiler:attempts to save Chise's life by sacrificing one of her friends (purposely choosing this friend because he's jealous of the relationship she and Chise have)]], the Fairy Queen Titania chalks it up to him still "loving the way 'they' do", implying this kind of behavior is common for the faerie.
58* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' plays this trope dead straight with Rosine, a fairy-like Apostle who likes to carry kids off in order to turn them into her creepy little pseudo-elves in a rather twisted version of the ChangelingFantasy. The real Elves of the series, such as Puck, are more the benevolent version. Oddly, while the real Elves are indeed harmless, they have a very serious case of BlueAndOrangeMorality. Puck, for instance, seems to forget that he's living in a CrapsackWorld, finds being a {{Jerkass}} a more repellent trait than [[OneManArmy carving one's way through walls of enemies and civilians alike]], and follows Guts primarily to [[ItAmusedMe partake in the adventure]]. [[AudienceSurrogate Not unlike the reader...]]
59* In ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'', [[{{mons}} Digimon]] classified as "Fairy-type" tend to fall under this trope.
60** Petermon was a CorruptedCharacterCopy of ''Literature/PeterPan'', and as such was a vehement AdultHater ([[BoomerangBigot despite being Adult/Champion-level himself]]) and PsychopathicManchild who abducted human children and Rookie-level Digimon to his LandOfFaerie PocketDimension.
61** [[TimeMaster Piximon]] would randomly send unsuspecting humans [[FishOutOfTemporalWater back in time]] because he thought they'd "have fun", and tries to rob the protagonists of their [[SuperWristGadget Digivices]] as "payment".
62** {{Downplayed|Trope}} for Pucchiemon at first. She's just a fickle and slightly annoying fairy Digimon who fell in love with resident [[TheIdiotFromOsaka idiot from Osaka]] Fukatsu and forces him to act like her as payback, including {{Impossible Task}}s like casting a CareBearStare attack she did several times before. But then she evolves into the towering monster cat [[DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength Meicrackmon: Vicious Mode]], and that's a different story.
63** Cthyllamon is an EvilKnockoff of [=MarineAngemon=] who is classified as a Fairy Digimon. He's a vicious Mega-level PsychopathicManchild who wants to flood the world in Digital Water and as a Mega, can easily overpower lower-level Digimon despite his rather ridiculous appearance.
64* ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'' subverts this trope with Celty Sturluson, an [[Myth/CelticMythology Irish]] [[HeadlessHorseman Dullahan]] desperately searching for her missing head. At first, she may look intimidating and a little bit sinister, but soon we discover that she is genuinely a very kind, gentle, and caring person. For an Unseelie Fae, she is actually one of the most friendly and affable characters in the series. [[{{Moe}} She is also afraid of space aliens]]. As Shinra points out, part of this may have to do with the fact that Celty's an ''amnesiac'' Dullahan. She might not have been so nice if circumstances were different (quarter-Dullahan [[spoiler:Ruri Hijiribe]], for example, is a serial killer with a monster fetish).
65* Creator/KaoriYuki's ''Manga/FairyCube'' is probably the best example of this trope being used properly in manga. From the protagonist's FairyCompanion debating whether or not to eat him in the beginning, to a Tuatha Dunann being weak to a pair of scissors (and being unable to cross fresh water), to the presence of ''changelings'' replacing children, a lot of classic fairy-lore is involved. Granted, some of it is modernized (said fairy companion is played as more of a non-romantic {{Tsundere}}, for example), but the effort is easily appreciable.
66* {{Franchise/Nasuverse}}:
67** In the [[AllInTheManual backstory and side-materials]], the Fae are established as being Nature Spirits that are a reflection of the Planet’s consciousness, specifically described as it’s “sense of touch” and live on the [[MagicalLand Reverse Side of the World]]. Considering the general NatureIsNotNice attitude the planet has in the series, the Fae are naturally pretty twisted.
68** They show up in ''[[Literature/TheGardenOfSinners Kara no Kyoukai]]'', specifically in 6th book/movie, ''Oblivion Record''. There, they were responsible for kidnapping [[ArcVillain Satsuki Kurogiri]] when he was a child, resulting in him swearing vengeance upon them. [[spoiler: They didn’t really, though. What really happened was that he killed a few, so they messed with his mind as a dying act of revenge.]]
69* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The so-called "fairies" of Dressrosa who go around stealing people's valuables are actually [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent a race of small dwarves called the Tontatta]], who are unimaginably strong for their size and are so fast they are effectively invisible to most people. The reason they are called fairies dates back to ancient times when the original Royal Family of Dressrossa, the Donquixote Family, enslaved the entire Tontatta tribe. When the Donquixote family left Dressrosa to become World Nobles, they were replaced by a new royal family the Riku Family. The original King Riku felt pity and guilt for the enslavement of the Tontatta and immediately freed them, telling them that they can take whatever they want from the kingdom as compensation for their treatment while he took responsibility. Thus, beginning their habit of stealing from the people which the Riku family attributed to the work of magical fairies in order to hide the existence of the Tontatta, thereby keeping them safe from others who might want to enslave them again.
70* In ''Manga/SaintSeiya'', Fairies are malevolent butterfly-like creatures who dwell in the Underworld and work alongside [[EverybodyHatesHades Hades]] and his army.
71* ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' features {{Yokai}}, strictly speaking, but otherwise has all the usual elements; abductions, curses placed upon mortals who eat the food of spirits, evil beings who enslave mortals by stealing their names, that sort of thing.
72* The Guardians of the ''[[Webcomic/TowerOfGod Tower]]'' are known in the legends as ''Fae''. Not only are they all sorts of weird looking (Headon is a bipedal bunny with eyes in his SlasherSmile), they can be rather manipulative and [[spoiler:are implied to plot the destruction of the current ruling system]].
73[[/folder]]
74
75[[folder:Comic Books]]
76* ''ComicBook/CourtneyCrumrinAndTheNightThings'': the eponymous girl lives in a [[LovecraftCountry strange neighborhood]], where [[ChangelingFantasy abducted children]] are sold by goblins to the rulers of the [[MagicalLand Twilight Kingdom]].
77* The Fair in ''ComicBook/{{DIE}}'' are a more science fantasy take on this trope, being robotical creatures that may offer great boons to those who find them, but each time someone requests a boon they flip a coin, with a 50/50 chance of them granting it.
78* ''[[ComicBook/FigmentDisneyKingdoms Figment]]'' has the Sound Sprites, who create objects from sound. Because of this, they prize aural perfection and speak entirely in [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal alliteration]] to reflect this. Anything and anyone that doesn't communicate in this manner is considered imperfect and a source of bad audio and must be imprisoned.
79* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}''. "The Corpse" has Hellboy exposing a changeling and performing a number of difficult tasks for it so that The Fair Folk will return the baby he replaced. The story ends with the fairies discussing how few children have been born to them lately and [[TheMagicGoesAway how they may eventually fade away]], which likely partly inspired the Hellboy movie ''The Golden Army''. Said changeling, seeking vengeance against Hellboy, becomes the driving force behind an army of fae seeking to restore the glory days. Restoring the good old days, or going out with a bang, they don't seem to be picky. Resurrecting an ancient sorceress named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Queen of Blood]] ([[spoiler:aka, [[MerlinAndNimue Nimue]]]]) to lead the army adds destroying the world to the list.
80* Franchise/MarvelUniverse:
81** ''ComicBook/IronMan'': In Creator/KieronGillen's ''ComicBook/IronMan2012'' run, Malekith the Accursed calls TheWildHunt on Tony Stark entirely because he calls himself "Iron Man" and elves hate anything associated with iron since it's one of their few weaknesses. It should be noted one of the Mandarin's Rings wanted him to go after Tony as part of the rings' scheme and was set to mentally manipulate him into doing so, as the other rings had been doing to other wielders [[EvilerThanThou (It backfired horribly)]], but Malekith went along with it anyway, apparently for the hell of it. Gillen has stated that he wants the elves to come across as alien in mindset as anything Tony has encountered in outer space. Malekith also unwisely provokes Tony with a changeling crack or two (Tony has recently discovered that he was adopted at this point), and gloats about [[EatsBabies the sort of things the Elves did with the stolen infants]]. He wants to make Tony angry. [[GoneHorriblyRight It works]], and Tony [[OneManArmy singlehandedly carves a bloody trail through Svartalfheim]] [[TranquilFury without once raising his voice]], using a suit armed with ColdIron weapons, hunting down Malekith personally. Malekith, who it should be noted is someone who enjoys pissing off ''Thor'' (as in, he once cut off his arm and burned it to ash in front of him, and at the end of ''ComicBook/WarOfTheRealms'' told him to BringIt while holding his parents hostage), admits that Tony on the rampage genuinely frightened him, and even years later, during ''ComicBook/WarOfTheRealms'', he takes the trouble to manipulate someone else (a dragon) into going after Tony rather than facing him himself.
82** Creator/PaulCornell's ''ComicBook/{{Wisdom}}'' and ''ComicBook/CaptainBritainAndMI13'' feature Oberon's daughter [[ShoutOut Tinkabelinos]] (yes...), who resembles a foul-mouthed cross between Boudicea and a punk rocker.
83* ''ComicBook/LadyDeath'': The Eldritch in ''Medieval Lady Death'' are heavily inspired by the Melniboneans in ''Literature/TheElricSaga'': a brutally and immoral race of fae humanoids that despises humanity and regularly goes on killing sprees against them known as "{{the wild hunt}}s".
84* ''ComicBook/{{Proof}}'': The female fairies look like cute little green people, but act like ferocious predators with huge appetites (e.g. after mating, the butterfly-sized female eats the male, who's about as tall as a house). Fortunately, these fairies are non-magical and an endangered species.
85* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' reinvigorated this trope for the modern era. ''The Sandman'' directly crosses over with a number of other Creator/{{DC|Comics}} comics, meaning that nasty elves also play a part in ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic'', ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', and several other Creator/VertigoComics series.
86* ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiersOfVictory2005'': The Sheeda are fairies who live at the ass-end of time and who TimeTravel back to raze human civilization and plunder its profits whenever humanity reaches a certain tech level.
87* ''ComicBook/ShadeTheChangingMan'': A late issue focuses on a group of actors filming the type of Disneyfied, Bowdlerized fairy tale made for children, shot on location in Ireland. They get together at a pub to express contempt for the film and the irresistible amounts of money that compelled them to take part in it, and the older Irish natives talk about the terror and brutality of the ''real'' fairy tales they grew up with. When Shade arrives and enters a FairyRing, his madness amplifies the effect across the entire country, with results deadly and deranging. The madstorm also wipes out the entire film production, to the relief of the surviving actors.
88* Tamsin and the Deep, and the sequel series Tamsin and the Dark by Neill Cameron and Kate Brown have this in spades. The entire series is based around Cornish mythology. They do actions from stealing someone's ice cream to kidnapping a male descended from Lutey, one of Tamsin's ancient ancestors, every seven years in exchange for magic powers.
89* ''ComicBook/TarotWitchOfTheBlackRose'': The Fair Folk pop up from time to time, although the miniature pixies/goblins are more common. Notably, they don't seem to have any of the weaknesses listed at the beginning of this article.
90* ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'': The Thunderbolts fight an army of fairies. At first they're tiny winged women but then what looks like winged actual-size {{cthulhumanoid}}s show up. Their names are largely consonants, and, according to Elsa Bloodstone, those are the same kind of true fae that Lovecraft wrote about.
91[[/folder]]
92
93[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
94* In the fairy tale "Literature/ChildeRowland", Burd Ellen is kidnapped by elves when she inadvertently runs around a church "widershins" (counter-clockwise), and two of her brothers attempting to rescue her are trapped and enchanted by the King of Elfland, until Childe Rowland saves them.
95* In "Literature/TheJezinkas", the Jezinkas have the charming habit of gouging out men's eyes.
96* Creator/JosephJacobs's "Literature/KateCrackernuts", the prince is forced to leave his bed every night to dance at the fairy hall, and is deathly ill because of it. (One notes that this was a folk explanation of TB -- the victims wasted away because they got no sleep by night.) Fortunately Kate eavesdrops on the fairies and learns not only how to cure him, but how to undo an unrelated curse on her step-sister. The same thing, albeit [[GenderFlip gender-flipped]], happens in ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell''.
97* It's never explained in-story who or what ''Literature/ThePiedPiperOfHamelin'' was, but some theorize he may have been one of the Fair Folk.
98* "Literature/{{Rumpelstiltskin}}": Rumpelstiltskin helps a young woman spin straw into gold, but then demands her first-born child as payment.
99* "Literature/SleepingBeauty" is gifted by six fairy godmothers with beauty, grace, wit, and great skill in music, singing and dancing, then cursed out of spite to prick her hand on a spindle on her sixteenth year and die by a seventh fairy. The curse is softened, but cannot be completely removed, by the final fairy.
100* In ''Literature/WhuppityStoorie'', the "green gentlewoman" saves a woman's pig but demands her son in payment.
101* Iruoch in the second novel of the ''Widdershins Adventures'' trilogy is an evil faerie with [[ChildEater a taste for human children]], eight unnaturally long spider-like fingers, and a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking physics-defying hat and coat]].
102* "Literature/TheNixInTheMillPond": The titular nixie promises the poor miller she will make him a rich man if he will give him "that which has just been born in your house." The miller naively assumes the nixie is referring to some puppy or kitten, and he promises what she demands. Then he goes back home and finds out his wife has just given birth.
103* Creator/MadameDAulnoy:
104** "Literature/TheYellowDwarf": The Fairy of the Desert is a wise but malevolent being who looks more like a witch than a stereotypical fairy. She is allied with the Yellow Dwarf, and when Princess Toutebelle breaks her promise to marry the dwarf, the Fairy of the Desert and the Yellow Dwarf show up at her wedding to wreak havoc at the celebration.
105** Madame d'Aulnoy's works feature several other fairies who fit in this category, such as the Fairy of the Spring in "The White Doe", who curses Princess Desiree to not see sunlight for fifteen years in revenge for the queen forgetting to invite her (after she helped the queen out) and Carabosse in "Princess Mayblossom" (who curses the titular princess to spend her first twenty years miserable).
106** "Literature/GraciosaAndPercinet" contains mostly good fairies, including the titular Prince Percinet, but there is a wicked fairy who assists WickedStepmother Grognon in punishing Princess Graciosa -- until the fairy realizes exactly who she has been punishing and snaps Grognon's neck for her trouble.
107* In "Literature/TheElfMaiden", elves have mysterious magical powers, weird customs and a strong dislike towards humans, whom they tend to avoid.
108* In "Literature/TheGoldMountain", the dwarf is a wicked, magical creature who tricks humans into giving him their children.
109* In "Literature/TheThreeLittleMenInTheWood", the titular characters seem to be some kind of leprechauns or dwarves: they are magical, tiny humanoid creatures who live in the woods and are willing to reward or punish humans who stumble upon their home.
110* In Croatian tale "Literature/{{Reygoch}}", Curlylocks and her cloud-dwelling fairy kin seem more mischievous than evil, coming down to Earth every night to mess up with the men's livestock only for fun.
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Fan Works]]
114* ''Fanfic/{{Mendacity}}'': The Fae are alien, cruel, and wicked beings, who delight in tormenting ponies and each other and seek to one day rule the world as they did in days long gone.
115* ''Fanfic/NineDaysDown'': The Fey, capricious and dangerous beings who range from bestial hunters such as bewilderbeasts and changelings to intelligent and deeply malicious beings like {{Nuckelavee}}. A few remain free in the upper world, but the worst of them were all banished to Tartarus long ago.
116-->The monster strutted before a veritable horde of creatures like him, inasmuch as anything was like him. The Fey. Chittering, cackling, impossible things, no two of them alike. One was like a huge dog, wrapped in chains and flexing claws of corroded bronze. Another bled from every orifice, giggling endlessly. One wore a coat made entirely of faces. And there were so many more.
117* ''Fanfic/ThePalaververse'': This is what the Mage-Lords were perceived as by the ancient inhabitants of the ''Equestria Girls'' universe when they crossed worlds -- otherworldly beings who seemed to wear human appearance like ill-fitting clothing, striking from deep forests to steal people away, never to be seen again.
118* ''Fanfic/{{Xenophilia}}'':
119** Lero Michealides used to be a captive of the Fae before escaping to Equestria.
120** In the RecursiveFanfiction, ''Fanfic/IntoTheHedge'', the Fae and their world are further explored.
121* The Generous Ones from ''Fanfic/AlexandraQuick'', and other inhabitants of the Lands Below such as Bewi. [[EverybodyHatesHades The Most Deathly Power]] also has a similar shtick.
122* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' features the [[DecadentCourt Winter]] and [[LightIsNotGood Summer]] Courts, mostly based on ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. As in their native canon, they're very prone to using ExactWords, each and every one of them is a RulesLawyer and they love [[MagicallyBindingContract making deals]]. They are also incredibly dangerous. The sequel reveals that as a species, they're descended from humans/an offshoot of humanity that entered the realm of Faerie in the Nevernever several hundred thousand years ago, and evolved to not only be able to ''use'' magic, like humans, but to ''be'' magic (which contributes to their BlueAndOrangeMorality).
123** Lily and Fix, the [[LadyAndKnight Summer Lady and Summer Knight]], appear at an Asgardian function and are quite helpful to Harry, offering the benefit of their own experiences of change, though Loki remarks that he paid them in information -- however, he also adds that they did want to help, but the Fae being the Fae (or, in Fix's case, a human who's bound to the Fae), it has to be EquivalentExchange. During the same chapter [[ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} Mar-Vell]] mentions that he barely got away from [[TheVamp Maeve,]] the Winter Lady, with his virtue intact. In the sequel, Queen Mab, mother of Maeve and Queen of Winter, gets involved, and demonstrates why even Thor and Loki -- who she's as powerful as at her ''weakest'' -- treat her with respect (though as Doctor Strange [[BlaseBoast casually mentions]], she knows much better than to get in ''his'' way).
124** Harry doesn't have any explicit connection to the Fae, but his somewhat uncanny mannerisms and fondness for fire lead to speculation that Lily was connected to the Summer Court. [[ThePhoenix While there are other reasons for this]], WordOfGod noted somewhat cryptically that Lily did meet some of the Summer Court and they rather liked her. Considering her temperament and [[spoiler: her connection to the Phoenix]], this is perhaps not surprising.
125** The Alfar of the Nine Realms generally don't follow this. However, Gravemoss is an exiled Light Elf and, intentionally, reminiscent of the darkest and most horrifying tales of the Fair Folk with all the knobs turned up. Thanks to him, in chapters 58, 59 and 60, we see an army of Winter Fae mercenaries known as the Slendermen. They are every bit as creepy as you would expect and play this trope as straight as an arrow.
126** In chapter 68 Professor Lupin notes that the Courts rarely bother wanded practitioners for whatever reason, [[TooDumbToLive leading to a number of wanded scholars to assert that they don't exist,]] before making it clear that they are very real and extremely dangerous. He also goes on to note the existence of TheWildHunt, led by Oberon and the Erlking, who are both invoked by those who wish to channel the powers of hunting spirits. The Erlking will help someone he deems worthy (though if he does not deem them worthy, things can get messy). Oberon, on the other other hand, is a great deal more capricious.
127** Likewise, Malekith the Accursed is mentioned, and shown to have been one of the most terrifying foes Asgard's faced, being forced to resort to orbital bombardment of Svartalfheim, a.k.a. 'the Dark World', which is now a DeathWorld more or less devoid of life. Or at least, as Thor discovers in chapter 50 of the sequel, [[OhCrap it used to be.]]
128* ''Fanfic/JusticeSocietyOfJapan'' features these as a major antagonist, inspired by the type from Changeling: The Lost. [[spoiler:Milly Ashford, for instance, is implied to be a Fetch.]]
129* ''Fanfic/TheirMidnightRevels'': They are present in this story in all of their mischievous, conniving, but surprisingly charming and romantic glory. Two of the lovers are Miranda and Ariel from ''The Tempest.'' The fairies are portrayed as magical and amoral in creating illusions to fool mortals, have oracular foresight (though they say things do change), but have limitations.\
130The fairies are still vulnerable to iron, because Ariel burns himself on a pot. They cannot enter Downton unless they are invited by Robert Crawley, the master of the house. Edith is not able to follow the fairies on her own, she must be led by someone she knows and trusts so Ariel enchants Thomas first. The World of Faerie is shown by magical creatures living in rocks, trees, and are in tune with nature such as their homes are built with outdoor views. It is based on various sources particularly Shakespeare’s and the world of artist, Brian Froud.
131* ''Fanfic/TheAlarmaverse'': The ''fia sídhe'', heavily based of fairies from Celtic lore, are [[TheMarvelousDeer deer]] who live in the ''sídhe'', a realm normally inaccessible from Equestria that can only be entered and exited where it intersects with normal reality -- other forms of interdimensional travel do not work within it -- and operate by a very different sort of morality than mortals do. One of them, Abhean, thinks he’s required by honor to behead Bon Bon for insulting Derpy, and the three Derpy meets in the ''sídhe'' were quite happy to hunt and eat her, given the chance.
132* ''Fanfic/TheLifeAndTimesOfAWinningPony'': The fey are a group of pony-shaped magical creatures known for their love of contracts (and... [[LiteralGenie interesting]] and [[JackassGenie creative]] ways of interpreting them), their [[BlueAndOrangeMorality unique takes on morality]], their [[CannotTellALie inability to lie]] and their aversion to ColdIron.
133** The rusalka in ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/127803/1/the-incredibly-thrilling-investigation-of-storm-kicker/the-adventures-of-skunk-mane-and-stalker-mare The Incredibly Thrilling Investigation of Storm Kicker]]''. It looks like an earth pony, but just slightly... wrong, and it's described as a trickster spirit that uses what appears to be a form of vocal glamour/mind control to turn ponies into thralls and force them to dance with it, and it's perfectly happy to kill them if they, say, [[FelonyMisdemeanor miss a dance step]], [[ForTheEvulz or if it gets bored]]. It apparently considers this a [[BlueAndOrangeMorality justifiable way to alleviate its loneliness]].
134** Muses are fey that feed off of the psychic energy associated with artistic creation. As such, they often associate with artists, inspiring them to create more and greater works in exchange for, essentially, sustenance, [[CreativeSterility although they lack the ability to create truly original works in their own right]].
135** There is speculation, in-universe, that unicorns share a closer relationship with they fey than other pony tribes do, due to the fact that cold iron, which hurts and repels fey creatures, also disrupts and impedes unicorn magic. Theories presented in-universe include unicorns being descended from pony/fey hybrids, or from ponies who managed to steal the fey's magic.
136* ''Fanfic/TheStanfordAdventureClub'': Zantabraxus is identified as a Hmong variant of this. When Klaus Wulfenbach is wounded while he was fighting in the Vietnam war, she expresses her gratitude for defending her country by abducting him from his bed to make him her consort. Klaus didn't mind really much being married after [[FairySexy meeting her]].
137** Her twin children have quite interesting abilities, even if Gil's are more developed: he SpeaksFluentAnimal , has HealingHands and can fly and use pyrokinesis.
138** EquivalentExchange seems to be a thing with fae folk: since Gil often helped Ardsley and gave him gifts, Ardsley finds himself in his debt and could be forced to do Gil's bidding. Gil is genuinely horrified to learn this detail.
139* In ''Fanfic/TheCrystalCourt'', the Courts are portrayed as ambivalent to the matters and suffering of humans (which they are usually the cause of), kidnapping babies or forcing human musicians to play until their hands bled. They even seem to have a contempt for their own kind as well, leaving their own children with human families as changelings and desiring to execute Ruby and Sapphire for their inter-court romance (even though their respective courts were under a truce).
140* In ''Fanfic/BrilliantLightsWillCeaseToBurn'', the fae are somewhere in between their modern and folkloric portrayals. Appearance-wise, they are cute and/or beautiful pixie-like creatures, but they act much more like their traditional counterparts, temporarily granting people powers through contracts and generally causing mischief. They outright said that they would have whisked Izuku away and made him their pet if it weren't for the fact that he's the only living magician on Earth.
141* In ''Fanfic/CelestiasRocketAdventures'', this is how the Pokémon universe seems to translate 'alicorn', as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight all end up as Fairy-types. They may look pretty and generally friendly (and in Luna's case boisterous), but as Team Flare and Ash can both testify to, they are not to be trifled with.
142* A popular concept in ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' fan works is that Yuuka Kazami, the ancient and inexplicably powerful flower youkai, used to be a fairy. The idea is that as Yuuka grew stronger, she became the HumanoidAbomination that's familiar to fans, the implication being that this can happen to any fairy as they grow in strength. Such as Cirno, who in canon is on the low end of the power scale among ''Touhou'' characters but abnormally strong among fairies, and seemingly gets stronger with each of her canon appearances.
143* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'' establishes that fae folk did once exist in droves on Terra in the Pleistocene, often existing by themselves or with ancient humanity in advanced civilizations that inspired the likes of Shambhala and Atlantis. They originated because massive amounts of mana made some populations of humans evolve into naturally magical species, explaining why so many fae folk and yokai look humanoid. When mana levels plummeted after the Toba catastrophe 70,000 years ago, and the sacrifice of what remained to create the guardian beasts like Gamera, most of the fae folk turned back into humans over the generations, but on rare occassions a new fae might be born to keep legends alive and some survivors like the three Shobijin sisters persisted.
144* ''Fanfic/SpellboundLilafly'' reinterprets many of the ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' characters and events in terms of fae magic. Adrien and Felix are half-fae, cat shapeshifters, and their mother disappeared into Tír na nÓg, which is a big part of their father's motivation to isolate them from the world. Chloe is another half-fae, explaining a great deal of her cruelty, while Sabrina is a selkie whose coat was stolen, enslaving her to Chloe's family. When the kwamis show up, they aren't happy about one of the fair folk holding a Miraculous, but Plagg gives Adrien a chance because the situation is urgent. Adrien's innate magic has side effects on Miraculous usage, though, and Adrien has even more secrets to keep than in canon, because if Marinette learns too much about the fae, she's likely to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade.
145* In ''Fanfic/BoldoresAndBoomsticks'', Ruby brings up the trope in regards to Fairy Types in Chapter 32.3. Weiss, not familiar with the older, scarier stories, is dismissive of the idea until they talk to Olivia, who tells them about Tapu Lele, who she describes as the most Fae of all the Guardian Deities despite them all being part Fairy-type, being completely unrestrained in battle because her ability to heal means that she feels no need to hold herself back, and her mood can apparently change from kind and generous to self-centered and uncaring fairly easily. Olivia then confirms that the Fairy type was named after mythological beings from old tales, especially from the Galar region, the Pokémon world's version of the UK, where many stories of The Fair Folk originate in our world, and that she feels that the name is accurate and that Fairy-Types are as vengeful as they are adorable.
146* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': Spectra, like all changelings, is statistically a fey rather than a humanoid. This means she speaks sylvan and the list of spells/effects that affect her are completely different to most player characters.
147* The Faustian Queen who appears in ''Fanfic/SixesAndSevens'', inspired by the same character from ''ComicBook/Marvel1602'', is also hypothesized by Emily to be the Faerie Queen of British folklore. The Queen's court includes a Mari Lwyd and little men who look like they stepped out of a Creator/HieronymusBosch painting. She also mentions her relationship to other Christmas figures like Krampus and Perchta, pre-Christian Germanic and Alpine folklore creatures associated with mid-winter.
148* ''Fanfic/SevenFavoursForHarryPotter'' heavily features Fae characters, presenting a world where the wizarding world and the Fae have a sort of uneasy truce between them. At the beginning of the fic, Hagrid bargains with Lady Vidia of the Spring Court for seven favours to be granted to Harry. Not surprisingly, this has a lot of unexpected consequences.
149[[/folder]]
150
151[[folder:Folklore]]
152* Myth/CelticMythology and its offshoots are the TropeCodifier: fairies and spirits of dubious morality are absolutely rife throughout the various myths and legends of the British Isles.
153** A lot of classic Scottish fairy tales have these, but just as easily have helpful fairies. They're probably most frequently seen in stories involving Changelings, but are seen as being somewhat interchangeable with trolls.
154** Púca/ Pooka of Irish mythology. In the original mythology Púca were sociopathic shape-shifters, whose favoured form was a [[HellishHorse huge, black demonic horse]] with [[SupernaturalGoldEyes glowing yellow eyes]] and whose other forms always had dark colourations/clothing and were suitably wrong, who only behaved themselves one night of the year (the first of November, when they are tired after running riot at Samhain/Halloween), and couldn’t enter any dwelling uninvited or stand the touch of iron, but could stand outside your home and destroy your crops if you angered them and refused to come out and face them. When not riding along the hills and woodlands terrifying honest travelers, they blighted any crops left un-harvested after a certain amount to time. Or they demanded a share of all crops, newly made beer, or newly gathered milk, and if they didn't get it they’d trample fields, sour beer, render cattle barren (or [[ShapeshiftingSquick used their shape-shifting ability to impregnate them with mutated offspring]]). In their horse form, they lured young men who were [[ScareEmStraight drunk on pilgrimage or profaning the Sabbath]] into trying to [[TooDumbToLive ride them out of machismo]], at which point the Púca horse vanishes and the young man is either never seen again or changed forever, and tried to lure solitary milkmaids or other naive, lonely maids to an [[MarsNeedsWomen undisclosed fate in fairyland]].
155** Ireland's local {{psychopomp}}s, the [[OurBansheesAreLouder banshee]] (more strictly bean sidhe) and dullahan, were faeries. At least the banshee was only interested in warning whatever clan she was associated with that one of their own would soon die. The dullahan? ''He actively chases you down.'' So, you have a HeadlessHorseman, probably riding a Headless ''[[HellishHorse Horse]]'', carrying his necrotic head under one arm and using the other to snap a human spine as a whip, dousing any would-be spies with blood (which marks ''them'' as next to die), and whose mere presence ''[[YouWillNotEvadeMe makes every gate and door unlock, unbar, and open on their own]]'', seeking you out. Hope you have some gold handy (a gold pin is enough), because that's the ''only'' thing that will save you (they're terrified of the stuff).
156** The caoineag is a Scottish version of the banshee. The problem? She also has a bit of the dullahan's philosophy -- meaning she sometimes seeks out and kills people [[ForTheEvulz on her own initiative.]]
157*** There was also a folkloric tradition that certain banshees were ghosts. This is because in the actual folklore, the line between the Fair Folk and ghosts was not so clear-cut as you might think it would be.
158** Another notable Irish fairy is the Gancanagh. A handsome and vain male, the Gancanagh is your basic [[TheCasanova Casanova]] who goes around seducing human women, and carries around a pipe, which can be a big clue as to his identity. However, it is said to be extremely unlucky to meet him, and the women he seduces will fight to the death for his affection.
159** The Tylwyth Teg of Welsh-Celtic folklore spent most of their time cheerfully kidnapping human children, presumably by way of recreational activity. According to ancient folk wisdom, the best way of killing a changeling child was to pop it in the oven.
160** The Nuckelavee of the Orkney Islands was an EldritchAbomination of the purest sort. Visually similar to the Irish dullahan, this sea-fairy resembled either a centaur or a horse and rider fused together, looked as if it had been flayed alive (like the Colossal Titan in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''), had black blood coursing through distended yellow veins, fins for feet, one eye and a perpetually gaping mouth, was enraged by the scent of drying kelp (among other things), and rampaged across the land, killing crops, infecting livestock and eating people. Its one consistent weakness was [[CannotCrossRunningWater an aversion to fresh water]].
161** The Redcap/Powrie. A [[AxCrazy maliciously murderous]] fae who lived along the old Scots-English Border, he amused himself by randomly murdering people, sometimes [[ImAHumanitarian devouring]] them, and all just so he could dip his hat in their blood. On the other hand, powries ''needed'' to keep their caps blood-suffused, lest they die. Which possibly excuses or at least explains the actions, but not the glee they take in them...
162* County Durham and Tyne-and-Wear boast the tale of Literature/{{the Lambton Worm}} (think "serpentine river dragon stuck in a well -- carved into Lambton Hill"). No, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent the massive worm with great googly eyes]] ''probably'' isn't fey (maybe; it could be -- or some other polymorphed, bound and geased innocent guarding the water, well and/or hill), but the mysterious, exposition-rich [[TreacherousAdvisor old man/ men and/or woman]] (it varies according to the version) by the river who (repeatedly) sets the plot rolling [[{{Railroading}} along rails]] by prodding Sir John into foolhardy acts of certain, very blood-drenched (and eventually, but inevitably, ''cursed'') doom under the banner of heroic, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor dragon-slaying derring-do that will be immortalised in song]]? Could very well be a single, somewhat cleaned-up powrie (or some cousin, a witch/warlock or a devil) taking advantage of the sinning, unsanctified, thus ''unprotected'' and headstrong [[VillainProtagonist John]]... and his entire line of male descendants. At least until either they or the curse finally stutter out. All this is presumably done for the giggles as much as the guaranteed sustenance for decades after indirectly offing a possible rival. Moral of the story? Go to church, triple-check your information sources, and ask yourself if you're ''really'' hero material rather than, say, a patsy.
163* Myth/RomaniMythology: The Keshali are nature spirits just as likely to bless as they are to curse. Interestingly, they're treated sympathetically due to the abuses of the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Loçolici]] and [[EldritchAbomination demons]]. Their queen, Ana, was raped by the king of the Loçolici many times, bearing aberrations that represent every plague known to man.
164* Medieval ballads have a whole subgenre dedicated to the fair folk. In a Scandinavian ballad, the hero denies the Elf-maiden's request to dance, because he is preparing his wedding. The Elf-maid then strikes him down, with fatal consequences.
165* The Curupira from Myth/BrazilianFolklore looks like an amalgam between indigenous [[NatureSpirit nature deities]] and European faeries. Regardless of his origins and his role as a fierce nature guardian, he is generally perceived as a wicked, demonic and sometimes downright sociopathic entity with [[EvilRedhead beautiful red hair]] who can (and will) do anything to protect the animals and forests of his domains. He is particularly infamous for [[ShapeshiftingSeducer shape-shifting into attractive forms]] to lure abusive hunters and woodcutters deep into the forest. The footprints of his backward feet will ensure anyone who follows him will never find the way out from the woods and there he promptly starts a Wild Hunt, hunting the men down with a giant wild boar and ultimately destroying them.
166* In Scandinavia, the Fair Folk are called Vetter or Underjordiske ("The Underworldly"). They generally act in typical fae-like manners, being a nebulous people that kidnap folk from the surface world if you're not careful. Some have been given specific names and traits, however.
167** The ''Hulder'' appeared as a beautiful young woman with a cow's tail. Some of the hulders married mortal men, and lived with them, sometimes showing off badass strength, like straightening horse shoes, but were more known for seducing men and taking them into the mountain, where they could spend years without realizing. Featured in the Norwegian movie ''Thale''. She is occasionally called a [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Troll]].
168*** The hulder does appears as a separate creature from the related skogsrå in some western parts of Sweden. She appears almost the same except he's associates with snow and mountains and lives under the ground like the Vittras. Like mention before she should not confuse with the Skogsrå who are spirit guardians of the forests. Skogsrå's appearance and character varies depending on region but she's often depicted to either have a hollow back, hoofed feet (Scanian depiction) or a fox tail and could be, although extremly rarely male. None of the swedish hulder and the skogsrå is know to have any special powers.
169** The Nisse (Norwegian and Danish) or Tomte (Swedish) was a gnome-like creature that lived on farms and helped farmers with taking care of animals and [[FertileFeet keeping the soil bountiful]]. Though mostly benevolent, they're still Underjordiske, and if they were disrespected, they could cause mischief, or even [[UnstoppableRage kill every single animal, tear down the barn]] and/or [[WalkingWasteland turn the soil infertile]].
170*** The Swedish Vittra, however, were much more unpredictable than the Nisse/Tomte. They looked like and behaved like regular humans, but they lived "underground". They were just about as likely to bless humans and give them riches and fortune for little to no reason as they were to curse them to AFateWorseThanDeath for absolutely no discernible reason. A quick and easy way to ''really'' get them pissed off at you was to build your house on top of their house.
171** The Nøkk (or Nyx) was a Scandinavian water spirit who could appear as a beautiful man or white horse, but whose real form resembled a bundle of twigs floating in the water. He would use his supernatural charm to lure people into the water to drown them, but lost power over the victim if they shouted his name. Fossekallen was similar, but only appeared as a man, and would use his fiddle to charm people instead. He also lived in waterfalls (Foss in Norwegian). Some lucky humans could learn from him, and become almost supernaturally good at playing the fiddle.
172** Draugen (an individual, unlike the Norse version) was a stubborn and evil sailor who died at sea. He would return as "Half a man, in half a boat", and bring storms and suffering with him. In one story, a whole hoard of Draug chases after a man, but he is saved by the dead of a nearby graveyard.
173* Icelandic folk tales tell of another people, the ''Huldufólk'' (hidden people), which live alongside humans, but invisible to us unless they wish to be seen. They are much like humans in appearance, and they live as people do, only to us their houses appear as rocks, boulders, cliffs and hills. Sometimes their interactions with humans would be pleasant, in particular if a "huldukona" (female) was in need of a midwife, and a human would oblige their request. At other times the huldufólk would leave their old and infirm as changelings, taking the human children to rear as their own. They would bewitch both men and women to join them in the cliffs, and they would tempt humans waiting by crossroads on specific dates.
174** The huldufólk are the "elves" that Icelanders allegedly still believe in (in truth this belief is generally either shallow, or very strongly flavoured by popcultural depictions of benign elves from other folkloric traditions).
175* Stories of the "Little People" pervade the legends of many North American tribes. The Cherokee in particular have many legends surrounding them, and group these fairy-like beings into three clans; the Rock People, the Laurel People, and the Dogwood People. The Laurel people were considered to be friendly and playful, and often played games with children. The Dogwood People were stern, serious, and preferred to be left at peace. The Rock People, who lived in caves far away from human settlements, were feared, as it was believed that disturbing them would provoke their wrath, and whomever did so would have some horrible calamity befall them. Cherokee in more isolated regions to this day still believe in the legends, and it is said that if a child has an ImaginaryFriend, this is actually the Little People playing with them.
176* The Seminole have stories of little people who live in hollow logs out in the woods. When lightning strikes a tree, it is thought to be the gods trying to fry the mischievous little things. They are best known for leading people astray in the woods, and you are never supposed to call to a companion who is out of sight. It is likely to be the little people responding to you in their voice to lead you astray.
177* In the Philippines, stories of "Engkanto" abound. These elementals come as close to EldritchAbomination as they do to this trope with the forms they take varying on both witnesses and folklore. They may even take the form of a HumanoidAbomination at times if it would help their position. The ''diwat'' are roughly equivalent to European fairies, being humanoid {{Nature Spirit}}s tied to the wilderness and especially to trees, and the ''nuno sa punso'' to goblins, as spirits who live under the earth in anthills. Functionally, though, [[DistinctionWithoutADifference they are both prone to cursing people for slights.]] The merfolk are their water-dwelling cousins known for drowning boaters, causing sea-storms and river-floods, and [[ImAHumanitarian eating mortals.]]
178* Among the Yup'ik Eskimos, the word "ircinrraat" (singular ircinrraq) covers many beings which are like the European Fair Folk. The word also covers a specific species, about three feet tall: if you fight an ircinrraq, it is advised to fight them until they offer you a gift, which you should accept. They also like to mislead travelers, which can be a matter of life and death. One story involves a village of ircinrraat and a village of humans which were in close contact, so the humans were invited to an ircinrraq potlach of food, fur and dog feces. A particular poor family was advised by an ircinrraq friend to collect dog feces they found alongside the path. As they neared the village of the ircinrraat, the dog feces became fur and food, while the fur and foods of their neighbors transformed into dog feces. Another notable legend involves a man who saw the ircinrraat dancing, and watched for what seemed like a few minutes. When he looked away, a year had passed, just like in many European stories where joining a dance of the Fair Folk causes a great deal more time to pass than is experienced by the protagonist. An interesting aspect of ircinrraq stories is that many of them mention how, if you encounter these people, [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm your mind will specifically refuse to acknowledge them as ircinrraat]]: this goes a long way towards explaining why the humans in these stories never act the way the other stories warned them to.
179** Qamulek is an individual creature in Yup'ik mythology, which can be inadvertently summoned by the best hunters. He is a bit of an EldritchAbomination, with a face that cannot be described, and constantly drags a sack behind him. If a hunter kills the Qamulek, he will be warned not to look into the sack, with good reason: great hunters who look into this bag will become quiet, humble men until the day they die. They will retell the story of their encounter with the Qamulek, but never describe what they saw within the bag.
180** Orcas are often considered to be a variety of ircinrraat. It is warned that, if a man kills an orca, a member of his family will sicken and die within the year; the omen of death is similar to the banshee or bean nighe of Gaelic mythology, but the human has a more active role. It's also said that, if you're in the sea when a pod of orcas catch a beluga, you can give them an offering: if they accept it, they will give you a perfectly square slab of beluga oil in exchange.
181** The Cingssiigat are a variety of ircinrraat which are about a foot tall. They lurk around abandoned sod houses, and also have very useful objects that can be taken.
182** The Egassuayaq are a variety of ircinrrat with vertical eyes and sleeves that touch the ground. Their main activity is stealing fish from human trals.
183* Many other legendary monsters of Native American peoples would have fit in with the "fair folk" of older European folklore, but are more likely to be listed as monsters, giants or spirits in anthropological sources, which are still strongly rooted in Victorian-era European concepts.
184* Literature/BabaYaga displays many qualities of Fair Folk in Russian storytelling, though is often referred to as the "Witch of the Iron Forest".
185** A lot of the less human friendly Russian ''nezhit'' and ''nechist'' such as the leshay, the vodyanoy, the kikimora and the like are quite similar to the less fair kinds of the Fair Folk.
186* Korean folklore has a class of supernatural beings called ''dok'aebi''s, who have unusually many similarities with the Fair Folk as shown in European folklore. They are ruled by [[BlueAndOrangeMorality an incomprehensible sense of ethics]] and [[ItAmusedMe a desire for general fun]], as frustrating as that might be for poor human victims. Many surviving folk legends depict them as benevolent tricksters, but historical accounts still suggests that they were also seen as monstrous forces as heartless as natural disasters. The translation convention for dok'aebis used to be "ogres" due to their aesthetic association with Japanese oni, but because of their characteristic, terms such as "goblins" or "fae" have been taking over recently.
187* [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Merfolk]] can have some of these traits for folk along the coast.
188* In ''The Discarded Image'' Creator/CSLewis used as a general summation of creatures from this tradition the term Longaivi (Long-Livers because they, well, lived a long time). One thing interesting he pointed out was that that in later eras they underwent {{Grimmification}} to the point where they were little different from demons, while the earlier Medieval ones could be benevolent as well as malevolent in their erratic behavior. The later cute fairies, according to this, were in fact a reaction to a reaction.
189* In Iran, the fair folk are called "Az Ma Behtaran", literally meaning "those better than us". They're about as diverse as humans, but all of them seem to have BlueAndOrangeMorality compared to the people of our world, and them appearing almost always complicates matters. Deev/Daeva (rejected gods), Pari (nymph-like [[NatureSpirit nature spirits]] who can be evil or benign), some powerful monsters and beasts and certain boogeyman-types and creatures from other cultures like the Arabian [[OurGeniesAreDifferent Djinn]] or [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent Ghoul]] are all considered variations of Az Ma Behtaran.
190* In Mexico, the chaneques (chaneque in singular, from nahuatl “those who live in dangerous places” or “the owners of the house”) from Myth/AztecMythology could fit here. They’re entities associated to the underworld, they live in the forests, lakes, rivers and jungles. Their main activities are watching the mountains, springs, trees and wild animals. They tend to pass their time playing mischiefs to mortals like throwing stones, breaking things, shaking hammocks, pulling dogs’ tails, frightening farm animals, stealing stuff and like that. They’re also related to health and the lack of it, especially illness related to the loss of soul, but they can also reward mankind with wealth and good fortune. In some zones of Veracruz, they’re divided in two kinds: good and bad. The first type appear in zones where mankind lives. The latter prefer secluded places, undisturbed by human civilization. There are different descriptions of their physical appearance: 1) they’re people about 1 or 1.2 meters height, their feet are the other way around, malformed body, they have tails and they don’t have the left ear; 2) they’re short people, with big heads and chocolate-like skin color; 3) they’re dwarves with childlike faces, and/or 4) they look like small children. Their boss is Chane, god of soil and water, who cares for humans, but punishes sinners, especially adulterers, using two magic animals: lupu’ti the donkey and shunu’ti the cat. Chaneques also put spells on children to take them away from home, keeping them as servants. Mothers, to avoid this, give amulets to their children like the deer’s eye (actually a brown seed), crosses made of palms and put their clothes on the other way around. In fact, they can also make travelers lose their way, so to avoid this, they must wear their clothes the other way around. They can also make humans lose their tonalli (a spirit associated to a person's birthday), which can only be undone with a special ritual. In Chiapas and Tabasco they can be worse, because they attract boys for harmful intentions, but amulets made of nuts and river stones can keep them away.
191* [[OurNymphsAreDifferent Nymphs]] in Myth/ClassicalMythology were well-known for being beautiful female spirits of nature that have been flanderized into getting frequently ravished by gods and monsters. With that said, they could get really scary when they wanted to: they arranged blights and plagues towards any farmer that earned their hatred for disrespecting nature. In one myth, they kidnapped Hercules' sidekick Hylas because they found him hot and he became their SexSlave, and in one version of Perseus' myth, his future wife Andromeda was about to be [[DisproportionateRetribution sacrificed to a sea monster]] because [[DoNotTauntCthulhu her parents boasted]] that their daughter was [[BlasphemousBoast prettier than the sea nymphs]]. The worst of them all were the Maenads, the insane followers of Dionysus whose name literally means [[AxeCrazy "the raving ones"]], and were frequently in a state of ecstatic frenzy and intoxication. They killed [[TheWoobie Orpheus]], who had just crossed the DespairEventHorizon after losing his wife, by ''brutally quartering him'' because he wouldn't honor their god.
192* Although the Olympian deities have not been worshiped in Greece for millennia, belief in nymphs survived throughout the rural areas as recently as the 20th century. Over the centuries, the nymphs, referred to as Nereids, acquired many similarities to the Fair Folk of Celtic legend, even sometimes kidnapping human infants, replacing the stolen child with one of their own. This behavior is reminiscent of changeling myths, but more commonly, the beings gathered in lonely places at midnight (or occasionally, at noon when the Mediterranean sun was at its zenith) so that they could sing and dance. Human travelers who had the misfortune of meeting them in the woods or by a spring or wherever the Nereids had gathered were at risk of being inflicted with madness or some other ailments.
193* As far as UrbanLegends go, TheMothman fits the criteria quite well largely due to its connection to the 1967 Silver Bridge Collapse that occurred during the apex of the sightings. Some say the creature was the cause of the collapse, some say it was here to warn us, and others say it was merely an observer to the disaster. Or, it was just an unrelated coincidence, which raises the question of [[ParanoiaFuel just what was it doing there in the first place]].
194* The Yakshas are this for the Hindu-Buddhist cosmology as they are poltergeist-like playful spirits. Nagas have also a lot of similarities with the Fair Folk behavior from seducing mortals to kidnap them despite being described as snake-like. And also to some degree Devas in Buddhism who live in their own realms of luxury and treasures (not in the case of Hinduism as Devas are considered deities).
195* The Alar are the version of the Fair Folk for the mythology of the Bribris peoples of Costa Rica.
196* The Duende, name original from Spain, is the term use to describe the Fair Folk in the Spanish speaking world or in what is known as Ibero-America[[note]]the cultural zone that includes Spain, Portugal, Latin America and some times Ecuatorial Guinea[[/note]]. In fact, before the popularization of the term ''Elfo'' for Elf and ''Trasgo'' for Goblin the de-fault translation of Elves, Goblins and most Fair-like creature was Duende. Leprechaun is still commonly translated as Duende to this date (in part due to the inexistence as of yet of an official translation, although some of the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishDubbing Latino Dubs]] of the Film/{{Leprechaun}} film franchise use the unofficial ''Leprecón'', a castillianization of Leprechaun not as yet accepted by the Spanish Royal Academy that oversees the language).
197* AlienAbduction from TheGreys has been described by some scholars as a modern technological re-telling of the old encountes with the Fair Folk as they shared a lot of common traits. Of course, UFO of paranormal origin advocates would argue that is the other way around and that alien abductions inspired the fair folk encounters in the past.
198* While technically a separate trope, the [[OurGeniesAreDifferent Djinn]] from the Arabian (and wider Middle Eastern) folklore often hit many of the same tropes as the Fair Folk, being frequently depicted as trickster spirits of unusual beauty and a hefty dose of BlueAndOrangeMorality. While they may mess with humans, especially when provoked, the general rule is that they will leave you alone if you leave them alone.
199[[/folder]]
200
201[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
202* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', the prince is turned into the Beast and his household servants into animated objects because he wouldn't let a disguised enchantress stay the night and scoffed at her payment of a rose. Though referred to as an "enchantress", she otherwise fits most traditional examples of fairies and their behavior toward humans when they feel insulted. Especially since her punishment, designed to correct ''his'' character flaws, included [[AesopCollateralDamage his staff]], who didn't deserve it.
203* ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'': The Wisps are supernatural folk. They're said to have the power to change fate. They're frequently shown leading Merida away from danger. Twice they lead her away from Mor'du and towards help before she even knows he's there. They also lead her to the ruined castle so she can learn the truth about the legend of the princes, and the true danger of the spell, and in the end, they lead her back to the stone circle so she can save her mother. If not benign, they are at least fairly neutral.
204* The Leafmen from ''WesternAnimation/Epic2013'', while not malicious, are heavily influenced by them. Chris Wedge's motivation to make the film came from seeing a museum painting of tiny fairy folk in a forest.
205* ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'': In the ancient world of Greek mythology the closest analogues to fairy and elves were lesser nature-spirits (nymphs, gorgons, sprites) that could somewhat be called gods in the most minor sense. Hades two stooges, Pain and Panic, seem to represent and even display some of their less pleasant behaviour like spiriting away babies from their cradles and transforming themselves into adorable children to lure unsuspecting men to their doom.
206* Tinker Bell from Disney's ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'' - despite being the poster child for the less threatening modern "disneyfied" type of fairy, she's still spiteful and ruthless enough to arrange for the murder of her perceived romantic rival (a teenage girl no less) and is completely unapologetic afterwards.
207* ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' somewhat treats Facilier's Friends on the Other Side like this. They're beyond the ability of humans to stop but can be warded off with the proper precautions. They grant wishes [[LiteralGenie which give people exactly what they asked for]] without [[JackassGenie giving them what they wanted]] and have high prices—effectively, they're [[DealWithTheDevil supernatural]] {{Loan Shark}}s. Even Facilier's tendency to call them his "friends" when they're anything but friendly fits this. It's a polite name which avoids angering them in the way that a more accurate name might.
208* Aisling from ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'' is a fairy (though it's implied she doesn't like to be called that) and WordOfGod and a tie-in comic state that she's one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Though [[DownplayedTrope she turns out to be much nicer than how the Fair Folk are usually portrayed]], she still doesn't take kindly to those who intrude in her forest and initially even threatens to set her wolves on Brendan if he doesn't leave.
209* The Fairy Godmother in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2''. She has the image of a sweet fairy godmother but is, in fact, a sociopath who intended to use a promise made by the king to have Fiona marry her son in order to rule the kingdom as queen mother. When that plan failed, she proved willing to stoop to unimaginable lows, causing the king's HeelFaceTurn.
210* Even though she's usually called a witch these days, Maleficent, of [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'', is actually a "wicked fairy". While the previous ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' games had gone with the sorceress description, ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' rightfully lists her as a fairy.
211** ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': To quote Nanny Ogg's Cookbook: "How hard is it to invite her along, give her plenty of drink and a plate of ham rolls all to herself, and keep her out of the way of your posh auntie? Play your cards right and you could be ahead by an extra good wish."
212* The Daoine Sidhe in ''WesternAnimation/SongOfTheSea'', right down to suggesting other names when the protagonist calls them "fairies". Downplayed since most of the Daoine Sidhe Ben and Saoirse encounter are reclusive but still friendly; even Macha, the dreaded Owl Witch who [[TakenForGranite turns people to stone]] by stealing their emotions, [[spoiler:is more of a WellIntentionedExtremist who's under the misguided belief that she's helping them]].
213* ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' is a Japanese {{Youkai}} FairyTale that portrays them as acting very similar to The Fair Folk.
214[[/folder]]
215
216[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
217* The 2013 ''Film/FortySevenRonin'' have the Tengu, half-human/half-crow goblins from Myth/JapaneseMythology who had no problem rising Kai, a human boy and even teaching him some of their powers. Tengu-forged swords have magical qualities, becoming an AbsurdlySharpBlade in the hands of a fearless warrior and dull in the hands of a coward. They live in TheLostWoods in a HiddenElfVillage and rarely show themselves to outsiders, except to kill them horrifically of course.
218* The [[spoiler:trolls]] in ''{{Film/Absentia}}'' are [[EldritchAbomination unseen entities who make their home in an extradimensional space between walls]], but possess unmistakable shades of this. [[BlueAndOrangeMorality They enjoy making deals and are insistent on paying what they owe, even if the other party doesn't want it.]] They seem reluctant to attack anyone who makes a deal with them, but [[spoiler: they also attract attention to others around you.]]
219* The main villains in ''{{Film/Bright}}'' are a terrorist group of elves trying to recover their leader's MagicWand and they commit several horrific crimes like murdering a innocent Mexican family [[MoralEventHorizon including]] [[WouldHurtAChild their baby]] merely ForTheEvulz. It's also noted that the [[EvilOverlord Dark Lord]] was a renegade elf that tried to {{take over the world}} over 2,000 years ago and is pretty much treated as the setting's GreaterScopeVillain.
220* Subverted partially with King Brian and the other leprechauns in ''Film/DarbyOGillAndTheLittlePeople'', since Brian himself is a good friend, albeit mischievous, to the titular character, the Banshee and the Dullahan however...
221* Del Toro does it again with ''Film/DontBeAfraidOfTheDark''. No wings or sparkles here, the creatures [[AllThereInTheManual (officially known as Homonculi)]] look more like [[OurMonstersAreWeird evil hunchbacked lemurs.]]
222* The deranged, fickle and bizarre inhabitants of The Sixth Dimension from the movie ''Film/ForbiddenZone'' share lots of traits with the Fair Folk. Of Course, ''[[WorldGoneMad everyone's]]'' deranged in this movie, but the inhabitants of The Sixth Dimension layer on top a slice of Fleischer-style surrealism to make them look even crazier.
223* ''Film/TheGuardian1990'', a horror movie about a dryad who poses as a babysitter, [[spoiler:abduct babies, and ''[[WhenTreesAttack feeds them to her tree]]''.]]
224* ''Film/TheHallow'' is an Irish folk horror movie about a family stalked by elves, who seem to be a kind of [[TheVirus virulent]] [[PuppeteerParasite parasitic]] [[BotanicalAbomination fungus]], and is looking for [[ChangelingTale a new host]].
225* ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'', also directed by del Toro, establishes that the magical world is at odds with humanity. The magical world is ruled by the royal line of Elves. There are also tooth fairies, which are ravenous six-limbed insectoids who move in swarms can devour a person whole (and since they crave calcium, [[TheToothHurts they always start with the teeth]]), as well as trolls and goblins.
226* The Elves in ''Film/{{Krampus}}'' are incredibly scary and very similar to the traditional despiction of fairies. Naturally as the film itself is an inversion of the Christmas lore.
227* ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'':
228** When Sarah reaches the outer wall of the Labyrinth, she finds a gardener killing Fairies with a bug sprayer. She calls him a brute, and picks up one of the not-quite-dead Fairies, who rewards her actions by attempting to bite off her finger. When she expresses her amazement and that she thought Fairies did "nice things, like granting wishes", the gardener simply scoffs and says "[[GenreBlind Shows what you know]]."
229** [[MagnificentBastard Jareth himself]] and his Goblins; the film is essentially a changeling tale.
230** And the Fieries. They're playful rather than evil, but they have unfortunate gaps in their understanding of human physiology...
231** Also the brownie that screws up the marks Sarah's using to get through the maze. From his perspective, she's defacing his flagstones.
232* The [[MageSpecies hexe witches]] of ''Film/TheLastWitchHunter'' are apparently inspired by these.
233* In Ridley Scott's ''Film/{{Legend 1985}}'', the Gump and Oona are essentially friendly to Jack, but are still quite pre-Victorian in behavior. Mercurial, occasionally vindictive, and more than willing to bring punishment down on a foolish mortal like Jack (who's only spared because his misdeed was done out of love, possibly also because he's a "Faerie Friend").When they're stuck in a cell in Darkness' stronghold, Gump is unable to pick the lock because it's made of iron. "Iron is trouble for fairies."
234** On the other side, Meg Mucklebones the hag and the goblins led by Blix are purely, gleefully villainous to the point of {{Card Carrying Villain}}y.
235* The eponymous creature from the ''Film/{{Leprechaun}}'' slasher film series is one of these. He's actually more in line with earlier folklore than modern interpretations.
236* In ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'', the PerspectiveFlip of ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'', Maleficent is explicitly a fairy in the more traditional sense alongside the more typically modern Flittle, Knotgrass, and Thistlewit, (the new versions of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) rather than a human witch. In fact, there's a whole land of Fair Folk in various forms, called the Moors, where they mostly mind their own business. Like in traditional folklore, they're weak to iron and the main antagonist King Stefan uses this to his advantage when fighting Maleficent.
237* Guillermo del Toro's ''Film/PansLabyrinth'' features a fairy world alongside the real world. The main character is brought into the world by a fawn and occasionally guided by benevolent sprytes. There are malicious denizens of the world, however, such as the Pale Man. It's left ambiguous whether the world is real or just the girl's imagination.
238* The Filipino horror anthology ''Film/ShakeRattleAndRoll13'' has a segment featuring ''tamawo'', a Philippine equivalent to the Fair Folk. They appear as pale humanoids with long, white hair, and dress like tribal warriors.
239* ''Film/Troll2'': The Goblins would count, given their enchanted food with nasty side effects, their posing as humans through glamour to lure humans to their doom, and their love for all things plant and hatred of man.
240* ''Film/WereTheWorldMine'', a musical adaptation of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', about an outcast gay kid cast as Puck in the school play who ends up [[spoiler:making a magic flower and causing people to fall in love with people of their own gender, essentially becoming Puck]], often in musical sequences that are vague about whether it's a fantasy or not. The English/drama teacher, as well, is [[spoiler:implied to be a fairy, complete with magic that makes the townspeople bend to her will. Granted, this is to give Puck/Timothy a chance to fix everything, but it's still not quite right from a human perspective]]. Overall, the fairies depicted are very sympathetic, but there is definite selfishness and laughing at the trouble being caused to mundane people going on.
241* In the beginning of ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'', Charlie meets a superstitious old peddler who recites a line from the poem by William Allingham posted as the Trope Quote, clearly believing that the "mysterious workers" who work in the factory have something to do with the Fair Folk. Of course, this is a subversion; the Oompa Loompas are friendly, harmless creatures, and are ''not'' fairies (but still rather unsettling, what with their [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation bright orange skin]] and eerie {{morality ballad}}s). If anything, Wonka himself behaves more like the traditional Fair Folk archetype.
242[[/folder]]
243
244[[folder:Literature]]
245* ''Literature/APoisonDarkAndDrowning'': On the way back to UsefulNotes/{{London}} from Ralph Strangewayes' house, [[TheProtagonist Henrietta]] and her friends decide to take a shortcut through fairy territory. A fairy that Henrietta refers to as "Goodfellow" leads her through, and tells the group not to accept any offerings from the faeries they come across, or say "thank you" to them, since they take it as a sign you [=HAVE=] accepted. When Queen Mab identifies them as humans, she isn't pleased, especially since she had to send so many of her kind to aid humanity in their war against [[EldritchAbomination the Ancients]]. She demands they give up something deeply personal to be allowed passage. [[spoiler:Magnus makes the sacrifice of a memory for them to go through.]]
246* ''Literature/TheAgeOfMisrule'': AboveGoodAndEvil, BlackAndGrayMorality, BlueAndOrangeMorality, TheUnfettered, PayEvilUntoEvil abound in a CrapsackWorld, and that's just the Tuatha Dé Danann. Their [[EvilCounterpart "evil" counterparts]], the [[EldritchAbomination Fomorii]]... are worse.
247%%* ''Literature/{{Alterien}}'': The Sisters of Orion, Yon'ro, the other Shanda'ryn hybrids, Pleiades and the Alteriens in their true form all fit this trope nicely.%%ZCE. How?
248* ''Literature/AmongOthers'': The elves aren't malicious, but they don't see the world the way humans do (either literally, or in the sense of having the same value system).
249* In the works of Creator/PoulAnderson:
250** ''Literature/ThreeHeartsAndThreeLions'' has this in the guise of local [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]] -- inhumanly beautiful, callous, afraid of sun, iron and holy names, manipulative, and in league with demonic powers against the world of humans.
251** ''The Queen of Air and Darkness'' riffs on this trope by having telepathic aliens on a frontier world use the legends of Faerie against the human settlers, right down to kidnapping children to use as changeling warriors.
252** ''Literature/TheBrokenSword'' is a fantasy novel about Dark Age Europe coexisting (unknowingly) with amoral elves, trolls, etc. Poul includes a {{squick}}y passage wherein an elf lord creates a changeling using an enslaved she-troll. The changeling gets even, kind of. Several of Poul Anderson's other novels and at least one short story also deal with the Fair Folk.
253** One of his story inverts much of this trope: an iron-allergic member of the Fair Folk pretends to be an alien emissary to infiltrate and destroy the real alien multi-species conspiracy that has infiltrated and is abusing human society, using a nonferrous spaceship barely able to make orbit as his alien bona fides. Oberon et al. show up on the last two pages.
254** "Fairy Gold" has an elf get a human to kill a troll in return for fairy gold. It does the usual effect of vanishing -- except that by the time it does it, it has moved full circle around the town, making many people happy by letting them buy something by selling something they were encumbered with. There's laughter when it vanished, but it's not quite clear whether the elf lord appreciates what he did.
255* The People (including various kinds of fairies, [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]], [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]]...) in ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' are actually sympathetic, contrasted against the TeenGenius VillainProtagonist. They [[BeneathTheEarth live underground]], have highly advanced technology (ray guns, lots of ray guns), and [[TheMasquerade do everything they can to hide themselves from humans]]. They also have some [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire-like]] weaknesses -- they are extremely vulnerable to sunlight, and risk losing their magical powers if they enter a human dwelling without permission. What fits them for this trope is that they're quite frankly [[FantasticRacism condescending]] towards humans, calling us '[[FantasticSlur Mud People]]'. [[CantArgueWithElves Nobody's really called them out on it]]... maybe because ''they're'' the ones hiding from ''us'', what do they have to be proud of?
256** We're catching up fast, and have [[TeenGenius Artemis]], who in the first book plans to ''[[ScrewYouElves extort from the elves]]''. The brilliant part? [[spoiler:It WORKS and he pulls a KarmaHoudini and utterly gets away with filching a SHITLOAD of gold while managing to avoid any real negative consequences. It helps that he gave half of it back in a bargain to help fix his sick mother, but still...]]
257** Despite their relative benevolence, the People still tend to engage in ExactWords regarding "invitations." On the one hand, cries for help are generally accepted as invitations. On the other, [[spoiler: Artemis's statement that none of them may enter his house while he is alive is interpreted creatively as an invitation to come in when he's dead. [[TheChessmaster Though this ends up being part of his plan.]]]]
258* ''Literature/TheBitterbynde'': The Fair Folk for the most part are masters of gramarye (FunctionalMagic), beautiful, arrogant, and cruel. Several Faeran characters appeal to the idea that their moral code is merely different to that of mortals, and that they cannot be considered evil. It's not entirely convincing when you hear tales of their awful retribution for meaningless and unintentional "crimes" perpetrated by mortals.
259** In a twist to this portrayal of the Fair Folk, (the following is a HUGE spoiler, so don't read this if you wish to enjoy the books) [[spoiler: the main character falls in love with the Faeran High King, who is anything but cruel, yet still adheres to the "Our morals are different" mantra when the mortal maiden questions the actions of his kindred]].
260** There are other magical beings in the books, collectively called Wights. These fall into the Seelie (benevolent to mankind) and Unseelie (malevolent to mankind) categories, but the Faeran have no such distinction.
261* The fairies in Creator/CharlesDeLint's ''Literature/TheBlueGirl'' have no sense of empathy and are very mischievous. The ghost in the book was a lonely nerdy boy whom they befriended because he could see them. They told him they would make him able to fly and when he jumps off the school roof they let him fall to his death for their amusement. They don't really understand why he's so mad when he comes back as a ghost. They didn't lie to him, they can actually make him fly and they were doing so but they just decided it would be funny to let him fall.
262* Terri Windling's ''Literature/{{Bordertown}}'' anthologies have a mashup of various fae types. There are elven street gangs, half-elves, fae wannabes, fae-touched, and so on, and their behaviour toward humans varies accordingly. The Bordertown actually exists on the border of genuine, under-the-hill Faerie, and the river running through it is called the Mad River, because to humans one sip is instantaneously addictive and insanity-generating [[spoiler:though it is possible to recover from Mad River addiction -- Tick-Tick helped Orient get off the water]].
263* One of the more modern and well known examples is actually Dr. Suess's ''Literature/TheCatInTheHat''. He is not actively malevolent, but is clearly an otherworldly being of significant power operating on a BlueAndOrangeMorality.
264* ''Literature/TheChangeling'' deals with a modern version of such beings.
265* Played straight with both Peter and the inhabitants of Avalon in Brom's adaptation of ''Peter Pan'', ''Literature/TheChildThief''. Only [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Tanngnost the troll]] comes off at all sympathetically.
266* ''The Chronicles of Fairie'', a series by O.R. Melling, fits this trope nicely. The trope is subverted, though, in that fairies you meet are sympathetic... to a degree. They're willing to go to almost any length to get what they want.
267* In ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'', the Hidden People are based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulder huldra]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skogsr%C3%A5 Skogsrå]], appearing like humans but with hollow backs.
268* In ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' book ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew,'' the villainous Uncle Andrew mentions that his godmother, Mrs. [[MeaningfulName Lefay]], had fairy blood, likely making him the last person to have a FairyGodmother. She wound up in prison for a few years, was allowed home to die, and on her deathbed instructed Andrew to destroy a magical box that she had hidden. He instead used it to make the magic rings that kick off the book's plot.
269* A mostly benign version appears in Lloyd Alexander's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in the form of the Kingdom of Tylwyth Teg, a [[HiddenElfVillage secret realm]] BeneathTheEarth populated by strange and [[GoodIsNotSoft grouchy]] Fair Folk.
270** Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch are [[TheWeirdSisters a trio of hags]] who present a less benevolent - though still not wholly evil - instance of this trope, operating on BlueAndOrangeMorality and seeming deeply uninterested in whether Arawn, the series' BigBad, takes over the world or not.
271* ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'' (again by Creator/NeilGaiman) strongly hints that the Other Mother is one of the Fair Folk, with one of her victims referring to her as "the beldam", an archaic term for a fairy or witch.
272** One of said victims appears to be a nicer sort of fairy -- this is only revealed toward the end in the original novel, but due to the necessity of actually portraying them visually, shows up sooner in the graphic novel, and was dropped for the film version.
273* In Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/CouncilWars'' series Elves, who are actually a product of genetic engineering, are portrayed as holding themselves apart from humanity, including the eponymous wars except for one, called Bast, who is shown as good if mischievous and she's a different subspecies from the others. It's often hinted that the origin of Elves might be even older than thought and outright said that it's a good thing they hold themselves aloof, because if they ever chose to interfere in human affairs we wouldn't have a chance.
274* ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': Faeries in this series are clearly inspired by or based upon fairies and equivalent creatures from Celtic mythology and the like. The High Fae in particular seems greatly inspired by the Sidhe of Irish mythology. While they're not all inherently evil and some can be highly benevolent, they all tend to be powerful, ruthless and dangerous, tend to treat humans like pets at best, and humans themselves are fearful of them.
275* The Besiders in ''Literature/CuckooSong'' are a classic example, and can only live in unmapped/undiscovered parts of the world, which are getting fewer and smaller every day.
276* ''Literature/ACurseDarkAsGold,'' a [[TwiceToldTale retelling]] of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, features "Jack Spinner" -- who can spin straw into gold, re-weave ruined wool into perfect cloth, knew some of the mill's historical owners personally, and always bargains for payment in the form of items with high sentimental (not monetary) value.
277* In Creator/DevonMonk's ''Literature/DeadIron'', [=LeFel=] is an exiled fairy and will die soon if he doesn't get back. He's extremely unscrupulous about means.
278* Used by Paul Kidd in his novelization ''Descent into the Depths of the Earth'', where faeries are ancient, powerful, decadent, insular, isolationist, supremacist, given to truly byzantine machinations to get what they want, and most of them think ''physical reality'' is beneath them.
279* Katharine Kerr's ''{{Literature/Deverry}}'' series has both the [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkienesque]] style [[OurElvesAreDifferent Westfolk]], and the Guardians, who are typical Fair Folk.
280* In ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'', the fae are felt rather than seen. They're often mentioned as the evil spirits of the land, some people believe in them while others don't, and then there's the strange FantasticAnthropologist Karyl meets after he dies for the first time...
281* ''Literature/DiogenesClub''
282** The antagonists in "Literature/TheGypsiesInTheWood", wherein a little boy goes missing on his birthday... only for a seemingly schizophrenic middle-aged man to appear days later [[YearOutsideHourInside claiming to be that little boy]]. And he then makes a living drawing pictures for subtly ''wrong'' children's stories, complete with a faintly creepy amusement park. All the more disturbing because the main characters never quite understand what's at work.
283** The evolution of Fair Folk stories to modern alien abduction stories (by way of other crackpot stories like Elijah's Chariot and predatory succubi) is the premise of "Literature/AngelDownSussex".
284* The Elves of Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series, as seen in ''Literature/LordsAndLadies'' and ''Literature/TheWeeFreeMen'', are callous, even sadistic, sociopaths of the worst kind. They enjoy music and torturing people, as they consider the agonized screams simply another type of music. They can keep their victims alive for weeks until finally growing bored of their "song" and letting them die. However, while they are powerful and cruel, they tend to be thick and unable to learn, and aside from the Queen and select Lords (and they tend to be highly unimaginative), seem to be almost incapable of forming much original thought.
285-->'''Granny Weatherwax''': You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. [[ExperienceEntitlement What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn]]. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. You're right. I'm older. [[ImmortalImmaturity You've lived longer than me but I'm older than you]], and better'n you, and, madam, that ain't hard.
286** Their physical appearance is quite terrifying. They seduce and mesmerize humans with their [[{{Glamour}} Elfsong]] which sounds like someone [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KiodkF2m4 playing a saw with a violin bow]] to anyone who isn't spellbound by it, and the music makes people think they see [[OurElvesAreDIfferent tall beautiful humanoids with pointy ears]]. Their true form is seen by anyone [[GlamourFailure not under their spell]], and is so weird looking that many of them could [[EldritchAbomination barely be considered humanoid]].
287** A second subculture, not seen as often, followed the King into seclusion. While the Queen and her followers wish to dominate the world and steal what they like from it, the King and his followers are perfectly willing to wait in their PocketDimension steam house until this whole "civilization" thing blows over and they can revel in the return to barbarism. The King has even intervened in conflicts between the Lancre witches and the main body of elves during the biggest fights, siding with the witches to save his people from annihilation.
288** In addition, Gnomes are not evil but can channel six feet worth of cynicism and violence into six inches of height, while their cousins the Pictsies -- well, shrink [[ViolentGlaswegian a battlefield full of extras from]] ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'', [[ViolentGlaswegian strip off most of the civility, replace it with larcenous intent and moonshine whiskey]], and you'll have the Nac Mac Feegle, at which point you should run away very fast. They love stealing cows and are extremely good at running off with one -- one Pictsie per hoof.
289** Winged fairies seem to be fairly mindless and vicious creatures, somewhere between insects and the more aggressive kinds of songbird.
290** The dryads, who employ dangerous [[FunctionalMagic Wild Magic]], would've executed Rincewind for slightly injuring a tree (which he was falling out of at the time), and whose males -- yes, they exist -- are built like Creator/VinDiesel made of solid oak. ([[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014 Groot, more or less]], but with a much less pleasant disposition.) They were thought long extinct, and it's heavily implied that the race died off in the encounter.
291* In Creator/AaronAllston's ''Literature/DocSidhe'' the Fair Folk are just as morally varied as humans are. Furthermore, the Fairy World has advanced at the nearly same rate as the human world, so fairies in the 1990s have 1930s level technology, mixed with magic (which is no longer called magic because it can be studied scientifically), and they've interbred with humans so many times as a result of changelings and other visitations that most are nearly human height, and one of the fairies is a CaptainErsatz of Literature/DocSavage.
292* ''Literature/DoraWilkSeries'' calls them Elves, but they fit this trope more. Any promise made to them, even without the intention to make it, has to be fulfilled, they play with words, offer bargains which always have a hook, and compel people to come to them with MagicMusic. They're actually the only creatures with whom Dora is careful of what she's saying.
293* The fae in Creator/JimButcher's ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' are like this.
294** They're split into the Summer (Seelie) and Winter (Unseelie) Courts, ruled over by Queens Titania and Mab respectively. Summer is generally more benevolent, while Winter is more malicious. They're obsessed with obligations -- everything, from food and drink to information, has to be traded for, and there is no going back on a deal with the Fae. Accepting gifts from the Fae is a very bad idea, as it means you are in an undefined debt to them, and giving them a gift is seen as a horrible insult. They are very vulnerable to anything with iron in it, and see its use as incredibly cruel. They CannotTellALie, but that's ''far'' from saying they're truthful; very careful attention needs to be paid to ExactWords when dealing with the fae, since they love LoopholeAbuse. [[note]]Changelings also exist, as the children of human-fae pairings: they look human until puberty, when they start developing characteristics similar to their fae side, and generally come to choose to be a faerie or human.[[/note]] Any Fae can also be summoned by speaking its name three times. They will answer the summon, but may not be the happiest of beings to be summoned.
295** Even the Summer Fae have a [[BlueAndOrangeMorality rather alien outlook]] on things like morality.
296** Aurora thought it was a good idea to [[spoiler:let the Courts destroy one another for the sake of breaking the balance between them, despite the massive destruction and death this would cause, because it would mean the end of fairy meddling in mortal lives forever... [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt once there were again such a thing as mortal lives]]]][[note]]It was later revealed Aurora was possessed by an [[EldritchAbomination Outsider]][[/note]].
297** Titania has no problem [[spoiler: ordering her soldiers to destroy Dresden even while she is technically indebted to him, purely for the sake of preventing Dresden from saving Marcone on Mab's instructions; from Titania's perspective, if Mab wants Marcone saved, she wants him not to be saved (although there is also the fact that she has little enough love for Dresden in the first place since he killed her daughter, even though she was trying to destroy the Sidhe)]]. The best way to sum up the Summer morality is that while it can ''include'' kindness, it is by no means defined by it.
298** Among the Winter Court... well, sure, the Leanansidhe wants to turn her poor beleaguered godson into a dog, but that's because as far as she's concerned he'd be much safer and happier as one of her hounds than he is at the moment. (She might have a valid [[BeingGoodSucks point there]]) And Maeve once [[spoiler:ordered monsters to attack Chicago]] as part of a BatmanGambit because she was worried that [[spoiler:the Faerie Courts hadn't moved against the Red Court because of Mab's bizarre behavior]], leading to a chain of events that saved a significant portion of the White Council. As Harry says in ''Changes,'' "Even in Winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel."
299** The biggest example of how the courts can defy type: according to the author, the Erlking, leader of TheWildHunt, is Summer. SantaClaus is Winter. The one mention of Santa so far says trapping him in a circle is something nobody would ever dare try, but it in no way suggests that he's a BadSanta. (But it [[FridgeBrilliance makes perfect sense]] -- He's known to be active on December 25th, and the Courts' power shifts with the seasons, after all. The power it would take to be Santa, or to be the reality that Santa is based on... a Summer fae would ''never'' have it ''four days after the winter solstice.'') Santa represents [[HopeBringer generosity in a time of bleakness]]. Further said, Kringle is Mab's King and Erlking is Titania's King. Within them, they show the traits not often seen in their Queens (Kringle's benevolence against Mab's cold demeanor and Erlking's love of hunt to Titania's compassion.)
300*** ''Cold Days'' has shown that Santa Claus is also [[spoiler: [[Myth/NorseMythology the Norse god]] Odin]] and he participates in the Wild Hunt.
301*** Also, while the author has referred to them as Kings of Summer and Winter, they are ''not'' part of the Courts. They are in no way obligated to follow Mab or Titania. Instead, they're Wyldfae lords of their own domains. There is also Gwynn ap Nudd of the Tylwyth Teg court, a group of Welsh Wyldfae separate from Kringle and Erlking.
302** The best way to sum it up might be that style is more important than substance in this case; for example, two fairies come across a hobo, and in a fit of benevolence, decide to help him. One gives him a banquet, a bath, some nice warm clothes, the works. The other harangues him, makes his life hell, and forces him to clean himself up, get a job and stand on his own two feet. In this case, both have made an effort to help him, but the first one would be called to Summer in a time of war, while the other would be headed Winterwards.
303** A bit more insight into the nature of the fae is revealed in ''Cold Days''. [[spoiler:The purpose of the Winter Fae is to fight off incursions by [[EldritchAbomination Outsiders]], and without them all reality would be destroyed. The Summer Fae in turn protect reality from Winter.]]
304** It should also be said that even mortals can become a Fae. [[spoiler:Mortal women anyway. If a woman has a heart that is closely aligned to either Summer or Winter and one of the six Queens (Queen Mother, Queen, and Lady) is permanently killed, the mantle could travel into her if one of the Queens of that side is not close or the Queen picks that woman, she will become the new Queen, even if she doesn't want to.]]
305** On the matter of one's house, in ''Cold Days'' it is said the Fae can enter a person's home uninvited. However, they are bound by the laws of Hospitality and so cannot leave the estate in a worse condition than when they entered (Harry's brownie cleaning service entered to clean his untidy home and do laundry many times). Even if they are attacked by the owner of the house, they cannot attack back. The Fae would likely leave and wait until the owner is not protected and then respond to the attack.
306* The trolls, [[AllTrollsAreDifferent or Huldre]], in Edith Pattou's ''Literature/{{East}}'' fill this role. They have magical powers and long lifespans, live in a secret, near-inaccessible homeland, and abduct humans for slave labor. They are a bit uglier than most Fair Folk, but still more beautiful (and humanoid) than most trolls.
307** In Scandinavia, "huldra" or "hulder" usually refers to a beautiful forest-woman, with an animal tail or a hollow back to distinguish her from a human. Check the Folklore folder for more details.
308* ''Literature/AnEncounterAndAnOffer'' has the fae banishing a young boy and stripping him of his name, leaving him to the mercies of the humans. It also appears, in implications, that the fae are duplicitous, arrogant, cunning and dangerous.
309* ''Literature/{{Evolution}}'': The pithecines, who took to living as scavengers in the forest fringe and occasionally hunted humans, their savannah-dwelling cousins, are depicted as the basis in reality of these myths.
310-->''When they had committed themselves to the savannah, Far's kind had turned their backs on the forest -- which had, as if in revenge, become a place not of sanctuary but of claustrophobic danger, populated by these pithecines which, like the sprites they resembled, would inhabit nightmares long into the future.''
311* ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}'': Most of the mystical beings are like this. The fairies themselves obviously fit, but nearly ''all'' magical creatures in the series have BlueAndOrangeMorality, and are fairly dangerous to humans. The one exception is satyrs, who, like their mythical counterparts, are lazy and fun-loving party animals. [[spoiler: And Bracken, partially due to being a freakin' ''unicorn.'']]
312* Melissa Marr's ''Faerie Court'' series is made of this trope; her faeries are divided into four courts: Winter, Summer, Dark, and High (with the occasional solitary fae moving freely among the courts). Each court has defining characteristics, but the fae themselves are very much individual people with distinct personalities. Most, to some degree, view humans as inferior; the extent of this can vary, with some seeing them as wayward children and others as expendable playthings.
313* Certainly, Creator/BrianFroud belongs at the top here. Modern audiences must have had a shock when his collaboration with Alan Lee, ''Literature/{{Faeries}}'', hit the shelves. It was one of the first books to include as many scary Fairy stories as nice stories. Froud has vocally emphasized that, while there are indeed evil Fairies and good Fairies in mythology, the vast majority of them are neutral. He actually apologizes, in the introduction, for the self-contradictory title of his follow-up book, ''Bad Faeries/Good Faeries''.
314* Creator/RaymondEFeist's 1988 book, ''Literature/FaerieTale'', where the good elves are dangerous and the evil ones are planning a [[KillAllHumans genocidal war]]. When an ordinary family accidentally move to a home with an elf hill on the property things go rapidly downhill.
315* ''Literature/FairestOfAll'': Siofra and Mahon were both kidnapped by fairies. They're held as captives and also made their concubines, in both cases unable to leave while treated cruelly. Here fairies are human sized but visibly inhuman, and have birdlike attributes such as talons or wings.
316* In ''Literature/TheFalconer'' the protagonist hunts faeries, because they killed her mother. ItsPersonal.
317* Invoked in Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "The Sins of Prince Saradine":
318-->''"By Jove!" said Flambeau, "it's like being in fairyland."\
319Father Brown sat bolt upright in the boat and crossed himself. His movement was so abrupt that his friend asked him, with a mild stare, what was the matter.\
320"The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads," answered the priest, "knew more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in fairyland."\
321"Oh, bosh!" said Flambeau. "Only nice things could happen under such an innocent moon. I am for pushing on now and seeing what does really come. We may die and rot before we ever see again such a moon or such a mood."\
322"All right," said Father Brown. "I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous."''
323* In the ''Literature/FeverSeries'' by Karen Marie Moning the Fae are definitely not cute or charming. At all.
324* In ''Literature/TheFolkKeeper'', they are known simply as the Folk. They live underground and can cause crops to wither and animals to fall ill if not placated with offerings of food. They are repelled by cold iron, sea salt, and holy symbols.
325* Holly Black’s ''Literature/TheFolkOfTheAir'' plays straight but then later deconstructs this trope. The Folk fit general myths about the fae and are depicted as chaotic, cruel, and willing to prey on the weak. The trope is later deconstructed as the book explores the backstories in faerieland for humans and faeries alike. The book implies that it is the faerie culture, rather than something unique to their species, that perpetuates typical fae behavior. For example, the main character, while human, grew up in faerieland and is indistinguishable from fae personality-wise; she’s ruthless, fickle, dishonest, and willing to trick to get ahead. The backstories of faerie teenagers like Cardan and Locke further deconstruct this trope. In the ''QueenOfNothing'' prologue, it mentions there’s a cultural belief that faerie children don’t need to be loved and cared for. However, it is clear that the emotional and physical neglect was severely damaging to Cardan. He acted fickle and impulsive because no adult was around to reign in his behavior, and he acted out as a means to get the attention he was so severely lacking. The culture has a very Might Makes Right attitude, and as he aged he continued to act uncaring, because vulnerability is exploited in their culture. It’s easy to see from this micro-case that their culture produces emotionally unavailable adults who pass this culture on to their children.
326** The fae kidnap humans and use them as enchanted servants. This is because their culture requires human labor to function, but the humans are only kept for a very short time and are paid for their work.
327* The AlternateUniverse version of Tir Gwyngelli in Creator/TeresaEdgerton's ''Literature/TheGrailAndTheRing'' is {{Fairyland}} -- the version of Tir Gwyngelli popular in many travellers' tales.
328* The fey of ''Literature/GreystoneValley'' seem to be comprised of just about every fair folk from real-world mythology.
329* The [[Myth/SlavicMythology Veela]] in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' are all beautiful and alluring creatures whose dancing exerts a form of [[{{Glamour}} mind control]] over the men who watch them. When angered they transform into birdlike, taloned creatures and throw balls of light.
330** The [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]] are described as cunning and ruthless and their sense of morality is different from ours. For example, in the first book when Harry visits the wizard bank, the goblins who run it say that anyone who tries to break into a vault will be sucked inside and trapped. The goblin smiles and says that they only check the vaults for would be thieves every few years.
331** As for actual fairies in this series, it's averted: in this setting, while they look like tiny winged humanoids and use a form of (very weak) magic, they're only about as intelligent as insects (they metamorphose and lay eggs like insects do) and are treated like household pests. Occasionally, they're even used as decorations (which is a pun on "fairy lights", the British term for Christmas lights).
332** The HP Universe does contain some rather nasty fairy-like creatures, however, in the form of Bowtruckles and Doxies. Bowtruckles live in wand wood trees and tend to gouge people's eyes out if they try to cut wood from them (unless they get offered woodlice or fairy eggs in exchange). Doxies are nicknamed "The Biting Fairy" and are little black pests with two sets of teeth.
333** Pixies are small, winged humanoids, who seem to amuse themselves by causing mischief.
334** Witches and Wizards actually fit the definition quite closely: they're a parallel society of magical beings who live by different laws, and often different morals. As for their treatment of 'muggles' (non-magical humans), even the "nice" wizards treat 'muggles' with, at best, CondescendingCompassion, while others treat them with contempt, and others still treat them as little better than animals, and practically all of them regard 'muggles' with a mix of bewilderment and fear. They specialize in and conceal themselves with enchantments that manipulate the perceptions and alter the memories of those humans they encounter. Their court is under the earth, inaccessible to ordinary people. Reality around their older dwellings can be a bit strange -- Hogwarts, for instance, is an outright EldritchLocation. They whisk away children (magical children, admittedly) off to their world, from which they often never return -- and if they do, it is often very different to how they left. And the nastier examples of their kind toy with, torture, hunt, and kill 'muggles' for fun. Hell, Harry himself even fits as a variation on the changeling myth: an otherworldly child left with a human couple to raise, one they ''know'' isn't human, whom they simultaneously hate and fear, around whom increasingly weird things happen, and then who is eventually claimed by his people from their secret magical land.
335* Although the [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]] are more similar to the Tolkien version, the elves in the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' nonetheless have traits similar to this. Elves are immortal and magical creatures and though they're mostly good guys it's outright stated that they are haughty, arrogant, twist the truth around and are constantly plotting.
336** They're also capable of changing their physical form, and many are described as looking very alien and inhuman.
337** At one point in the saga, Arya also mentions an in-universe false common belief that they kidnap human babies, leaving an evil doppelganger in their place, a belief she's not very pleased about.
338* ''Literature/IntoTheHeartlessWood'': The Gwydden and her daughters are forest witches who murder humans and harvest their souls. [[spoiler:The Gwydden herself used to be a forest nymph before having her soul taken by Elynion.]]
339* Fairy lore plays a part in Tana French's novel ''Literature/InTheWoods''. The mystery of [[spoiler: what happened to Rob and his friends in 1984]] is deliberately left ambiguous, but one valid interpretation is that [[spoiler: the Pooka took the kids]]. In the sequel, ''Literature/TheLikeness'', it's hinted that Whitethorn House [[spoiler: may have been a fairy stronghold and that the family at some point coupled or intermarried with the Fair Folk]]. (It's also possible that this is just nasty local rumor, in part meant to justify the village's ongoing dislike of the family.) Cassie is also spooked by unseen things scuttling around in the fields at night.
340* The elves in ''Literature/TheInvisibleLibrary'' like people to have strong feelings for them -- whether that's love or hate doesn't matter, they will take both. They are considered evil by the librarians, and while some people work together with them, most humans agree that they are dangerous -- which doesn't stop them from going to the parties thrown by the elf ambassador of Liechtenstein. Of course, Lord Silver has no scruples about hypnotizing humans, so not everyone may be there out of their own free will...
341* In Creator/JulieKagawa's ''Literature/TheIronFey'' series, this is the standard characterization of the fey.
342* The Fairy Servants in ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'', particularly "The Gentleman With Thistledown Hair." A footnote in the book explains that there are two faculties in both men and fairies: a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. Men possess a greater share of reason than magic, and the fairies are the exact opposite. Though the term "fairy" is used as a convenient catch-all term, the in-universe appendix states that it is an umbrella term that covers many subspecies; by the same token, fairies refer to all humans as "Christians". The book also describes the three classes of supernatural beings -- angels, demons and fairies -- as being "[[IncorruptiblePurePureness eternally good]]", "[[AlwaysChaoticEvil infernally wicked]]" and "[[WildCard morally suspect]]" in that order.
343* ''Literature/KarlssonOnTheRoof'' is theorized by many readers to be a modernized urban Faerie -- which would go a long way to explain his mischievous JerkAss nature, his VagueAge and his self-centered tendencies towards BlueAndOrangeMorality. By human standards he's an undeniable jerk, but by Fae standards he's actually a pretty decent guy.
344* The Powrie from Nick Perumov's ''Keeper of the Swords'' series, loosely based on the Anglo-Scots faerie-goblins of the same name, are diminutive, bloodlusty, immortal creatures who enjoy killing and eating humans (they didn't retain the infamous red caps of their folkloric counterparts). However, they have a weakness: they worship dragons, and if you luckily have one as a friend, you can control them.
345** The elves from this series also display some traits of the Fair Folk. The Light elves keep those traits under an affable exterior and a charade of friendliness to the local CrystalDragonJesus, the Dark elves are openly uncaring about mortal affairs.
346* Some short stories and ''LiteraturE/TheKingOfElflandsDaughter'' by Creator/LordDunsany (Anglo-Irish, with a heavy emphasis on the Anglo portion) have elves and similar creatures to whom human life is an incomprehensible mystery. Even after living among humans for many years, they never quite get the hang of it.
347* Carrie Vaughn's ''Literature/KittyNorville'' series has a brief appearance by a ''sidhe''. Most of the time he looks like [[spoiler: an evangelist]], but when the main characters work out some kind of "true seeing" charm, he looks more like TheGreys. He had apparently been imprisoning and feeding on the psychic energy of ''vampires and werewolves'', and one reasonably knowledgeable character seemed to think of him as an EldritchAbomination.
348* While the ''Literature/KristinLavransdatter'' trilogy is mostly straight historical fiction, it has a notable episode of MagicalRealism in the first chapter where [[AMinorKidroduction seven-year-old Kristin]] encounters the "elf-maiden" -- a beautiful and terrifying being dressed all in green vines who tempts her with a flower crown.
349* The second ''Literature/KushielsLegacy'' trilogy introduces a human tribe of the {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s Alba and Eire, who are described ''very'' like the Fair Folk: an old people who live in the wild, untamed areas, powerfully magical, and not malicious but adhering to a different moral standard. Some characters fear them and refuse to [[WordPower speak of them]], while others welcome bargaining with them. Their VoluntaryShapeshifting and sympathetic magic play a vital role in the plot.
350* The fey of Maggie Stiefvater's books ''Lament'' and ''Ballad'' are exactly this -- entirely devoid of empathy, governed by rituals and care only about their own pleasure, thinking of humans as little better than playthings. Nuala, being a ''leanan sidhe'' is an exception; she is very close to humankind and is thus capable of human feelings. However, even she has a distinctly cruel and exploitative side... (it goes with the territory considering what type of faerie she is.)
351* The Phanfasms in the ''Literature/LandOfOz'' book ''The Emerald City of Oz'': Sadistic, creepy, illusion-slinging shapeshifters [[spoiler:[[TheStarscream who have every intention of turning on their allies as soon as their mutual enemy is dealt with]]. [[OhMyGods Thank Lurline]] for the [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Fountain of Oblivion]]]].
352%%* The Fain from ''Literature/TheLastDragonChronicles'', though they are ''far'' from the fairies of traditional myth.
353* ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' brings its own take on the subject in ''The Nightmare Stacks.'' Elves are a HumanSubspecies (that is, of the genus ''homo''; further from ''sapiens'' than ''neanderthalensis'') that diverged half a million years ago in an AlternateUniverse. The most notable divergence, aside from the pointy ears, is the way they discovered magic long before they developed speech. They've since developed into a species of sociopathic PlanetLooters of alternate Earths, because while humans are adapted for speech, tool usage, and teamwork, elves are adapted for magic and ''predation''.
354** Traditional elf folklore has a grain of truth to it, but it's been badly misinterpreted, filtered through medieval monks recording word-of-mouth from terrified peasants who barely got a glimpse of their captors. Don't bother with cold iron; it's resistant to a few of their weapons, but nothing else -- they wear full plate armor without problems. They can lie to you just fine, they're only forbidden to lie to superiors by their ''{{geas}}''-controlled society.
355* A particularly bizarre example is John Christopher's ''Little People'', where vacationers in Ireland are plagued by malevolent fairylike creatures who turn out to be the products of Nazi genetic experiments. They're also psychic and have a penchant for kinky sex, because it's that kind of novel.
356* In ''Living Alone'' by Stella Benson fairies are indifferent -- for a reason.
357-->''Fairies are never ill. They have immortal bodies, but no souls. If they see you in pain, they simply think you are flaunting your superiority and your immortal soul in their faces.''
358* Creator/JRRTolkien:
359** In his ''Literature/OnFairyStories'' essay, Tolkien pointed out that the first use of "faerie" in English was to refer to TheCasanova, a human being dressed up to seduce and looking "as [if] he were of Faerie" when he attended church. The Professor goes into considerable detail about the modern view of fluttery little creatures vs. depictions of magical and often impressive, intimidating creatures in ancient folk legends.
360** ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'':
361*** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'':
362*** The Hebrew translation turned Elves into the Fair Folk without actually changing anything in the story. Lacking a real translation for "elf", the older Hebrew versions called them "Shedim" (demons), "Shedonim" (imps or goblins) and "Bene Lilith" (Children of Lilith/Children of The Night Lady). Nothing about their actions or descriptions was really changed, but somehow simply being called "demons" turned all of their beauty, grace, and niceness sinister and creepy. Realizing this, a neologism ''alph'' (from English "elf") was invented to describe Tolkien's elves in Hebrew.
363*** Even if the elves aren't hostile to humans by the time of the Third Age, the opposite belief seems to be pervasive in the human lands, even in Gondor.
364---->'''Eomer:''' ''"Then there is a Lady in the Golden Wood, as old tales tell!' he said. '-Few escape her nets, they say. These are strange days! But if you have her favour, then you also are net-weavers and sorcerers, maybe."''
365*** Elves tend to draw from other stories, making them broadly morally aligned with humanity (you get fewer properly bad ones, but when they ''do'' end up JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, it is ''spectacular''), and not particularly alien... and yet, they have their moments. For one thing, pretty much all of them live either literally under the earth or in magically concealed kingdoms where time passes somewhat strangely (and in the case of Gondolin, they're not about to let you leave). Mostly, their age and differing perception of the world means that they just come off as a bit weird.
366*** ''Literature/TheHobbit'' hints that the woodland elves are somewhat dangerous but they are mostly whimsical and unreliable.
367*** In general, ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' and ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' paint the Woodland Elves in particular as "less wise, more fierce." And those are the relatively domesticated elves of the late 3rd Age - the further back you go, the more mysterious and dangerous the elves are.
368*** ''Literature/TheBookOfLostTales'' has a closer connection to the fair folk, as the first presentation of Melian describes her as a "fay", and the link between Lúthien and hemlocks (a rather poisonous plant associated with witchcraft, for instance in ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'') persists all the way to ''The Lord of the Rings''. In ''Literature/BerenAndLuthien'', the area between Sauron's fortress and Thingol's realm is the battleground for a gigantic WizardDuel between Melian (Thingol's wife) and Sauron. In that place Sauron's evil spells cause part of the nastiness but Melian's spells tend to keep anyone out Thingol doesn't want in his realm, even allies. They appear like Fair Folk because of UnfriendlyFire rather than from pleasure for tormenting mortals.
369*** Even the Noldor, the faction most closely connected to Men and, in some cases, Dwarves, can be decidedly dangerous - the key example being Feanor, an elf whose spirit was so powerful that his mother died after childbirth, was ridiculously brilliant, took minor linguistic shifts as personal attacks, was covetous and jealous in a way that elves usually weren't, creating the Silmarils, being entirely willing to commit genocide to get them back and bind his sons to an oath to do the same (one that is implied to compel them against their own will), and defying the Valar themselves out of pride. His various sons and their allies continue to come off as this to Men, who many of them treat with contempt (though some change their minds at seeing how resilient and brave Men are capable of being).
370*** It's also worth noting that a lot of elves, particularly the Noldor, distinctly resented having their dominion usurped by the Second-Born, the Men. Most of them got over it.
371*** Even during the events of ''The Hobbit'', the part of Mirkwood under the rule of the Elvenking (Thranduil, father of Legolas) is decidedly eerie, and the dwarves keep stumbling into a blurry elven party. The same applies at the start of ''Lord of the Rings'', with Sam explicitly noting that he - and the other Hobbits - has difficulty remembering the fine details of the faerie feast, even though it's one they were invited to.
372*** In ''Literature/BerenAndLuthien'', Thingol comes off like a dangerous Elf, as he tries [[ExactWords to wrangle around the oath of neither caging nor killing Beren:]]
373---->'''And death,' said Thingol, 'thou shouldst taste,''\
374''had I not sworn an oath in haste''\
375''that blade nor chain thy flesh should mar.''\
376''Yet captive bound by never a bar,''\
377''unchained, unfettered, shalt thou be''\
378''in lightless labyrinth endlessly''\
379''that coils about my halls profound''\
380''by magic bewildered and enwound;''\
381''there wandering in hopelessness''\
382''thou shalt learn the power of Elvenesse!''
383*** The "Lingerers" as described in ''[[Literature/TheHistoryOfMiddleEarth Morgoth's Ring]]'', elven spirits are so powerful that their body can't quit hold it and it burns their body away leaving them in a shadowy form. The "Unbodied" are elves that actually died and refused to obey Mandos's summons. Some of these had actually worked for Morgoth. These are the ones to fear while Lingerers are generally nice if strange and unpredictable. These perhaps correspond to the Seelie and the Unseelie.
384** In ''Literature/SmithOfWoottonMajor'', they are hinted at. Smith is protected from them, but aware of their existence in Faerie.
385* ''Literature/LesVoyageursSansSouci'': Although she is not explicitly identified as one, Séraphine Alavolette de Plumauvent ticks most of the boxes. Although she may look human, she is a magical creature who is bonded to elemental and nature forces and has rule over birds. She lives in a distant realm which cannot be reached by mortal means such like flying machines. And she despises humans and steals their kids when angered. Speaking of which, tasting her food is a real bad idea.
386* Creator/JackVance's ''Literature/{{Lyonesse}}'' deals quite a bit in the fairy world. One character is a human who was raised among fairies and is kicked out to return to humanity when he's an adolescent. Fairies tend to be whimsical, mercurial, and occasionally malicious, but they can be helpful as well under the right circumstances.
387* Creator/ArthurMachen went back to the earliest folklore and legends and created a particularly nightmarish version he called the Little People. They appeared in his famous stories "The Shining Pyramid" and ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Impostors The Three Imposters]]''.
388** Machen's ''Literature/TheWhitePeople'' is the [[DirectLineToTheAuthor transcription]] of a [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant young girl's]] diary mentioning the strange advices of [[EvilMentor her nurse]], encounters with "nymphs", mysterious ceremonies and [[CampbellCountry ancient Roman ruins]]. Machen was a huge influence on Creator/HPLovecraft, and books like ''The White People'' can be seen as the bridge between the Fair Folk of old and the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s of the more modern CosmicHorrorStory (which Machen himself more or less originated, with ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'').
389* Creator/TerryBrooks' ''Literature/MagicKingdomOfLandover'' series runs the gamut from the fairies of the mists, who, while more or less benevolent, are also {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, to the fairies who actually live within the Kingdom itself, who in turn range from Willow's mother, a wild, amoral free spirit, to Willow's father, who is sort of lawful goodish with serious {{jerkass}} tendencies, to Willow herself, who is clearly good and benevolent. Oh, and then there's [[BigBad Nightshade]].
390* Dennis L. [=McKiernan=] likes to demonstrate his [[ShownTheirWork knowledge]] of fairy lore in his Mithgar series as well as his Faery series.
391* The ''Literature/MercyThompson'' novels make this very clear in the third book, which features a kelpie that tries to eat Mercy. Plus the Grey Lords who consider killing Mercy for poking into their affairs, and only back off [[spoiler:when they learn that killing Mercy would anger the Marrok and start a war with the werewolves]].
392* The ''Literature/MerryGentry'' books by Laurel K. Hamilton is one of the most comprehensive list of faerie mythologies, in between the sex scenes. Both modernizing and explaining in detail a version of the Seelie and Unseelie courts of the sidhe, which are essentially depicted as elemental beings given flesh, or elves (though the idea of their pointed ears is supposedly only true of mixed breeds). Though in Hamilton's world the Sidhe are the ruling race of faerie, there are plenty of brownies, goblins, pixies, and so on. Despite their names, both courts of faerie are shown as having their good sides and bad... namely that while the Seelie sidhe are much more civilized and friendly, they're completely preoccupied with appearances and willingly embracing pretty lies to cover ugly truths, and while the Unseelie sidhe are more comfortable with flagrant sex and torture, they're also more accepting of people or creatures regardless of looks or species, having an official open-door policy for all of Faerie kind. Overall the world of Faerie is expressed as one that's neither good nor bad, but simply primal, from the slaugh ("The nightmares of Faerie kind") to the sidhe.
393* Holly Black's ''Literature/ModernFaerieTales'' trilogy fits this trope, but sort of inverts the Seelie/Unseelie dynamic. The fairies are as nasty as any monster, but the higher-ups have slightly reversed roles: the Seelie Queen is a [[ManipulativeBastard master of political games]], while the Unseelie Queen is straight with her court. That said, the Seelie fairies won't kill you on sight. These books also use the ''Literature/TamLin'' plotline of a sacrifice every seven years -- the Seelie fairies will just spirit away a talented human, while the Unseelie fairies will murder the first person they can find. Interestingly, the Unseelie court is shown to work to the benefit of humanity: as the sacrifice every seven years binds all unaffiliated fairies in Unseelie territory to the Unseelie Queen's rule, it means she can control the Free fae and stop Kelpies and Redcaps and the like from murdering people on a daily basis just because they feel like it. One Kelpie specifically says "We, who are not the rulers, we must obey those that are. Mortals are a treat for the Gentry, and not for the likes of you and me. Unless, of course, they are willing."
394* The Moorfolk in ''Literature/TheMoorchild'' fit the description to a T. They've an aversion to holy water, Rowan wood, St. John's Wort and other yellow flowers, iron (in the setting, ALL iron is Cold Iron), and salt. They kidnap children and replace them with their injured, elderly, and misbegotten (the protagonist herself is a changeling left in place of a human child for being half-human), they play pranks and steal from mortals constantly, and while life in the Mound is happy and carefree, they have no concept of love, hate, or empathy.
395* In ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'', fairies are rarely trustworthy. Although they cannot lie, they are masters of evasion. They also have a definite sadistic streak and will ally with good or evil depending on where they think their interests are best served.
396-->'''Simon:''' They can't be worse than vampires, and you did all right with them.\
397'''Jace:''' ''All right?'' By which I take it you mean we survived?\
398'''Simon:''' Well...\
399'''Jace:''' Faeries are the offspring of angels and demons, with the beauty of angels and the viciousness of demons. A [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]] might attack you, if you entered its domain, but a faerie could make you dance until you died with your legs ground down into stumps, trick you into going for a midnight swim and drag you screaming underwater until your lungs burst, fill your eyes with faerie dust until you gouged them out at the roots--\
400'''Clary:''' Jace! Shut up. Jesus. That's enough.\
401'''Jace:''' Look, it's easy to outsmart a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] or [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]]. They're no smarter than anyone else, but faeries live for hundreds of years and they're as cunning as snakes. They [[CannotTellALie can't lie]], but they love to engage in creative truth-telling. They'll find out whatever it is you want most in the world and give it to you -- with a sting in the tail of the gift that will make you regret you ever wanted it in the first place. They're not about helping people. More harm disguised as help.
402* Many of the characters in Elizabeth Hand's novel ''Mortal Love'' are implied to be Fair Folk. One of the main characters, Larkin, is even referred to directly as "La Belle Dame Sans Merci".
403* ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'' features one of these as a boon companion for Kvothe in his "present-day" years. However, at the end of the book, [[spoiler: he confronts the Chronicler and tells him they both know the truth about the demons roaming the countryside. There are no such things as demons; just very ''nasty'' fae, although the existence of The Chandrian, who are neither human nor faen and perfectly fit the description of demons within the mythology of the universe shows that Bast is wrong]]. Despite the ominous hints, Bast still clearly cares greatly for Kvothe and seems to have a somewhat compatible sense of right and wrong... his perspective on the world is just very different, and he can be exceedingly selfish. That Bast looks fairly moral to the reader is largely because Bast's selfishness covers his love for Kvothe, so his actions are usually in Kvothe's best interests as well as his own. He shows something of a nastier side in ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear''.
404** Felurian in ''Literature/TheWiseMansFear'' is closer to the FairFolk classic trope. Essentially a leanansidhe or succubus figure, she's a creature of desire, almost like an AnthropomorphicPersonification of seduction. She is described as innocent but caring little for right and wrong; she seduces men who pursue her into Faerie, takes them as lovers, and when she eventually tires of them they die or go insane for wanting to be with her. While sympathetic, something of a mentor figure, and certainly a strange and wondrous being, she is ''very'' dangerous, not out of malice but simply out of being so different.
405** And then there's the Cthaeh, which is omniscient and always tells the truth. Problem is it enjoys telling the truth that will hurt the listener the most (it's omniscient so it already knows all of the listener's reactions to anything it says), and that will cause grand-scale disasters. It's regarded with fear even by other fae -- they sealed it into a tree in Faerie that's guarded night and day by archers who will shoot anybody who gets close enough to talk to it, and even Felurian, in a rare break from her usual childlike demeanor, reacts with genuine sorrow and concern when she hears that [[spoiler:Kvothe]] encountered it.
406* In Creator/JohnConnolly's short story ''The New Daughter,'' a family settle in a house built next to a "fairy fort." The [[SealedEvilInACan hive of fairies imprisoned within]] are [[EyelessFace eyeless monsters]] that attack anyone who sits too close to the roof of their fort; the eldest daughter falls victim to this -- they [[BuriedAlive bury her alive]] and replace her with a changeling, who converts the rest of the family and releases them from the fort.
407* Surprisingly for a kid's book, many of the denizens of the Wildworld in Creator/LJSmith 's ''The Night of the Solstice'' fit this to a T.
408* Creator/GeneWolfe's ''No Planets Strike'' has the Beautiful Ones of the [[RecycledINSPACE planet Sidhe]], who allow unlimited immigration in (supplemented by luring sailors off trading spaceships) but won't allow anyone to leave once there, kill those who try, and horrifically torture those who otherwise run afoul of them.
409* Creator/AndreNorton examples:
410** ''Literature/DreadCompanion''. It's a ScienceFiction novel with interstellar travel and settlements. Nevertheless, the beings who try to lure away the children are clearly The Fair Folk.
411** ''Here Abide Monsters''. A SpeculativeFiction novel including flying saucers. Nevertheless, the people of Avalon -- the AlternateUniverse into which the protagonists stumble via a CoolGate -- are the Fair Folk.
412** In the short story "The Long Night of Waiting", Lizzie's description of the people in the AlternateUniverse in which she and her brother were trapped clearly indicates The Fair Folk, although they seem well-intentioned. "Lizzie" is also the name of one of the girls in Christina Rossetti's ''Literature/GoblinMarket''.
413* In the ''Literature/OctoberDaye'' series, the fair folk vary in how close they are to classic descriptions of the fair folk (some of them able to pass for average humans in most situations). The closer a fairy's heritage is to Oberon, Maeve, and Titania (the progenitors of faerie), or the stronger the differences between strains of mixed magical heritage, the more likely they are to resemble the classical fair folk, as well as certain races such as the Cait Sidhe (which seem like Fair Folk even to the more human-like fair folk). Blind Michael (one of the Firstborn, a son of Oberon) in particular reads like he was lifted straight out of a blender full of three-hundred-year-old fairy legends, and was said to be the inspiration for a number of child-stealing and [[TheWildHunt Wild Hunt]] legends.
414* ''Literature/{{Once}}'' by Creator/JamesHerbert depicts "the ''faerefolkis''" as having left race memories which inspired human folklore. Elemental beings who exist on a higher dimension, their nurture of nature enables Earth to support life. While most are benevolent, the "weak and nasty" ones delight in tormenting humans. Why? [[ForTheEvulz "For fun."]]
415* In ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'', the Faeries appear, led by Morgan Le Fay. While it was an UnbuiltTrope at the time the book was written, the Faeries are much more the alien and malicious type. Although [[ItMakesSenseInContext Robin Hood and Maid Marian]] argue whether they are Faeries or not.
416* In ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', the faerie are ''very'' old supernatural creatures that thrive on complexity in order to stave off the boredom of immortality. Relying heavily upon {{Glamour}}, they play out elaborate tales over the course of centuries, deceiving themselves and others to give the stories that they tell weight, which is reinforced by the threat of death. They're vulnerable to bluntness and crudity-you can't kill them with a well-made cold-iron sword, but an iron pipe will probably do the trick, as bluntness offends them on a fundamental level and leaves them vulnerable, allowing you to penetrate their Glamour defenses. One theory is that they're actually old magicians who have gotten around the CannotTellALie restriction that applies to everything magical in the setting by practicing self-deceit and Glamour-use with such skill that they've convinced ''themselves'' that they're not human and never were.
417* Kiersten White's ''Literature/{{Paranormalcy}}'' plays this trope pretty straight. The Seelie Courts are the 'good' ones and the Unseelie are the 'bad' ones and they are all weak to iron and some extent silver... and get drunk on soft drinks. Neither side can resist a [[IKnowYourTrueName 'Named Command']] but both [[ExactWords twist]] [[LiteralGenie the]] [[JackassGenie words]] [[LoopholeAbuse of]] the command into something they like and don't obey the same laws as humans ([[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking "physical, social, emotional, traffic"]]) and only work towards their own designs. The only difference between the two appears to be that the Unseelie will kill people for no reason, while the Seelie have some sort of [[DisproportionateRetribution justification]]: however neither side appears to have any problem with [[spoiler: creating prophecies that predict the death of tens of paranormals (possible all of them) and creatures (Evie and Vivian) to carry out these prophecies and steal souls JUST TO SEE WHO WINS]]! Don't worry if you have trouble telling the difference between them, Evie thought [[spoiler: her ex-boyfriend Reth]] was Unseelie. It's a very understandable given that [[spoiler: he manipulated her, stalked her, kidnapped her, burnt her arm, stalked her some more, let a serial killer into the IPCA where it killed her best friend, held her new boyfriend hostage so he could get a new name, kidnapped her again]], and then explained, vaguely, what was going on. He thinks the Unseelie are horrible.
418* ''Literature/PeterPan'':
419** Tinker Bell is mischievous and rather possessive of Peter, to the point that she is perfectly willing to casually engineer the death of a perceived rival. Fairies are too small to contain more than one emotion at a time, so when Tinker Bell gets jealous of Wendy, it utterly consumes her being.
420** Peter Pan himself comes off as a sociopath due to being raised by Fairies. He can't remember who Wendy and the boys are from day to day, he'll betray and kill his allies to make battles more entertaining, and he's pretty unsympathetic and selfish.
421* The fairies in ''Poison'' fit this perfectly. The whole plot is set in motion by one of them kidnapping the heroine's sister.
422* The Fairies in Creator/ElizabethBear's ''Literature/ThePrometheanAge'' books are, to a one, murderous, untrustworthy, and prone to double-crossing if not properly bound -- and those are the ''sympathetic'' ones. (Makes sense, as the first book in the series is, among other things, a riff on the "Literature/TamLin" [[Literature/ChildBallads ballad]], and Bear enjoys playing with legends and genre tropes.)
423* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''Literature/ProsperosDaughter'' trilogy, the elves are {{Fallen Angel}}s who didn't fall all the way to Hell. Don't eat their food, don't offer them boons, don't accept gifts, etc. -- though you can cope if you are careful enough.
424* The title character in Creator/RudyardKipling's ''Literature/PuckOfPooksHill'' is more pleasant than most. Still, LaserGuidedAmnesia features. Also, don't call him a "fairy".
425-->''Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors? Butterfly wings, indeed! I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic -- Magic as black as Merlin could make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaids]] in it, and the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one wave to another by the lightning flashes! That was how it was in the old days!''
426* Creator/RALafferty's ''The Reefs of Earth'' gives us the Puca, a composite Fair Folk depicted as part alien colonists, part goblins, and part UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers, with hints of Nephilim and Neanderthal about them as well. The mature Puca in the novel are quite mellow, but their charming and precocious children sincerely want to kill every human on the planet.
427* There are several types of mythical beings in ''Literature/RonjaTheRobbersDaughter'', ranging from "mildly annoying with BlueAndOrangeMorality" to "EldritchAbomination", but the Subterranean Ones who lure people to their underground dwellings with beautiful song are most likely related to the Fair Folk.
428* In Julian May's ''Literature/SagaOfTheExiles'' novels, mavericks who don't fit into the galactic utopia of the future are quietly allowed to use a one-way time gate to the Pliocene if they want to opt out. Unfortunately Pliocene Earth is already occupied by the psychic Duat aliens, whose Tanu and Firvulag subraces bear a startling resemblance to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and who fled from a utopia of their own so that they could continue their traditions of chivalry and romantic honour by waging an insanely bloodthirsty religious war against each other. The Tanu (seelie) accept psychic humans with the right attitude as their social equals and use mind control to enslave the rest as labourers, breeding stock, or expendable soldiers, while the Firvulag (unseelie) see the Tanu-human partnership as an almost blasphemous break with tradition and want to slaughter all the exiled humans so that their endless war with the Tanu can be fought "cleanly" and with honour. Not exactly nice fairies -- and despite appearances, it's by no means clear that the Tanu are any better than the Firvulag.
429** What makes it even worse is that they're at least partially the direct ancestors of humanity. And the ostensibly "human" [[spoiler:Mercy-Rosmar]], due to the high quota of Tanu genes, is a thorough ball-busting bitch.
430* ''[[Literature/TheSeaOfTrolls The Land of the Silver Apples]]'' by Nancy Farmer. The elves kidnap toddlers, put them on leashes, and when they get tired of them, leave them for the wolves to eat.
431* Creator/MercedesLackey's ''[=SERRAted=] Edge'' series, and a whole host of other related works, are set in a world where the Seleighe and Unseleighe Sidhe are very real, both dwelling "Underhill", a sort of parallel dimension that is imbued with magic and touches on our world at "Nodes." They were driven there by the increasing preponderance of iron (which is hazardous to them) in the world, but some have adjusted and made a comeback.
432** Iron also causes their magic to go awry, sometimes shooting off in oh-dear-I-MEANT-straight-not-LEFT directions, although both they and their human allies have analyzed the whys of this effect and come up with clever ways to exploit it. To give some idea of just ''how'' thoroughly some have adjusted, the ''[=SERRAted Edge=]'' series itself is about a bunch of elves who drive race cars made of non-ferrous materials like aluminum and fiberglass.
433** These books ''very'' strongly feature the Seleighe/Unseleighe ("good"/"evil") divide among the Fairie. The Unseleighe make a living off evil, feeding off the psychic energy of pain and suffering. They also hold grudges millennia past their expiration dates and believe in returning all ills sevenfold.
434** The Seleighe have a huge soft-spot for children (explained by their own very small birth rate), and many books feature their efforts to protect abused kids, often by kidnapping them from desperate situations to raise as their own Underhill. For all their good qualities, though, even the Seleighe are often portrayed as supercilious, arrogant, and given to pettiness.
435** She also gives an interesting twist to why Sidhe lifestyles are so extravagant and decadent; they are completely incapable of ''creating'' anything of their own, instead having to "ken" or copy what they see and assimilate it into their own culture, likely using what they steal to amuse themselves and build an illusion of a glamorous life. [[DoNotTauntCthulhu Don't point out from where they stole their Hammer Horror-style castle throne room design from, though;]] they get a touch sensitive about being reminded of their [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil attempted creative infringement]].
436** Lackey also touched on this trope in an episode from ''Literature/TheLarkAndTheWren'', where Rune has to rescue her Bardic Master/love interest from an Elven king. She succeeds (luckily Elves are vulnerable to music) and forces the king to promise not to come after them or use magic or weapons against them. Sadly Rune isn't quite savvy enough; the enraged king ends up sending a huge-ass thunderstorm (weather being [[LiteralGenie neither magical nor strictly a weapon]]) after them.
437* Juliet Marillier's ''Literature/TheSevenwatersTrilogy'' features Fair Folk based on the ancient legends, and far from cuddly.
438* Goblins are one of Creator/CliffordSimak's {{Creator Thumbprint}}s. They may be from parallel dimensions, they may be creatures of magic, they may be alien colonists. They may enter our folklore if we contacted them in the past. The only thing that's sure is that they are just alien. And we shouldn't really try to understand them, we can't.
439* They featured heavily in ChivalricRomance. Such as ''Sir Orfeo'', which starts with the king of Fairy kidnapping Orfeo's wife -- although when Orfeo gets a promise out of him, he does [[IGaveMyWord keep it]]. They are particularly likely in the earlier ones. Such as Morgan Le Fay (Le Fay = the Fairy), who really was one of the Fair Folk in the oldest romances. The Lady Of the Lake was also a fairy who mutated into an enchantress. Still, they never quite left; the late romance ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight'' features the Green Knight who is overtly one of the Fair Folk.
440** In ''Sir Orfeo'', the fairy king takes people at the moment of their death -- or possibly after, there was a folkloric tradition of fairies being ghosts -- and keeps them in his kingdom as they were then:
441--->''Then he began to gaze about\
442and saw within the walls a rout\
443of folk that were thither drawn below\
444and mourned as dead, but were not so.\
445For some there stood who had no head,\
446and some no arms, nor feet; some bled\
447and through their bodies wounds were set\
448and some were strangled as they ate,\
449and some lay raving, chained and bound,\
450and some in water had been drowned;\
451and some were withered in the fire,\
452and some on horse, in war's attire,\
453and wives there lay in their childbed...''
454** The fairy mistress was a natural for CourtlyLove, with her magical ability to come and go secretly, and her magical taboos, which played nicely into the spirit of obeying one's lady no matter how capricious she was and how arbitrary her commands were. In some tales, such as ''Parthenope de Blois'', her fairy origin is only hinted but makes the events of the story clear.
455* In Ray Bradbury's ''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes'' the exact nature of the 'autumn people' is never confirmed but their connection with the seasons and their tendency to replenish their ranks with kidnapped humans strongly suggests the Fair Folk at work.
456* The Others in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' are a cross between elves, vampires and ice elementals who do far more than merely dabble in snow-sculpture and necromancy; occasionally at the same time (artistically and strategically posed, popsicled and probably still fairly active victims counts). Their very first appearance in the story itself has them toying with, then killing a guy who really can't harm them and laughing at it, then raising him as a wight. The story of the Night's King furthers this. He allegedly chased a woman "with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars" and when he gave her his seed he gave her his soul as well. After this he performed human sacrifice while ruling the Nightfort. It took an alliance between [[EnemyMine the Starks in Winterfell and the King-Beyond-the-Wall]] to bring them down.
457** The Children of the Forest are a diminutive, woodland folk with great power over animals, plants (especially weirwood trees), water, stone and memory -- at a cost, BloodMagic-style. Although they actively warred with mankind over a long period of history, they eventually made peace before they gradually dwindled away as human civilization swept through the continent in waves, but, their dwindling is also said to be directly linked to the literally earth-shattering feats they pulled using sacrifices, before having to stop to make the almost-forgotten pacts with the First Men. They certainly aren't the Others' brand of bad to know, but they aren't necessarily ''nice'', either.
458* Creator/CharlaineHarris in her ''Literature/TheSookieStackhouseMysteries'' series would have it both ways with Claudine and Claude. The former aspires to be an angel and tries to do good whilst the latter is amoral at best but both chose to live among humans. Then there is Niall Brigant, [[spoiler:the grandfather to the two and Sookie Stackhouse's great-grandfather]], a fairy prince who has a benign but distant regard for humanity yet sees the benefits of tapping into human industries. Others of their kind have a distinct hatred for humanity and all that it represents. This tension over human contact [[spoiler: and interbreeding leads to a civil war and some use mankind as its fodder]].
459** The fairies that [[spoiler:drowned Sookie's parents]] and later [[spoiler:kidnapped and tortured Sookie by cutting her up and biting off chunks of her flesh. Yeesh.]]
460* ''Literature/TheSpiderwickChronicles'' (by Holly Black and Tony [=DiTerlizzi=]) feature a number of fae creatures, along with the ways to deal with them and/or protect oneself from them. Spiderwick's daughter, in her unknowing youth, accepted food from the fae [[spoiler: and as a result has no desire to eat human food... she would starve to death if the tiny faeries didn't bring her food regularly]].
461* The [[OurElvesAreDifferent Staryk]] in ''Literature/SpinningSilver'' are old and unknowable supernatural beings who cannot lie, [[DebtDetester hate to be in debt]], steal gold and ruthlessly kill anyone who steals from them while raiding with impunity, and they ascribe to a rigid BlueAndOrangeMorality that mortals have a difficult time comprehending while they themselves are baffled by everyday mortal concepts like ''thanks''.
462* ''The Stolen Child'' is founded in the myth of the changeling found in European folklore (wherein the Fair Folk/fairies/hobgoblins/sidhe steal a human child and replace it with one of their own). The fairies/hobgoblins of ''The Stolen Child'' are not evil, per se (similar to how they are portrayed in Yeats' poem), but they are wild and uncivilized creatures, given to theft, vandalism, all manner of mischief, and stealing human children.
463* [[spoiler:The fairies of Hy Brasil]] in "Literature/TheStonesAreHatching". [[spoiler: they use their moving island to observe humans, preparing to invade England and [[MarsNeedsWomen steal all the human women for wives]], kill Uncle Murdo with arrows, and are eventually killed by being immersed in seawater, which dissolves them.]]
464* The third book in Kate Thompson's ''Literature/{{Switchers}}'' series, ''Wild Blood'', features fairies like these. As the series was intended for children, the fairies aren't ''too'' malicious, but there are threats of violence towards the main characters (also children).
465* The fey of Perpetua in ''Literature/TalesFromNetheredge'' are pale, slender, sweet-voiced humanoid beings who have immense capacity for magic (which is powered by [[SexMagic sex and/or cruelty]]), scorn humans (who in turn are afraid of the fey), and are vulnerable to [[ColdIron iron]].
466* The Fair Folk in Tom Deitz's ''Tales of David Sullivan'' are completely unable to comprehend human morality. They have a very strict code of honor, and show signs of honest affection for others, but they are truly immortal -- if they are killed, they simply come back. They fight wars out of sheer boredom. This leaves them without any understanding of human death, and thus extremely careless of consequences. They also have very little sense of human social mores: to start with, one of the secondary characters has sex with a selkie, both in humanoid forms and in seal forms. They are very clearly the old gods of Ireland, with all the capriciousness one would expect from having read any Irish {{mythology}} at all.
467* In ''Literature/TalesOfMU'', elves historically fell into this trope and some wild adolescent elves still live there. Faeries exist, too, and are the only thing that badass elven hunter is afraid of (apart from {{bears|AreBadNews}}).
468* Unsurprisingly, Fairies tend to be pretty unsympathetic in modern day versions of "Literature/TamLin", such as Creator/PamelaDean's ''Tam Lin'' and Creator/DianaWynneJones's ''Literature/FireAndHemlock''. In Dean's version, the Fairies are described as absolutely alien: "like linear A. They look as if they ought to mean something, but you can't tell what it is."
469* The Seelie and Unseelie appear in ''Literature/TerraMirumChronicles''. Dreams have traits similar to this, but Fae are a separate race from Dreams, and the political situation between them is volatile.
470* David Brin's ''Those Eyes'' has faeries as 'aliens' who do traditional mischievous faerie and cow-mutilating alien things [[spoiler: Who are being driven to extinction by humans being more skeptical, seeing through their glamour]].
471* The Wild, from ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle''. They live in the woods, wield pretty powerful magic, and have among them everything from talking animals and demons to trolls and faries. Their morality is also very different from that of humans.
472* In Creator/RuthFrancesLong's ''Literature/TheTreacheryOfBeautifulThings'', the Fair Folk took Tom. Seven years later, they take Jenny as well.
473* ''Literature/TheWanderingInn'': The annoying little vicious faeries hate Cold Iron and go as far as calling an avalanche to punish whoever dares to show them disrespect.
474* Emma Bull's ''Literature/WarForTheOaks'' has the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. The Seelies are, at the least, tolerant of humans, and usually kind and friendly -- as the Fae would define it (The Pouka, who is more familiar with humans than most, does say they have been "unkind" to mortals in the past). They're even capable of falling in love with humans as humans would recognize love. The Unseelies are malicious and nasty, and think nothing of twisting a mere mortal to their ends.
475* The ''Literature/WarlockOfGramarye'' series by Christopher Stasheff has Fairies who are shaped from Gramarye's native fungus by the unconscious telepathy of the human inhabitants, more-or-less based directly on Medieval English fairly tales and Shakespeare, and Puck and the HalfHumanHybrid Brom, allies of the protagonist, can show a ''very'' dark side at times. The first meetings each had with Rod [[DefeatMeansFriendship nearly cost him his life]]. The other Wee Folk only help out on occasion because [[spoiler:Gwen and her kids have Fairy blood]]. They also have an inconsistent relationship with iron.
476** The Wee Folk of Gramarye also have to be placated; everyone who leaves out milk at night and avoids putting Cold Iron outside their house will be left alone. Those who don't... well, they go through a lot of milk on Gramarye.
477* The Aelfinn & Eelfinn (Snakes & Foxes) of ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' are very much the (unnamed as such) Fair Folk, complete with otherworldliness and Seelie & Unseelie division. They are also weak to iron.
478* In the ''Literature/WickedLovely'' series, the main plot of the first book has the main character dealing with being caught in between two faeries and in the other books almost all of the main characters are Fey. They fit very much within this trope. Even the ones that are rather nice don't tend to understand human emotions, some of them are downright cruel, and many have a BlueAndOrangeMorality going.
479* In Creator/EDBaker's ''Literature/TheWideAwakePrincess'', the fairies are little and fluttery but still try to force the exhausted Annie to dance all night with them.
480* ''Literature/WildRobin'' plays this trope straight and then subverts it. The eponymous Robin runs away from home, falls asleep in a FairyRing, and is taken to the LandOfFaerie. He enjoys it for a while, then becomes homesick, and one particular fairy teases him. Then [[spoiler:the fairy sees Robin's older sister crying, missing him, feels remorse and tells her the secret way to break the spell and free Robin. She does]]. Also, that irregular passage of time thing doesn't happen in this book.
481* Creator/TadWilliams seems to like this one, as he uses variants on it in several of his works:
482** In ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'', you have the Sithi (benevolent, but still alien and unpredictable and with little love for humans) and the Norns (their arctic, AlwaysChaoticEvil cousins). Physically, they resemble eerily beautiful and graceful humans with SupernaturalGoldEyes and [[MysticalWhiteHair white]] hair, but Sithi have golden skin and dye their hair various bright colors, while the Norns have chalk white skin and leave their hair its natural color.
483** In ''Literature/TheWarOfTheFlowers'', "fairy" can be used to describe any intelligent inhabitant of the MagicalLand the protagonist gets stuck in, but specifically refers to the humanoid aristocracy, who are ([[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch almost]]) always [[AristocratsAreEvil evil]].
484** Largely subverted in ''Literature/{{Shadowmarch}}''; the Qar (fairy) races are alien and hostile to humans, but on the whole are no more or less prone to evil than mortals, and the real villains are the mortal EvilOverlord [[spoiler: and the {{trickster god}} who's manipulating him]]. [[LadyOfWar Lady]] [[DarkActionGirl Yasammez]], the most overtly menacing and hostile of the Qar, actually [[spoiler: ends up making a HeroicSacrifice]].
485* In the MonsterMash neo-noir ''Literature/WolfmanConfidential'', the Sidhe and to a lesser extent the goblins and possibly doppelgangers are also like the fey. They have a weakness to cold iron and weird magical abilities.
486* It's a RiddleForTheAges what exactly is up with the [[NoNameGiven mysterious girl]] in Elizabeth Hand's ''Literature/WyldingHall'', but since she's an ethereally beautiful inhuman with mysterious motivations, ill-defined supernatural powers, an association with ancient burial mounds and other [[CampbellCountry rural British]] {{Eldritch Location}}s, and an affinity for music, "''La Belle Dame Sans Merci''-style fairy" is as good a guess as any.
487* Creator/RobertEHoward wrote several stories, the best known of which is the Literature/BranMakMorn story "Worms of the Earth", featuring a race that lived in Britain before first the Picts, then the Celts, drove them underground where they mutated from their already unpleasant original selves into reptilian abominations.
488[[/folder]]
489
490[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
491* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Both the Children of the Forest and the White Walkers live beyond the Wall and have been there since the Long Night, though no one is really aware of this below the Wall. The White Walkers are malevolent magical creatures who take human children offered to them, reminiscent of changelings. As far as the Walkers are concerned, they weren't always like this. The first White Walker was a human that the Children performed some sort of ritual on to turn him into the Night's King, making them WasOnceAMan humanoid abominations in addition to this. The Children of the Forest are mysterious, magical, forest-dwelling creatures who have long contested with humans and have been fading as TheMagicGoesAway.
492* ''Series/TheHauntingHour'' featured the Fair Folk in some of their episodes. Specific examples include:
493** "Intruders": A fairy named Lyria explains to a girl named Eve that Eve is a [[ChangelingTale changeling]] and invites her to rejoin their world. Eve enjoys her new friend and powers at first, until Lyria demands Eve let her kidnap Eve's little brother...
494--->'''Eve:''' What will happen to him?\
495'''Lyria:''' You don't want to know.
496** It's also heavily implied that, while the fairies may look like beautiful [[WingedHumanoid winged humanoids]], they can assume a more monstrous form. All we see of this, however, are [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]] glaring at Eve from the forest.
497** "Red Eye": A girl named Georgia discovers that the Alp, a creature that can inhabit small objects, has been following her dad around on his business trip through Europe, appearing in all the photos he's sent her. "Alp" is actually a variation of "elf," and the creature takes the form of a [[RedEyesTakeWarning red-eyed]], shadowy demon.
498** "Lotsa Luck": Greg, an Irish-American teen, makes a deal with Seamus the leprechaun in order to end his string of bad luck. Greg soon learns that, after exhausting all three of his wishes, the leprechaun will [[YourSoulIsMine take his soul]], and has to find a way to break their contract.
499* ''Series/LostGirl'': Every supernatural creature is effectively fae. This includes vampires, kappa, succubi, and lots of other nasty things (thought DarkIsNotEvil is in effect for some of the characters). The ruling bodies of the Fae are effectively the Seelie and Unseelie Courts (here referred to as "Light" and "Dark"), and both courts view humans as a handy tool for their plans and ascribe to rather dated notions of justice (such as CombatByChampion).
500* In ''Series/TheMagicians2016'', the fairies live in another dimension of Fillory, and can only be seen by those who have made a deal with them. Fairies are all very pale, fair haired and eyebrowless with BlackEyesOfEvil, although they tend to operate more on BlueAndOrangeMorality.
501* Queen Mab, the Lady of the Lake and Frik in ''Series/Merlin1998''. Mab is the BigBad of the story, and is depicted as a sociopath who means well, but cannot comprehend the consequences of her actions. The Lady is on Merlin's side, but she is fickle and unpredictable, and on a whim gives Merlin an impression that Mab killed his mother (she only arrived just after she had died of childbirth). Frik simply does whatever he finds most amusing, when he isn't bossed around by Mab -- [[spoiler:until he gets turned into a mortal, anyway]].
502* The Sidhe in ''Series/Merlin2008'' transformed two of their own into mortals as a punishment. They require the death of a mortal prince before they'll change ''one'' of them back... and that was the one who hadn't technically done anything. She seems to have only been transformed because of her father's crime. The Sidhe reappear in Series 3: [[spoiler:They possess a baby princess then wait around till she grows up and they can manipulate things so she'll marry Arthur. The implication is that at some point Princess Elena will be completely consumed by the Sidhe.]]
503* Plenty of Fairies exist in ''Series/OnceUponATime''. They use Fairy Dust as a catalyst for 'good magic' and seem to be incapable of doing anything remotely negative, though there are variations of Fairy Dust. Pixie Dust, described as a nuclear form of the regular stuff, and Dark Fairy Dust, which seems to just turn the target into an insect. [[spoiler: After the Dark Curse is cast, the Order of Fairies are now a nunnery in Storybrooke.]] In the mid-season finale of the third season, we hear of a character known as The Black Fairy, a fairy who was banished years ago for practicing dark magic. [[spoiler: When she finally appears in Season Six, she manages to [[ParentalAbandonment abandon her own child]], [[InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers steal her own infant grandson]] to raise him away from his parents in a dark dimension where time works differently, turn him into an evil sorcerer, and hospitalize The Blue Fairy, leader of Storybrooke's good fairies. And all of that ''within two episodes'', with only three characters knowing she's even around. Uh oh.]]
504* While he's technically a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien, Q from ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fits this trope to a T. Delights in making a mess of mortal lives? Check. Took a shine to humans (or, specifically, Picard) as a human loves a pet? Check. Comes from a society of "magical" entities that would seem amoral to human standards? Huge check.
505* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
506** In the episode "[[Recap/SupernaturalS06E09ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Clap Your Hands If You Believe...]]", fairies are initially mistaken for aliens due to their penchant for abducting people using bright lights and leaving behind CropCircles. Some of them actually encourage this.
507** There's also the Changelings from the episode "[[Recap/SupernaturalS03E02TheKidsAreAlright The Kids Are Alright]]". They kidnap children and take their form so they can [[VampiricDraining drain the life]] from the mother.
508* The Fairies from the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E5SmallWorlds Small Worlds]]", who would think nothing of drowning the world beneath a flood to get their hands on ''one'' little girl. Similar to Yeats' fairies, they are AmbiguouslyEvil; in this case, due to BlueAndOrangeMorality. They seem to think they are doing Jasmine a favour (since it's implied she's unhappy in her present life).
509* Some of the wizards in ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' come off this way.
510[[/folder]]
511
512[[folder:Music]]
513* Music/EmilieAutumn's story included in the re-release of her first album, Enchant, is about one of the fair folk falling in love with a human. And the resulting mess. Autumn labeled it as "fantasy rock", which dealt with "dreams and stories and ghosts and faeries who'll bite your head off if you dare to touch them".
514* Music/HeatherDale:
515** Heather Dale's song "Changeling Child" is all about this. The song tells the story of a woman who yearned to be a mother, and to that end spent a whole night bartering with the local faerie queen, who eventually relented and gave her a child. However, the woman failed to realize that the faeries are very fond of ExactWords: the mother-to-be didn't specify that she wanted a child who was ''alive'', and when she realizes her mistake, she is unable to reach out to the fae, as the latter kept their end of the deal. The story ends saying she kept the child (whether it was a corpse or a piece of wood is never elaborated upon), holding it until she died.
516** "The Fair Folk" is about fairies and how you shouldn't get them because they'll steal your soul.
517* Music/InkubusSukkubus' song "Away With the Faeries", and potentially a good deal of their other songs as well.
518* The Fall's "Elves", although [[InnerMonologue it's all]] [[WordSaladLyrics very hard to follow...]]
519* Three Weird Sisters' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zv_gNtnj9E ''Song of Fey Cross'']] portrays a typical Gaelic style faerie mound legend.
520* Music/{{Current 93}}, in addition to their version of "Literature/TamLin", have a number of songs about this theme, with "Oh Coal Black Smith" (actually based on a Renaissance-era poem) bringing home the gold for being pure fearsomeness.
521* Music/MegDavis' song ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwUPEw2rslg Elf Glade]]'' is about a young man who doesn't believe in Elves being regaled of tales of the Fey Folk and lured out into the darkness "beyond the fire light" by a young woman who, it turns out, is one of the fey. To say she is peeved about his initial disbelief is an understatement, and while the young man's fate is left unspecified, it seems things will not turn out well for him. The last words of the final verse, before the chorus, are:
522--> Now we keep you, never leaving\
523Trade your life for not believing!
524* Music/TheDecemberists' The Hazards of Love, loosely inspired by the Literature/TamLin legend.
525* Music/ThePogues ''Sit Down by The Fire''
526--> And if you ever see them\
527pretend that you're dead\
528Or they'll bite off your head\
529They'll rip out your liver\
530And dance on your neck\
531They dance on your head\
532They dance on your chest\
533And they give you the cramp\
534And the cholic for jest
535* ''Music/QueenOfTheWave'' by Music/PepeDeluxe. In "A Night and a Day", describing the villain Mainin's StartOfDarkness, the fair folk are mentioned off-hand as one of the sources of forbidden knowledge who corrupted him.
536-->The hole where the fairies said their word\
537a perverse thing to follow
538* Folk-rockers Music/SteeleyeSpan preserve a few old British Isles folk-ballads about the Gentry (touches iron). Typical ones include:
539** ''Seven Hundred Elves'' descend on a lonely farmer's house with the intent of causing chaos and running him off their land.
540** ''Thomas The Rhymer'', a setting of an old lowland Scottish song, has Thomas abducted into the Elf-World to serve the Queen of the Elves as bard.
541** ''Long Lankin'' is from the old war-torn Border country, concerns a killer who is in it ForTheEvulz, and inspired Creator/TerryPratchett to name one of his psychotic Elves after the title character.
542* The Music/{{Horslips}} were an Irish rock-folk band who also used traditional themes concerning the Sidhe. The penultimate track on their ''Book of Invasions'' album, called ''Sideways to the Sun'', deals with the older people sadly withdrawing themselves from Ireland as they cannot compete with the changing ways of Men and the advent of hostile Christianity.
543* The faeries in ''Stolen Child'' by Music/LoreenaMcKennitt, like in the Yeats poem from which it takes its name, think they are doing the child a favor by kidnapping him, because "The world's more full of weeping, then you can understand."
544* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLfCq1fu6bY Der verzauberte Wald]] by Shei is about a woman who wanders into the magical forest at night, despite the warnings. Turns out everything people said about that forest was true.
545* In "Faerie Queen" by Music/HeatherAlexander a woman is riding through the forest one night when she comes across a group of fairies dancing. The queen had just come back from a hunt but, it turns out, her prey was the woman' s soon-to-be husband. The woman tries to get her husband back by beating the fairy queen at playing the fiddle. She ends up winning through ThePowerOfLove:
546-->''I raised by hand, my hands like lead, my heart ablaze once more''\
547''The faerie queen looked down on me, shaken to the core''\
548''"I've played for many centuries yet, by the stars above,''\
549''You've taught me skill is not enough; it can't compare to love"''
550** [[Music/AlexanderJamesAdams His]] later song, ''He of the Sidhe'' uses the same melody and similar fiddle solos, but the plot has been changed to a changeling boy earning his freedom from the Faerie Queen via another fiddle contest, and the Queen subsequently giving up on those kinds of challenges, seeing as she's lost twice, now.
551* Music/JethroTull's song "Mayhem, Maybe" is sung from the perspective of one of a gang of mischievous elves, recounting their adventures tormenting human villagers and a few wild animals. Another song of theirs, "Kelpie", is sung from the perspective of a dangerous water fey, looking for his next victim.
552* Music/SpiceGirl's video of "Viva Forever" has them represented as (stop-motion) fairies and abducing a kid to their realm.
553[[/folder]]
554
555[[folder:Poetry]]
556* Creator/JohnKeats' ''Literature/LaBelleDameSansMerci''.
557* Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's ''[[Literature/TheErlKing Erlkönig]]'', along a very similar theme to the above. In this poem the "Erl-King" is a Faerie creature who wants a boy he finds pretty to come with him, but when the boy refuses, he seizes the boy's soul by force, killing him (though an alternative interpretation [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane holds that the ill boy was feverishly hallucinating]]). The name ''Erlkönig'' is often anglicized as Erl-King or Alder-King, but it is ultimately a corruption of the Danish ''ellerkonge'', which in fact means Elf-King.
558* A topical complement (and historically the inspiration) to ''Erlkönig'' is ''Erlkönig's Daughter'' (alternately titled ''Herr Oluf''), another German ballad inspired by Danish folklore, by Goethe's contemporary Johann Herder. A young bridegroom is riding around to invite the guests for his wedding the other day, when he meets the elves. The Elf-Queen asks him to dance with her. When he adamantly refuses, she curses him with a sickness. Next morning, [[DisproportionateRetribution he's dead.]]
559* On the surface William Allingham's "The Fairies" ''appears'' to portray them as endearing:
560-->''Up the airy mountain,\
561Down the rushy glen,\
562We daren't go a-hunting\
563For fear of little men.''
564:: However he then emphasizes that they're anything but, abducting a little girl for seven years who then [[DeathByDespair dies of sorrow]], and putting thorns in humans' beds to punish them for interfering with their trees.
565* Creator/NeilGaiman's "The Fairy Reel" is about a man with whom a fairy girl has fallen in love. She's so in love with him that she decides to steal his heart. Later she gets bored with it, and uses it to string a violin.
566* Creator/ChristinaRossetti's poem, "Literature/GoblinMarket", is about a girl who starves herself after giving in to temptation and eating fairy food.
567* ''The Stolen Child'', by Creator/WilliamButlerYeats, is about a child lead away by the fairies. The fairies here are AmbiguouslyEvil; while they believe they are doing the child a favor, as it's implied that he's unhappy (although he might just be overwhelmed by the misery around him), they show no sign of telling his parents or family that he's alright.
568-->''Come away O' human child,\
569To the waters and the wild,\
570With a Faery hand in hand,\
571For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.''
572* In "Literature/TamLin", Tam Lin is spirited away by the Queen of Elphame [Elfhome]. He enjoys his stay there, but learns that every seventh year, the elves have to pay a "tithe [tax] to Hell". Fearing he himself will be the tithe, he flees. The Queen denies that she would have offered Tam Lin, but that still seems to imply the elves regularly sacrifice one of their own to the Devil.
573[[/folder]]
574
575[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
576* Wrestling/MsChif is sometimes described as "demonic", [[PartsUnknown the inferno]] listed among her places of residence, but as she has a banshee [[TheGimmick gimmick]], she's really this trope.
577[[/folder]]
578
579[[folder:Radio]]
580* In one ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio drama, Jamie has been giving it some thought, and has decided that the Doctor must be one of the FairFolk. (Ironic, as he's actually an alien.)
581* ''Radio/{{Pilgrim}}'' is about a human (or "hotblood") who has been cursed into becoming TheAgeless by the King of the Grey Folk or Fairie for vocally denying their existence. Many episodes involve Pilgrim helping humans who have been dragged willingly or unwillingly into a Fair Folk squabble.
582* The titular magical beings from ''Podcast/TheHiddenPeople'' are this, vicious and cruel and taking pleasure in kidnapping and exploiting human children.
583[[/folder]]
584
585[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
586* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': The Oath of Hermes, the pledge all mages must take if they wish to join the Order of Hermes (and not get hunted down by said order for practicing unapproved magic), contains a specific phrase: "I shall not molest the Fae." Understand, this is in ''Ars Magica'', which isn't exactly lacking in all sorts of nifty demons, monsters, and crazy magic-users to make life more exciting. No, it's the Fair Folk that get singled out: all those other monsters will kill you, or even torment you, but the Fae like to get ''creative'' and play with you first.
587** Although the Code does specifically prohibit dealings with the Infernal, it's usually because there's just no way to win against Demons and that kind of thing breeds diabolism (and ends up being what got House Tytalus in trouble), but they tell you ''do not molest the Fae'' because although they ''can'' be dealt with fairly and can even have good relationships with other denizens of Mythic Europe (as House Merinita can attest), ''they do not forget being slighted, ever'', and they ''will'' carry grudges, and they have ''very'' creative ways of expressing them. The (usually high-point-value) Flaw "Faerie Enmity" can be taken without actually providing a specific reason: your ''great-great-grandfather'' you never even met might've offended some faerie at some point and that's the only reason they need.
588** It's specifically noted that the Fae are incapable of true evil, being soulless and untouched by original sin; they find the thought of genuine malice alien and horrible. Rather, their caprices are the result of BlueAndOrangeMorality, since their culture is a badly warped imitation of humanity at best and completely alien at worst. One gamebook has a villager mention killing a hideous changeling that had been left in place of one of the women's babies, at which time an old crone lurking in the shadows mutters in disgust that they would have traded the brat back if they'd known the mother was unhappy with the bargain.
589* ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'': The Elves ([[AmbiguousSituation who might just be Venusians or the Court of Roses]]) kicked the Jotun off of their homeworld and killed a good majority of them in the process. They come down to Earth occasionally to wipe out the last of the Jotun as well as casually torture humans.
590* ''TabletopGame/ChuubosMarvelousWishGrantingEngine'' has the Creature of Fable path, which turns ''the PC'' into something like this.
591* ''TabletopGame/DragonDice'': The Scalders are the remnants of the fae people, stranded after the bulk of their species shut themselves off from the world to avoid the horrors of the ForeverWar that the setting is engaged in. Instead of giving up, the Scalders found that there was a whole lot of fun to be had in a warring world -- there were plenty of things (and people) to burn or drown, as the race is comprised of elemental fire and water.
592* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Given many different depictions, DependingOnTheWriter, the edition, and sometimes even the specific faction of Fey:
593** In earlier editions, some fairy folk are friendly and good-natured towards humans (brownies, sprites, and kilmoulis), some will only harass humans who trespass in their territory, or enjoy [[{{Trolling}} playing non-fatal pranks]] on hapless humans, (korred, pixies, atomies) and some are actively evil and seek to torment and murder humans (quicklings, boggles, boggarts).
594** In more recent cosmology (2e AD&D onwards), the Seelie Court, ruled by Queen Titania, are often shown arrogant elitists who refuse to consider non-Fey people. The Unseelie Court, ruled by the Queen of Air and Darkness, are simply [[AlwaysChaoticEvil monstrous]].
595** While elves are often described as being close to nature and the fey, they are still typed as humanoids; fey has its own type, and includes a very wide array of very strange creatures. In 4E, you may notice that there's not a single good-aligned fey among them...
596** 4e's default setting, the ''TabletopGame/NentirVale'', consolidates previous editions' elves into three main groups: the Eladrin (4e's High/Sun/Moon/Star elves), Elves (4e's vanilla/Wood/Wild elves), and Drow (the same ol' dark elves). The Eladrin were given the fey-subtype and elevated to the position of masters of the Feywild (4e's Faerie). The Seelie and Unseelie courts can be found in The Manual of the Planes supplement as the Summer and Winter courts respectively, as well as several other courts.
597** In 4E, you can play a warlock who's sworn fealty to The Fair Folk (or at least got them bent over a log). A lot of your powers rely on deception and flat-out MindRape. To give some idea of the kind of company the Fae are keeping here, the other four things a Warlock can pact with are DemonLordsAndArchdevils (Infernal Pact), the [[EldritchAbomination things that hide behind the stars]] (Star Pact), the unknown aspects of capricious darkness (Dark Pact), and the remnants of dead heroes, dead gods and SealedEvilInACan (Vestige Pact).
598** 4E has the Primordials, who combine this trope with CosmicHorrorStory, especially EldritchAbomination. Besides being responsible for the creation of the ''world'', they would like nothing more than to return it to chaotic mush. Why? No reason, other than being the various embodiments of ElementalPowers who can't fathom why the {{Physical God}}s wish a constant in the universe.
599** ''TabletopGame/{{Birthright}}'' had the splitting of [[DarkWorld Shadow World]] and the "normal" world, which also ripped all but one original Sie in two -- a Sidhe (elf) attuned to (and immortal in) the normal world, able to use wizardry and a Seelie attuned to (and immortal in) the Shadow World, able to use natural magic (druidism) and [[{{glamour}} Seeming]]. Now when an elf is born on Cerilia, a faerie just "appears" on the other side. So far no one has managed to find two counterparts and bring the pair together to see what happens. Though {{glamour}} isn't exclusive, they are much better at it than most other Shadow critters. It should also be noted that ''Birthright'' elves, unlike most D&D settings, are usually ChaoticNeutral rather than ChaoticGood, often have major beef against humans over having been expelled by them from many of their forests, and have several Fair Folk tropes associated with them (such as elven revels being YearOutsideHourInside for mortals, half-elves often being treated as akin to {{Changeling|Fantasy}}s, and some more bigoted factions upholding [[TheWildHunt the Geallie Sidhe]] or Hunt of the Elves, aimed at driving off or killing off humans living on ancient elven lands (e.g. the entire continent of Cerillia, where most of the known world is).
600** Grain nymphs (first appearing in the ''Dragonlance'' setting) can go either way. Usually benevolent to humans (and looked down upon by their kin as city-slicker snobs) their presence can ''double'' a farm's harvest, giving plentiful bounty to whatever community it feeds, but woe betide a farmer who tries to exploit or hurt a grain nymph; not only will it drive her away, she "marks" the transgressor so that farm animals (including horses) [[AnimalsHateHim regard him as an enemy]], ''forever''.
601** The Shadow World makes use of the Seelie and Unseelie Court concepts. The Unseelie are as vile and bloodthirsty as you'd expect, but the Seelie can also be very dangerous due to how alien their mindset is. They don't think twice about kidnapping human children like puppies who caught their eye -- they tend not to see humans as people. Changeling "pets" see good care, though, and can fend for themselves (even in the Shadow World) by the time they aren't that cute and the Seelie sends them away.
602** In TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}, the Arak or "shadow fey" range from meddlesome to AlwaysChaoticEvil in temperament, and don't limit themselves to stealing infants: if you have a talent or skill that appeals to them, they can sever your shadow, reducing you to a soulless automaton going through the motions. Your shadow becomes a construct that'll compliantly work for them forever. Even Good-aligned Arak insist they're ''doing them a favor'' when they practice this technique on mortals. There are also a disturbing number of other (non-Arak) evil fae, such as [[TheCorruptor Boowray]], [[{{Sadist}} Baobhan Sith]], [[HumanoidAbomination the Green Maiden]] and [[Characters/RavenloftOtherDarklords the Lady of the Lake]].
603** Even the conventional "sylvan fey" of the Land of Mists can be nastier than elsewhere, due to the ambient influence of the Dark Powers throughout the setting.
604** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' used to have few true fairies, but in ''Literature/CounselorsAndKings'' Unseelie are presented as one of the very few things that can truly scare Drow, as opposed to irritate them or cause to back off for now.
605** Some fairies get along with others well, but still are fairly weird. The trio of Glouras (cute singing Underdark sprites with mothlike wings) runs a festhall in Sshamath, a de-facto dancing club and concert hall known even to many human bards on the surface. In [[SideStoryBonusArt spin-a-yarn]], the Bloody Fist tavern (Waterdeep) has as barmaids and [[FairySexy sort of]] FanService "the Laughing Sisters", named so because they always giggle, who like to bite people's ears just for the sweet taste of blood. [[http://ww2.wizards.com/Books/mirrorstone/Article.aspx?doc=fr_spinayarn2004main They help]] to deal with "[[BarBrawl problem customers]]" too.
606** Fourth Edition also has ''Heroes Of The Feywild'' which goes in-depth into the home dimension of the fae, from the perspective of both mortal visitors and locals. It also details the various courts, all of which often fit this trope, but especially the Winter Court, which follows a fae prince who is the living embodiment of LoveMakesYouEvil. It also introduces Pixies as a PC race.
607** An older oft-remembered Fey that looks like a [[WhenTreesAttack tree]], the Murderjack. They're a case of fluff matching crunch really well, in that they're fully capable of (literally) ripping apart an unprepared party. Murderjacks hunt in packs, strip the skin from your flesh, and heal you when you stop moving (to prolong your agony). They're also described by many players as "essentially [[JustForFun/XMeetsY Tree-]][[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slenderman]]".
608** It's also worth noting that most [[WickedWitch hags]] are classified as Fey.
609** In 5e, Warlocks can make pacts with Archfeys. This pact allows Warlocks access to some whimsical and mind effecting spells like Sleep, Calm Emotions, Phantasmal Force, Blink, and Dominate Person.
610* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': The Fair Folk are shapeless chaotic beings who feed off of the emotions of mortals, often leaving them zombified husks. They don't typically have driving motivations so much as drives they adopt because they seem dramatically appropriate, and most would like to see Creation as a whole dissolve into the Wyld because the very concept of something operating by logic and physical laws disgusts them, since their own world operates purely on narratives and tropes instead. Some of them have moved into Creation, losing the "shapeless" part, perceiving themselves as magnificent nobility stranded on the edges of an alien world who cannot return home (since scarier things await them...), and a few [[GoingNative go native]] and decide that Creation and its inhabitants are simply too much fun to do away with. Their stories and struggles are enticing, and it turns out that when you're stronger then the average [[PunyEarthlings mortal]] by far, it's pretty easy to live your chosen Narrative (unless you piss off the Wyld Hunt, a returned Solar, or a Lunar, who will kill, destroy, or eat you respectively).
611* ''TabletopGame/FairyMeat'': In the past, humans at one point existed (and still may, but they aren't relevant any more) and were taunted by the Fae, but that time has long since passed. Now all fairies are more busy trying to rip each other apart so they can [[ImAHumanitarian have some lunch]].
612* ''Literature/FightingFantasy'': Zigzagged. Some Fae creatures are friendly, if shy and reclusive (sprites, woodlings, and pixies), while others are malicious pranksters who enjoy stealing from humans (leprechauns), and still others are actively evil and try to kill any humans they meet (spriggans).
613* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' has various setting featuring this sort of fairy:
614** ''TabletopGame/GURPSTechnomancer'', a modern-day fantasy setting, has fairies taking the place of TheGreys -- Seelie and Unseelie encounters involving abductions, lights in the sky, traumatic repressed memories, and [[RoswellThatEndsWell rumors of two Seelie being captured near Roswell...]]
615** ''GURPS Faerie'' mostly models its depictions of fairies on actual folklore, darkness and all.
616** In ''TabletopGame/GURPSThaumatologyAlchemicalBaroque'', fairies can easily fall into this pattern, if the whim takes them. The typical Fairy Queen detailed in the book certainly does, being Callous, Jealous, and Selfish.
617* ''TabletopGame/IronKingdoms'': The Elves of Ios are xenophobic isolationists who have [[HiddenElfVillage closed off their nation's borders to outsiders]]. Of the few Elves that do leave their homeland, a fair proportion are assassins who have dedicated their lives to hunting down and killing human wizards and [[{{Magitek}} mechanika]]-users. They do this because they believe that human arcane magic and mechanika are draining the life from their last remaining PhysicalGod, thereby dooming the Elven race to extinction; whether or not this is actually the case has never been conclusively addressed. To say nothing of the Nyssian Elves, who are enslaved body and mind to a monster.
618* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'':
619** Elves often fit this role in those worlds where they're portrayed less as another mortal race and more as amoral, reclusive wardens of the forests.
620*** The elves of Lorwyn set are horned and hooved, supposedly to remind you of deer and satyrs, but... they are also aristocratic, ruthless, and predatory, and have built a society with castes based on cunning and physical attractiveness. The Castes range from Faultless, Immaculate, Exquisite, to Perfect, the top of the pack. Eyeblights, which includes non-Elves as well as ugly or disfigured Elves, are scum and can (or must) be killed.
621*** In most ''Magic'' sets, Elf creatures are very Tolkienian. A bit more xenophobic, but Tolkien's elves could be pretty xenophobic, too. They're still creatures of order and "live and let live", as shown by the fact that (until the Lorwyn block) the color of mana they are most likely to use, after green, is white. Lorwyn, though, is consciously based on faerie tales, so the predatory, capricious and aristocratic aspects of the Fair Folk get emphasized, and for the duration of the block elves were black secondarily to green instead of white. A tribe switching colors is rare, and switching to a rival color like that is almost unheard of.
622*** The flavor text for the [[https://scryfall.com/card/5ed/313/llanowar-elves Llanowar Elves]] from Fifth Edition: "One bone broken for every twig snapped under foot." Pretty brutal for 1/1 druids that give you green mana.
623** The expansion ''Throne of Eldraine'' is based off the original Grimm tales, so this is inevitable. The elves and goblins live in the vast woods outside of the civilized kingdoms, and travelers in said woods need to be wary, as the bridges might not lead to the other side of the same river -- or even the same time. The local goblins are called redcaps, and they have their namesakes' method of dying them. Morality-wise, they practice their own versions of the color-related values the kingdoms hold. For example, the Green-aligned Garenbrig seeks to use their strength to protect the weak, but the Green giants wish to be strong for the sake of strength and do not understand why anyone wouldn't. Even the relatively-benign [[FairyGodmother White-aligned faeries]] are prone to meddling.
624** Naturally enough, fairies have also been portrayed as this in various sets.
625*** The Faeries of Lorwyn are very mischievous and disrupting, if not outright evil. In Lorwyn/Morningtide they were simply mischievous troublemakers, but became outright evil in Shadowmoor/Eventide. In truth, the faeries are not truly different in the two sets: while the rest of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor cycles from a light, pleasant world to a dark and evil one every few centuries, Oona's magic protects her faeries from the cycling's effects. They really ''are'' little evil bastards, but while the rest of the plane is in its Lorwyn phase, they tone it down. In fact, the BigBad for that block was [[spoiler: Oona, Queen of the Fae]]. And [[GameBreaker exceptionally overpowered]].
626*** This isn't altogether limited to Lorwyn, although the "fairy tale" nature of the setting certainly emphasizes the various creatures' relevant traits. While ''Magic'''s faeries may be the small winged pixie type in general, well, see the flavor text on [[https://scryfall.com/card/me3/132/scryb-sprites Scryb Sprites]] if you think they're in any way, shape, or form harmless.
627---->''The only sound was the gentle clicking of the faeries' wings. Then those intruders who were still standing turned and fled. One thing was certain: they didn't think the Scryb were very funny anymore.''
628* ''TabletopGame/TheLaundry'' brings faeries (separate from the ones shown in ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'', who are AlternateUniverse version of humans, in the ''Homo'' genus but of a different species) into the setting as cthulhoid "information entities". Like the series' demons, they're made up of information strung together through an electromagnetic field, explaining why iron messes them up so badly; similarly, it's said they appear rarely in modern Britain, given how the nation is wired to the gills. They do take children, however, and changelings are explained away as a class four {{Glamour}} placed over a poppet made of twigs and string to make it look like it's a real child. And the kids? They're [[WetwareCPU turned into biological computation matrices]] in order to sustain a field that will keep the faerie in our world.
629* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': The fae of the Marches are often capricious and dangerous beings, but this trope is truly embodied in the unfortunates chosen for the tribute that Arcadia must pay to Beleth, the Demon Princess of Nightmares, in exchange for protection. The tributes who aren't simply consumed for their Forces are given a sliver of Beleth's own power, which corrupts them body, mind and soul; the resulting fae become cruel, hard and bitter beings, whose only joy comes from the suffering of others. They lurk in the dark corners of the Country of the Teind, a dreamscape in the shadow of Beleth's tower, and periodically sally out to hunt the dreams of mortals. Besides their use in tormenting dreamers and disposing of disappointing minions, Beleth keeps them in large part because of the impact they have on mortal culture -- their influence on their victims is a large part of the reason why the modern concept of fae as evil, monstrous beings, as opposed to just wild and capricious, has developed; [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve since the Marches resonate strongly to human beliefs]], this serves to weaken the true fae of Arcadia by drawing essence and belief away from it and into Beleth's own domain.
630* ''TabletopGame/{{Nobilis}}'': [[PlayerCharacter Nobles]] deliberately evoke this trope. The {{Big Bad}}s seek to unmake reality by twisting seemingly mundane events, so Noble behavior will seem bizarre to ordinary people. Nobles may spend months convincing a random mortal they own a cat, or kill someone because they bought a yellow SUV, and reality itself may very well hinge upon their success. Some Nobles actually ''are'' fae in origin -- the third edition Power of Silver, for example, is of Daoine Sidhe extraction.
631* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'':
632** Unlike the elves in ''D&D'', the game ''Pathfinder'' is based on, it is is the ''gnomes'' who are the Fey-connected people with a more alien perspective on things. They originate from the spirit world, being in essence fairies who were exiled to the material world after a disaster and "went native". They're constantly seeking new experiences to avoid the Bleaching, a process where they're literally ''bored to death'' and turn to dust and bones. It's hinted that the story of the disaster may be a fabrication, and gnomes are really humanoid interface devices through which [[EldritchAbomination vastly more powerful beings]] can study the material world.
633** Glaistigs, based on a type of Scottish [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuath fuath]] resembling women with goat legs, particularly hearken back to Celtic fairy lore. They are immensely powerful but very fickle, and their presence is a double-edged blessing for those living in their lands. Glaistigs take under their protection vast territories of wilderness and rural land, and the people living in their territories enjoy their protection from outside threats and natural calamites such as droughts and blights in exchange for gifts of food, drink and craft. If a glaistig is offended, however -- and they are easily offended, by anything from lack of proper appeasement to being told any sort of lie -- she can and will scourge the land with hexes, curses and blights, and her presence alone is enough to incite people into frenzied, uncontrollable dancing.
634* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' and other Creator/PalladiumBooks games have a wide range of fairies and nature spirits, some of whom are Scrupulous or Principled and positively nice (such as brownies) while others are nasty, brutish and puckish. Even nice fairies, though, are apt to feed you enchanted food with unpleasant(and punny) results. The continuity also has the Splugorth, low level cosmic entities who employ magic-resistant species to rob the fae and put them into mystical weaponry.
635* The Fae are... generally decent in ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'' (at least the Irish ones), but they have their rules, and if you break them, it's your ''ass''. The Erl-king (mentioned above) shows up as well, and is a fairly powerful, nasty sort.
636* In ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'', the Sidhe have an uneasy alliance with the humans of Avalon, based on mutual dependence. The Unseelie are treated as horrifying monsters, but even the Seelie (sometimes called "The Goodly Folk") are regarded with fear and suspicion. The Seelie do not have normal emotions, and because of this, some of them take pleasure in emotionally manipulating humans. They will often torment humans for their own purposes or entertainment, and the Queen of the Sky is known to participate in TheWildHunt. The GM's Section in the Avalon book encourages [=GMs=] to use the Sidhe as antagonists or foils.
637* ''TabletopGame/SwashbucklersOfTheSevenSkies'': Ghosts manage to pick up a couple of Fair Folk traits -- for example, when traveling the Ghost Sky ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which is believed to be full of ghosts]]), it's considered horribly bad luck to refer to it by its name, so most skysailors use names like the Good Sky. The setting is drawn in very broad strokes, though, meaning that further comparison of ghosts and fairies is really up to the GameMaster.
638* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
639** The Dark Eldar, in spades. [[WordOfGod According to 5th Edition Dark Eldar codex writer Phil Kelly]], the Dark Eldar were designed with a "faerie-tale elves" look and feel, and it shows; wild hunts on defenceless human cities and worlds to snatch captives, mirrors that shatter and kill the people they're reflecting, witch-like Haemonculi covens that make deals in abstract payments such as your ability to laugh. The fourth Chaos god of excess, Slaanesh (a god that rewards and delights in endless rape and torture)? It was birthed by the Eldar's distant ancestors' incessant hedonism... and the Dark Eldar ''exceed them''. The Dark Eldar are beautiful, soulless horrors, exactly like the fey folk of old. One character in a Dark Eldar codex passage [[DiscussedTrope explicitly refers to them as such]].
640--->Malko stumbled backwards, remembering the stories Goodwife Ingrid used to tell him as a child: grisly tales of a changeling folk who came from the skies to steal the innocent away into hell.
641** Their "good" cousins, the Craftworld Eldar, are little better. Fulfilling the classic stereotype of fairies and elves manipulating humans with little regard for their well-being, the Eldar once diverted an Ork invasion towards the human Hive world of Armageddon and instigated a war which left ''millions'' dead and most of the planet in ruins, to save a Craftworld with only 10,000 Eldar living on it. That said, the Eldar can [[IDidWhatIHadToDo possibly justify this atrocity]] by the fact that A) they're a DyingRace, and B) [[HumansAreBastards the Imperium would certainly do the same to an Eldar Craftworld if the situation were reversed]].
642--->Ask not the Eldar a question, for they will give you three answers, all of which are true and terrifying to know.\
643'''Inquisitor Czevak''', ''Codex Eldar'' (4th Ed.)
644** The Harlequins are a sub-faction of Eldar who are basically [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot psychic ninja space elf acrobat jesters]], and while they'll travel to human worlds to put on a show and maybe even jump in and help humans fight the forces of Chaos, they're creepy as hell, employ horrific weapons including a RazorFloss punch dagger, and they worship a god dedicated to {{Magnificent Bastard}}ry.
645** The Exodite Eldar are slightly better, but only because there's little background on them. They're basically hippies living the way they did before Slaanesh came along (see Dark Eldar). This being 40K, "hippies" means that they ride giant psychically-attuned dinosaurs into battle.
646** And the scary thing is that the Craftworld Eldar and Harlequins are considered to be the closest thing the setting has to a ''"good guy"'', besides ''maybe'' the [[TheGreys Tau]] [[RisingEmpire Empire]], depending on your interpretation of them. This speaks volumes about the rest of the galaxy's inhabitants.
647** The Dark Angels chapter has the Watchers in the Dark, diminuitive creatures who are always obscured by their robes. Though some of them serve the Dark Angels in some minor capacity, what little is revealed about them in the backstory (most notably the Horus Heresy novels ''Fallen Angels'' and ''Descent of Angels'' makes it clear they hold a lot more cards regarding the fate of the sons of Caliban than they let on.
648* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'':
649** The Elves; you get either [[FantasticRacism arrogant bastards]] (High Elves), xenophobic bastards (Wood Elves) or murderous bastards (Dark Elves).
650*** The Wood Elves are extremely xenophobic and generally act more like a force of nature than a civilized people. This is especially true with their king, Orion the Hunter, who every spring [[TheWildHunt goes on a rampage around the woods and nearby area]] with a host of spirits and wild hunters. The Wood Elves also have a habit of capturing any human children with an affinity for magic from the nearby land of Bretonnia, who become their ageless servants. It is entirely possible that they are running Bretonnia's religion as well.
651*** Dark Elves are slightly less torture-happy than their 40K equivalents (though they're opposite to the High Elves: Khaine, the High Elf god of War, is their god of murder) who were exiled to what is basically the geographic equivalent of Canada, living as raiders, capturing wild animals to use them in battle, and blood rituals.
652*** High Elves are perhaps an {{aver|ted Trope}}sion. True, a good number of them are majorly stuck-up assholes, but some of them are decent enough people. In fact, the High Elf Everqueen, Alarielle, is one of the kindest and most noble beings in the setting ([[CrapsackWorld there aren't many of them, that's for sure]]). And overall, they can be somewhat reasoned with and they have the world's safety in mind. Basically a whole species of JerkWithAHeartOfGold... except when they're not.
653** The Wood Elves also share [[EnchantedForest Athel Loren]] with a host of even more capricious and supernatural forest spirits:
654*** The [[NatureSpirit Dryads]] normally look like beautiful human or elven women... up until someone threatens the forest, or unknowingly breaks some obscure rule, or even just catches them in a bad mood, at which point they transform in monstrous humanoids made of wood and bring remorseless, violent retribution on whoever was unlucky enough to find them. And sometimes they deliberately use their beautiful forms to lure people into the forest to hunt them for sport.
655*** The [[{{Treants}} Treemen]], at least, are direct in their motivations: leave the forest be, and they'll happily ignore you. Break off so much as a single branch, and you die.
656*** Athel Loren is also home to hosts of tiny malicious creatures called [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Spites]] -- or, as humans frequently mispronounce their name, Sprites. They are mercurial shapeshifters known for their emotional natures and cruel sense of humor -- sometimes they'll simply be mischievous or even helpful, sometimes they'll fly into rages due to some obscure or unintentional insult, sometimes they'll play cruel, spiteful tricks on or just abandon their own allies for no discernible reason.
657* Creator/WhiteWolf games:
658** ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' paints Fairies as powerful incomprehensible alien entities that regularly abduct humans and take them off to their homeland, where they are warped to fit their masters' perceptions of them. The Changelings of the title are humans who've managed to escape back to Earth, but who've been [[WhatHaveIBecome changed]] by their time in the world of Faerie and are trying to avoid their former captors at all costs. Notably, ''Changeling'' also directly correlates the modern concept of AlienAbduction with the Fae, explicitly invoking such standbys as lights in the sky, strange experiments, and Keepers taking the form of LittleGreenMen or TheGreys in a number of places. It is later explained that the True Fae need conflict to prevent themselves fading away into the random background chaos of Arcadia. As a result, the closest thing they have to friends among other Fae are their sworn enemies, as by fighting they're keeping each other alive. They can also be inanimate objects (Props), legions of lesser beings (Wisp), and entire self-enclosed universes (Realms) in addition to their normal forms (Actors). With enough Titles, they can do the aforementioned simultaneously!
659** This is in marked contrast to the earlier ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming'', where the PlayerCharacter Changelings are actual ([[HalfHumanHybrid half-]])Faeries using [[HumanityEnsues human disguises]] to protect themselves from Disbelief, in the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness.
660*** Though the Kithain are fae souls shaped by human experiences, some -- especially the Redcaps and Sluagh, and the Sidhe of both Courts just after their return to the Tellurian -- are often chillingly inhuman and capricious, at least when played right. Some sub-groups -- the Sidhe's House Leanhaun, for example -- are specifically meant to reflect the more traditional view of The Good People as rapacious and unsympathetic to their mortal victims.
661*** ''Dreaming'' also has other types of fae with even less connection to humanity: Thallain are essentially {{Evil Counterpart}}s to the Kithain, being AlwaysChaoticEvil and given to monstrous practices by inclination. The inanimae are fae spirits bound to the elements who find the mysteries of fleshy existence deeply puzzling (they call said mysteries the "Heart Riddle", and have spent centuries trying to figure them out). The adhene are fae who were barred from Earth a very long time ago, only now finally able to return thanks to various supernatural cataclysms, and can be often even more inhuman and capricious than the Kithain.
662** ''Dark Ages: Fae'', another White Wolf game which is "officially" considered to be a prequel to ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming'', but is so radically different it can also be run as a full AlternateUniverse. In it fairies are divided into the Firstborn, who are true fae without need for that pesky mortal shell; Inanimae, beings whose bodies are based on natural elements, as well as artificial constructs; and Changelings, who in this setting are different from both the above, being human children spirited away and raised as faeries, faerie children raised in the human world, or true HalfHumanHybrids. The fae are divided into 5 courts based around their preferred powers and attitude towards humans. All four of the primary courts, the fifth simply being the neutral group, quite easily come across as this trope. It's been remarked that the difference between good and evil faeries isn't over whether they ''should'' rule over humans, but rather how they should go about it. The Spring Court wants to learn about "modern" humanity and use that knowledge to revive the fear and reverence that they once received. The Summer are the harsh traditionalists, and intend to punish humans for breaking their ancient, and forgotten, oaths, and restore the old order. The Autumn Court, like the Spring, wish to learn more about humans and work with them; however rather then outright respect they wish to manipulate the course of history from behind the scenes. Finally is the Winter Court, which isn't actually AlwaysChaoticEvil, but they do their best to appear so to humanity. The fact that characters tend to have very alien and unique systems of morality is one of the game's major themes.
663[[/folder]]
664
665[[folder:Theater]]
666* In Creator/JohnMilton's ''Theatre/{{Comus}}'', the Fair Folk have no powers over true virginity -- not because they are weak, but because VirginPower is that strong.
667* ''Theatre/Frozen2018'' adapts the Fair Folk as a substitution for the Rock Trolls of the [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 original film]].
668* Creator/HenrikIbsen re-used the Shakesperean plot in one of his early plays: ''St. John´s Eve'' presents the elves as benign woodland creatures, mostly written as a part of the {{Scenery Porn}}.
669* Norwegian poet Creator/HenrikWergeland used elves as henchmen for the good guys in some of his more farcical plays. In one of his later plays, the fair folk trope is played straight, as the ''hulder'' herself abducts the titular character into the mountain to make him do the dirty work for her (This Hulder is plain evil). The abduction trope is subverted as the hulder´s daughter is lured out of the mountain by a young poet, and the fair folk wants him dead for it.
670* In ''Theatre/TwiceCharmed'', Franco [=DiFortunato=] wagers the Tremaines' livelihood on their deal.
671[[/folder]]
672
673[[folder:Video Games]]
674* ''VideoGame/ArenaOfValor'' plays around with this trope. The Afata faction has several faerie-based heroes, the most prominent of them being Krixi (the Pixie). Originally, she was just a typical playful but dangerous faerie who played pranks on others and preferred to just relax. However, her home ended up being under attack by [[TheLegionsOfHell the Lokheim forces.]] After succeeding in repelling them (by calling for help from other forest creatures), Krixi had a change of heart; she started to take greater responsibilities to protect her forest rather than staying a typical 'lazy, playful faerie' (answering to the resident elven queen Tel'Annas). She still shows no mercy to anyone who dares attack the forest, including humans.
675* In ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/BravelySecond'', [[spoiler:the cryst-fairies are manipulating everyone towards their malevolent ([[EvilVersusEvil and occasionally conflicting]]) agendas. Tiz, Agnès, Ringabel, Edea, and Kaiser Oblivion all discover this the hard way]].
676* The Red Caps of ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' recalls one of the truly nasty varieties of the original Faeries. Their entire reason for being is to torture and torment others in creative ways -- their caps were red because they had been ''dipped in human blood''. True to form, they're also extremely dangerous for their level (despite being really, really short).
677** The zone of Croatoa, where the Red Caps run fierce, also has the Fir Bolg, weird pumpkin-headed scarecrows, and the Tuatha de Danaan, who aren't so much the Celtic gods as, well, "wookie moose." And then there are the black sprites that hover around Eochai (the Giant Monster of the Fir Bolg) during the Halloween event, which are called The Unseelie.
678** It is revealed that the Fir Bolg and Tuatha de Danaan are ancient enemies of the Red Caps, who transformed them into those odd forms to torment them even more.
679** This trope is referenced by Justin Augustine at the beginning of his Task Force: "Far out in the center of this region is a place called the Chantry. It's supposed to hold all kinds of vast and ancient secrets, including a powerful being the natives only refer to as 'The Kind One'. Now, a title like that can mean a lot of things in folklore, like trying to placate something monstrous." (Though Faathim the Kind does actually live up to his name, and has a Task Force of his own.)
680* ''VideoGame/CoffeeTalk'': In the late 50's, "fairies" were an umbrella term for any beings that didn't fit any of the racial categories at the time, meaning that any sentient being that was "incomprehensible", such as ghosts, was lumped with them. As the anti-racism movement progressed, the list of beings classified as "fairies" became shorter as more of them became legally recognized, until only the "true" fairies are left. [[spoiler:It's revealed that the Gnomes of Gnome Noms were behind the car vandalism in Episode 2. They vandalized cars over a broken promise to keep the dead hawthorn tree because that was the "body" of their friend, the fairy vendor who was killed by a drunk driver in 1959.]]
681* This trope is all over the place in ''VideoGame/DarkAgeOfCamelot''. There are tons of Fairies and fey related creatures (mostly from Welsh, Irish, and Celtic mythology), most of which are anything but benevolent. Theres only a few fairies who fit the "little winged humanoid" theme, and [[CuteAndPsycho most of them are aggressive and dangerous as well.]]
682* The viewpoint character in ''VideoGame/{{Deracine}}'' is a Faerie, invisible beings that can somewhat interact with the world around them (but not be seen, talk or [[MustBeInvited pass through doors]]). They are also implied to once have been human. They have two rings, one blue and one red. With a golden staff, they can use these rings to drain the "time" (aka lifeforce) from humans and use it to travel in time. Unfortunately, this causes most of them to kill senselessly, out of a desire to undo their mistakes.
683* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
684** The Dalish elves, according to the Chantry at least. How much do they deserve this reputation varies from clan to clan and from Dalish to Dalish. They are fiercely territorial and have a tendency to draw swords against ''any'' human who even accidentally wanders near their camp, they are known to dabble with demons and use BloodMagic which is considered highly dangerous. [[spoiler:At least one clan leader used magic to curse a human settlement with lycanthropy as revenge for something that happened decades ago]]. Common myths include [[MarsNeedsWomen ravishing women to create more elves]] and practicing {{human sacrifice}}, with the latter being [[UnreliableNarrator dubious at best]] and the former being factually untrue since any child they have with humans would be a human too.
685** Its revealed that ancient elves prior to humanity's rise were like this trope: [[spoiler:they used to rule an empire just as tyrannical [[TheMagocracy Tevinter]] [[TheEmpire Imperium]] with its leaders oppressing and slaving their lessers, while being revered as immortal god-kings. Their downfall was brought by a CivilWar that erupted between them, with one of their members imprisoning his comrades in the Fade with the unexpected side-effect of depriving elves of their magic and immortality, leaving them vulnerable to humans when they arrived on Thedas]].
686** The Horned Knight in the web game ''The Last Court'' holds his own court in the deep woods outside of Serault. His attendants are dryads and he thinks nothing of keeping humans who have offended him as slaves. If allowed to attend the feast of the Divine, the Horned Knight attempts to give her a gift in the form of a "living garden" — a Chantry sister with [[BodyHorror plants growing out of her head]], and [[EyeScream dandelions for eyes]]. Naturally, this makes the Divine a teeny bit upset.
687* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'':
688** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': Believing a human man has kidnapped her daughter and stolen her hidden village's treasure, the Queen of Faeries places an eternal slumber curse upon the village of Norvik, despite them having nothing to do with her daughter's disappearance. She lifts the curse when the heroes find proof that her daughter simply eloped, but she still wants humans out of her realm.
689** In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', faeries are tiny, wingless pixies who do not like humans. Children may have a pass, but grownups entering their woods to find the path to their country Faerie Lea will find themselves utterly lost because of their magic.
690* Every encounter with fairy folk in ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' is laden with [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters contempt for humans]]. This trope is most exemplified in the case of Leonard though, as his pact-partner is [[SidekickCreatureNuisance a malicious fairy]] who bonded with him seemingly only for the purpose of [[ButtMonkey torturing him]] over his inability to kill himself. Which backfired magnificently when Leonard found the inner strength to perform a HeroicSacrifice to slow down the Grotesqueries and as a bonus dragged the insufferable thing with him as it desperately tried to escape its impending doom.
691* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'':
692** The Elves of have a bit of this trope, seeing how they [[ImAHumanitarian eat people]] and don't consider this to be in any way reprehensible, while considering lying as bad as murder and having an active cultural dislike for self-control. It doesn't help that they will [[DisproportionateRetribution besiege you if you cut down too many trees and then proceed to devour your flesh]]. Since the game perspective in Fortress Mode is [[ElvesVersusDwarves from the dwarves]], though, and elven soldiers only carry wooden weapons and armor, they tend to be seen more as annoying than terrifying.
693** A more fitting example are the Night Trolls, who resemble the more ogrish and monstrous kinds of Unseelie fairies. Occasional marauders who live in caves, they kidnap mortal spouses and corrupt them into similar beings, when they aren't simply eating their flesh. Their grotesque features are even procedurally generated, so that no two Night Trolls are alike.
694* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
695** Every race of [[CallARabbitASmeerp Mer]] [[OurElvesAreDifferent (Elves)]] that is or ever has been is at least a {{Downplayed}} version of the trope. All exhibit some qualities as a race that are [[BlueAndOrangeMorality bizarre or plain alien]] to human sensibilities, and frequently clash with the races of men (and perhaps just as frequently, with ''each other''). The extinct [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwemer]] are probably the straightest example, with contemporary sources and modern researchers alike painting them as mysterious with abilities well beyond what any other race on Tamriel could compare with. It is Downplayed in part because many of the differences come down more to culture and there are plenty of instances of MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch.
696** Played Straight by the Daedra, both the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Princes]] and the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent lesser Daedra]]. All are pre-creation spirits ("et'Ada") who made no sacrifices during the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, and thus retain their CompleteImmortality. The 17 most powerful and prominent Daedric spirits are the Daedric Princes, each of whom has a particular sphere, which the are said to [[AnthropomorphicPersonification embody]] and govern from [[EldritchLocation their planes]] of Oblivion which they inhabit and rule. While the vast majority of the Daedra are seen as wholly evil by most mortals, they are technically beings AboveGoodAndEvil who operate on their own BlueAndOrangeMorality aligned with the spheres over which they govern. How they feel about the mortal races varies from Prince to Prince; many enjoy being worshiped, some just enjoy [[IncrediblyInconvenientDeity toying with mortals' lives for their own amusement]], but all of them have demonstrated a willingness to reward mortals they find particularly helpful, loyal, or amusing.
697** A number of other species exist in Nirn who qualify. To note:
698*** Spriggans are a race of [[PlantPeople tree spirits]] who typically take the basic form of tall, humanoid females made of wood. They are revered as "[[GaiasVengeance Nature's Guardians]]" and are associated with Kynareth, one of the Nine Divines and goddess of the heavens, winds, and elements. Despite this reverence, Spriggans are usually hostile toward any trespassers in their domain.
699*** Nymphs are a type of nature spirit most commonly found in the Iliac Bay region. They take the form of beautiful, [[FullFrontalAssault naked]], long-haired women and attack using mystical [[PlayingWithFire fire spells]]. Though rumored to be [[ExtremeOmnisexual highly sexual beings]], most are rather shy and rarely approach mortals on their own.
700*** The Hist are a race of [[TimeAbyss ancient]], [[WiseTree sentient]], giant spore-trees native to Black Marsh. They are worshiped by the [[LizardFolk Argonians]] who drink the sap of the Hist to grow, and can communicate with the Hist via visions transmitted in the sap. It is said that the Hist were the original inhabitants of Tamriel, and that they were originally from one of the 12 [[CreationMyth "worlds of Creation"]] that were shattered by [[TheAntiGod Padomay]] and then coalesced by [[GodOfGods Anu]] to create Nirn.
701*** Will-o-the-Wisps are globs of light that drain the life out of their victims that get close to them. They can't be hit with normal weapons, but are venerable to magic attacks or silver or daedric weapons.
702* The nymphs in ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' are malicious childlike buggers with raspy voices and a penchant for human sacrifice.
703* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' showcases this spectacularly with the "Lostbelt No. 6: Faerie Round Table Domain, Avalon Le Fae", and AlternateUniverse with faeries and other Phantasmals replacing humans as the dominant species in a Mystery-dominated Britain, to the point that the entire place is a [[CrapsaccharineWorld Crapsaccharine]] WorldOfJerkass. The faeries come in almost any shape, from [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elves]] to [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Goblins]] to more stereotypical pixies. In theory, they're described as being "Pure and Innocent" and most of them appear civilized, but in practice this makes them ''extremely'' dangerous because conventional morality is something [[BlueAndOrangeMorality beyond their understanding]], while their innocence and impulsive nature makes them TheUnfettered when it comes to getting what they want. It doesn't matter what you've done for them in the past or how friendly you've been, if they want to hurt you, they ''will'', without understanding why they might be wrong.
704** For example, the faeries keep humans around because the faeries' own CreativeSterility means that humans are the only ones that can produce culture, while also treating them as [[ToServeMan livestock]] for the faeries who are not above eating them. This is best evident in the first Section of the Chapter alone, where the faeries of Cornwall wanted to ''eat'' the main protagonist and their party of Tristan and Altria Caster, and even killed one of their own when he wanted to befriend them instead of eating them.
705** Additionally, the entire state of the Lostbelt is their fault. [[spoiler:The [[FounderOfTheKingdom original Six Faeries]] of Lostbelt Britain were once tasked to forge a superweapon that could protect the Earth from potential spacebound threats. In Proper Human History, they were diligent enough to forge the blade that became known as Excalibur, allowing [[PrecursorHero a human]] to use it to destroy the rampaging Sefar when she invaded in 14,000 BC. In the Lostbelt, these faeries neglected to forge Excalibur in favour of taking a nap, allowing Sefar to rampage unimpeded until [[ApocalypseHow the entire Earth was wiped clean]], leaving nothing behind but endless ocean. When Cernunnos, the SoleSurvivor of Sefar's rampage, took pity on them and provided them a safe haven despite being tasked by Avalon with punishing them for their dereliction of duty, [[UngratefulBastard they repaid him by poisoning him to death, using his body to build the southern half of Faerie Britain, while cursing his priestess with immortality and tearing her apart to clone a new humanity from as a fresh food source]]. All this while having the sheer nerve to instead [[NeverMyFault blame Cernunnos and the priestess]] for not forcing ''them'' to do the job ''they'd'' slacked off on in the first place.]]
706** The faeries in the Lostbelt are under the iron-heeled dictatorship of the High Queen Morgan, who [[spoiler:actually started out as a hero of the faeries, going under the name of [[FolkHero Tonelico/Aesc the Savior]] in her youth, but [[JadeColoredGlasses grew disillusioned]] after the faeries' own ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, TheUnfettered, UngratefulBastard and ChaoticStupid tendencies caused them to betray and kill her time and again because they despise the idea of being ruled over, even if the lack of leadership would lead them to [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves drive themselves to extinction]], with them only surviving for any length of time thanks to their BizarreAlienReproduction]]. All in all, a vast majority of the faeries in the British Lostbelt are not good creatures at all, and the ones who ''are'' have a habit of getting [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished used, betrayed, and killed by their fellows]] in some form.
707* Zigzagged in the Scandinavian folklore-inspired ''VideoGame/{{Fe}}'', where the eponymous fox-like protagonist ([[ADogNamedDog who derives their name from the Swedish word for fairy]]) is a benevolent steward of the forest, while the game's antagonists, the alien-like Silent Ones, [[spoiler:who are revealed to be Fe's corrupted brethren near the end]], are closer to traditional fair folk, kidnapping animals and otherwise inflicting malicious mischief upon the forest.
708* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
709** The sylph manage to fulfill both ends of the spectrum. Friendly Sylph are relatively harmless and enjoy the company of mortals who can comprehend their rather odd traditions, and also enjoy playing harmless pranks like leaving gifts of fruit in weird places to people they like. Tempered Sylph are much worse, very territorial, they usually don't leave Larkscall, but when they do it's usually to play very cruel, spiteful pranks that could harm or even kill mortals. They also constantly encroach the untempered Sylphs of Little Solace to try to bring them under Ramuh's thrall.
710** ''Shadowbringers'' introduces the fuath, a race of short, anthropomorphic frog people with the power to control water. They’re the most capricious and malicious of the fae tribes in [[LandOfFaerie Il Mheg]], drowning people and attacking other fae for their own amusement. When the player needs to borrow an important relic from them, the Fuath won’t give it up unless the player entertains them by fighting through their illusory, monster-infested domain to reach the relic. When the player succeeds, the Fuath give up the relic as promised but try to drown them anyway.
711--->'''Ardbert:''' The first rule of dealing with the Fuath… is do not deal with the Fuath.
712** ''Shadowbringers'' also introduces the pixies, who are stated to be the reincarnation of children that had died. While the pixies aren't cruel, their pranks and their interpetation of playing with mortals can cause great harm and even kill people. The shrubs in the vague shape of people dotted around the landscape were people that were transformed by the pixies that wanted to play or were just bored. The pixies also attempt to mess with the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] until Feo Ul, a pixie that the Warrior had formed a contract with earlier, tells them to back off. And when Feo Ul becomes the new king, that contract leaves the Warrior of Light well protected within the Fae realm.
713* Book IV of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'' revolves around fairies that have the power of dreams. The menacing versions, the Dökkálfar, bring forth nightmares and lock people into a neverending sleep. Triandra, Plumeria, and their queen Freyja all invade the mortal realm with their nightmares. Their GoodCounterpart, the Ljósálfar, bring pleasant dreams to people and enjoy playing alongside children. Peony, Mirabilis, and their king Freyr side with the Order of Heroes to fend off the dökkálfar.
714* The Folks in ''VideoGame/{{Folklore}}'' want you dead with a few small exceptions. The "Faeries" are simply the denizens of a realm of the Netherworld created when people dreamed of an afterlife of paradise... but that still doesn't stop the "paradise" from being filled with dozens and dozens of deceased souls that turned into angry Folks that want to kill you.
715* Played straight and subverted in the ''VideoGame/GretelAndHansel'' series. While most of the creatures and spirits in the games try to kill Gretel and Hansel, the actual fairies they meet in the second game become their allies.
716* Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/GuildWars2''. The [[PlantPeople sylvari]] are largely idealistic, honorable, and romantic -- except for the Nightmare Court, who believe that these values weaken them and seek to corrupt their brethren by torturing them into a DespairEventHorizon (which also pollutes their HiveMind, the Pale Tree, and any future sylvari that might be born from it). Notably, the sylvari moral code actually comes from the writings of a pacifistic centaur and human; [[spoiler: an optional plotline involves the player character discovering that there is more than one Pale Tree, and having to hide that fact from the Nightmare Court -- while the sylvari from one of the other trees is still kind, if a bit standoffish, it's specifically brought up that other communities of sylvari might not be nearly as benevolent.]]
717** This is taken even further when it's revealed that sylvari are actually [[spoiler: the spawn of the [[EldritchAbomination Elder Dragon]] of the jungle, and the playable sylvari are descended from a champion of his that had been cleansed of his will]]. Their original brethren tend to be more monstrous and, similar to the Nightmare Court, often kidnap those of the other races to corrupt into more minions.
718* ''VideoGame/HomeSafetyHotline'' is about working at a call center as a dispatcher dealing with both mundane crises and pests, as well as faeries and other mythological creatures such as goblins and trolls. Getting a call wrong tends to lead to a SoundOnlyDeath. [[spoiler:Eventually, it's revealed that the Home Safety Hotline corporation is also run by them, and the player character turns into one should they be promoted.]]
719* One of the gods in the {{roguelike}} ''VideoGame/{{Incursion}}'' is Maeve, Queen of the Faeries. All elves are required to worship her; this is not particularly a good thing, because she is utterly amoral and very capricious: sometimes she gives you [[DiscOneNuke good equipment]], sometimes she surrounds you with [[RocksFallEveryoneDies out-of-depth monsters]].
720* ''VideoGame/KingArthurTheRoleplayingWargame'' features both Sidhe courts (Seelie/summer court and Unseelie/winter court) as prominent factions you can ally yourself with if you follow the Old Faith. The Seelie mainly operate on BlueAndOrangeMorality and are described as honourable and honest 'in their own way' (being Old Faith and Righteous), while the Unseelie are fairy, err, ''fairly'' malicious (Old Faith/Tyrant) and [[DealWithTheDevil and bargains with them usually involve giving them your subjects' children]]. Allying with either court allows you to hire [[ChangelingTale children the sidhe have "whisked away"]] as soldiers for your army.
721* The Fae in ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning''. They are also divided into Summer and Winter; Summer representing growth and Winter representing decay, though neither is inherently good or evil. They have mixed feelings about mortals. Some of them dismiss them as short-lived "Dustlings", and others are fascinated by them because of their unique perspective on life and death. The Fae are so powerfully linked to Fate that they do not truly die -- they merely repeat their lives in an endless Great Cycle. Fae also occasionally forget that when mortals die, it's for keeps. Fateweaver Argath claims that the Fae are actually ''easier'' to understand than mortals because they usually don't change with time. The Tuatha Deohn are a horrific exception to this rule. They are a cult of Winter Fae that have changed thanks to the power of Tirnoch. As a result, they are now brutal warmongers who wish to purge the world of all mortal life.
722* Averted in the ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' games. There are wicked ones (Lolotte, Malicia), inscrutable ones (Mab, the Fate Sisters), and benevolent ones (Genesta, Oberon, Titania, and Edgar). Certainly, they can wield magic and have a strange logic on how things should run (The FanSequel ''VideoGame/TheSilverLining'' also depicts that they prefer to be outside, no matter the weather), but they aren't much different than humans otherwise.
723** Played straight in the ExtendedUniverse, however, where a number of more traditional fairies show up in the [[Literature/KingsQuestTheFloatingCastle first]] and [[Literature/KingsQuestKingdomOfSorrow second]] {{Tie In Novel}}s.
724* Subverted in the opening of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'': Tatl and her brother help Skull Kid steal Link's horse, and then she attacks and taunts Link after Skull Kid turns him into a Deku Scrub. She then takes the role of ExpositionFairy after Skull Kid leaves her behind and stays with Link when she sees Skull Kid try to destroy the world.
725** Possibly played straight with the Skull Kids themselves, which are referred to along with the Kokiri and [[SparkFairy Spark Fairies]] in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' as forest fairies or fairy folk.
726* ''VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation'' has the Fairy Festival, a seemingly friendly chubby group of small, teal glowing fairies that can buff and heal an employee...to eat them if they work on anything else while they are following them. In [[VideoGame/LibraryOfRuina the sequel]], they and their queen are left in the forest to starve, dropping their friendly pretense.
727** ''VideoGame/LimbusCompany'' introduces us to the Fairy Long-legs, which is indicated to be linked to the aforementioned Fairy Festival. It'll ask you to stand under its clover umbrella to protect you from the acid rain...only to reveal that that's a trick it uses to keep its prey safe and tasty.
728* The Glomdoring commune of ''VideoGame/{{Lusternia}}'' traffick with fae including redcaps, barghests and slaugh. Also, their native race, Shadow Faelings, are a cross between The Fair Folk and Drow.
729* Invoked with the Cyber-Elves in the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series, man-made {{Cyberspace}} beings capable of manifesting in the real world. While most of them are helpful {{Fairy Companion}}s, there's also the Dark Elf, who's been corrupted into destructive insanity and sparked the catastrophic Elf Wars, and Crea and Prea, who have childlike mentalities but will happily try to kill Zero without even realizing that they're doing anything wrong.
730* Vexes in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' are evil fairy-like beings that are summoned by Evokers, able to phase through walls and deal a sizeable amount of damage when they charge at players. Version 1.19 introduced their GoodCounterpart, the Allay, which implies that Vexes are corrupted Allays.
731* ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'', being based on the Tabletop game of the same name, features quite a few of these. Some live peacefully alongside humans, while others are villainous, including [[spoiler: the BigBad of the game]].
732* Some Pokémon of the Fairy-type, introduced in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', appear to be this, though most of them are closer to modern depictions. It's worth noting that despite their appearances, Fairy-types are [[KillerRabbit super effective against Dragon-type Pokémon]], which previously only had the weakness of ice or other dragons. They're also weak against [[ColdIron the Steel-type]], taking extra damage from it.
733** Gardevoir ({{retcon}}ned from pure {{Psychic|Powers}} to Psychic/Fairy along with its pre-evolutions) easily fits the description of "inhumanly beautiful", and is in fact [[HumanoidAbomination unrelated to humanoid Pokémon]] (until Generation VIII) -- its closest biological relatives include sundry Ghost-type Pokémon and ''walking sludge''. It's nowhere near as malevolent as this trope usually is though, and in fact [[UndyingLoyalty wants to protect its trainer at all costs]].
734** Mawile (based loosely on the Futakuchi-onna {{Youkai}}) was also retconned as Steel/Fairy from pure Steel. It's not necessarily evil, but it has a huge jaw-like horn in the back of its head (two when it Mega Evolves) and uses it to chomp its opponents after luring them with its cute appearance and gestures.
735** Mr. Mime, Whimsicott, and Klefki fit the mischievous type of fairy to a T. Mr. Mime is highly adept at tricking people and stealing from them, Whimsicott slips through people's houses and makes a mess of them for fun, and Klefki has a habit of stealing people's keys. Fittingly, Whimsicott and Klefki both have the Prankster ability.
736** Ribombee, a humanoid bee about eight inches tall, is the closest Fairy-type to the modern view of fairies as diminutive, benevolent winged humanoids.
737** [[TheMarvelousDeer Xerneas]], being a [[OlympusMons legendary]], also fits the classic fairy definition to a T; while not malevolent (it actually serves as something akin to a god of renewal), it is majestic, otherworldly, difficult for humans to comprehend, and ''[[PhysicalGod extremely]]'' powerful.
738** Shiinotic, a Grass/Fairy MushroomMan is one of the more malevolent Fairy types. It has a rather unnerving look, and it uses its {{bioluminescence|IsCool}} to make people get lost in the woods, or to make people drowsy so that it can feed on them by draining their strength.
739** Mimikyu, the first ever Ghost/Fairy-type, is a double subversion. It's a creature that hides its [[EldritchAbomination unspeakably horrifying appearance]] underneath a [[SeriesMascot Pikachu]] disguise due to [[IJustWantToBeLoved a desperate desire to be loved]]. However, several scenes, both in the games and the anime adaptation, seem to allude to Mimikyu having a bit of a dark side, including an NPC one implicitly threatening to curse you (and it's [[BrownNote no empty threat]] either), [[BossBattle Totem Mimikyu]] having a creepy StalkerShrine dedicated to Pikachu and one which [[EldritchLocation vanishes from existence]] the minute you defeat it, and its new Z-Move, known as [[CuteAndPsycho "Let's Snuggle Forever"]].
740** The island guardians of Alola, despite being very powerful protectors revered by the populace, [[JerkassGods aren't entirely]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality benevolent or kind]]. While Tapu Bulu is the nicest of the four (if you don't tick it off) and Tapu Fini is indifferent to human affairs, Tapu Koko is fickle and doesn't always come to save someone from danger, and Tapu Lele can use its scales to energise people into fighting one another to the death [[ItAmusedMe for its own amusement]]. Even in-universe, it's hinted that a legend regarding Tapu Lele ending a war by healing warriors with its scales [[{{Disneyfication}} is a sweetened version of a disturbing truth]].
741** While many Fairy type Pokemon are very cutesy, look at their moves. A given Fairy types approach to battle involves seduction, manipulation, vampirism, mysterious fogs, lunamancy, and plain old beating the crap out of the opponent. Much more like the Fair Folk than modern fairies.
742** ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' introduces two lines of dangerous and malevolent fairies. On one hand, we have the Dark/Fairy Impidimp line. The first stage, Impidimp, is a little imp/goblin that feeds on negative emotions. Its second stage, Morgrem, fights dirty and likes to lure people to get lost in the forest. The final stage, Grimmsnarl, is a brutal, hairy [[AllTrollsAreDifferent troll]].[[note]] [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Wrong]] {{Troll}}.[[/note]] On the other hand, there is also the Hattena line. It starts out just Psychic, but gains the Fairy type in the final evolution. Hatenna is harmless and will run away from people with strong emotions. Hattrem, the second stage, will beat them up mercilessly instead and Hatterene will tear people apart if they are too loud around it, and anyone who enters the forests where they live is in danger.
743** Also from ''Pokémon Sword and Shield'', Zacian is a Fairy-type NobleWolf Legendary who subverts this trope. It's one of the two graceful guardians of Galar and is the more offensive-oriented of the two, but that doesn't make it a {{Jerkass}}.
744** We now have this trope when speaking about human Trainers. Bede, one of the rival characters you encounter in ''Sword and Shield'', is a {{Jerkass}} who, while he starts off as a Psychic-type trainer, eventually specializes in Fairy-types, and is an arrogant dude who constantly brags about himself to the point he looks down on ''everyone'' who battles him. Opal, the Fairy-type Gym Leader, also has shades of this as her battle invokes the "mischievous" aspects of fairies, where she gives you a series of questions that try to trick you into picking the obvious answer instead of the "right" ones. It's no coincidence she ends up picking Bede as her successor.
745** [[spoiler:Volo in ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'' has a Togekiss as his ace, which illustrates his OmnicidalManiac nature and shaping up as the true antagonist of the game.]]
746** Ortega in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'', one of the leaders of Team Star, specializes in Fairy-types and is quite the spoiled BrattyHalfPint.
747*** There are also a few Pokémon that fit the bill as well. The Fairy/Steel-type Tinkatink line all utilize metal hammers that they make themselves, with Tinkaton using metal it harvests from Pawniard and Bisharp. There's also three of the [[spoiler:Paradox Pokémon you'll find in Area Zero, the Fairy/Psychic-type Scream Tail[[note]] Primal Jigglypuff[[/note]] and the Ghost/Fairy-type Flutter Mane[[note]] Primal Misdreavus[[/note]] in ''Scarlet'' alongside the Fairy/Fighting-type Iron Valiant[[note]] Robotic Gardevoir/Gallade hybrid[[/note]] in ''Violet.'' A Scream Tail even attacks Penny ''directly.'']]
748* Whilst Erana from ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' fame is the embodiment of all that's pure and good in the world, and like, fabulous as a person to boot, her fair folk friends and family are power-hungry rogues who are not above stepping on a mere mortal to get their hands on Erana's magical staff to gain more power. Doesn't help they're all high-powered mages like their cousin twice removed.
749** Also played with in the first game, where the hero can be forced to dance with fairies to the point of death.
750* The trope was briefly discussed with the Fey in ''VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale''. The original faeries were mischievous and conniving, until they found out the hard way that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans can be just as cruel]]. Current faeries have become subservient to the humans, if only to prevent their race from becoming extinct.
751* ''VideoGame/RemnantII'': The Fey of Losomn fit all of the check marks, being mystical beings with bizarre morals and a taste for human (well, Dran) flesh, but until recently were kept in check by the One True King, who was a harsh but well intentioned tyrant. Unfortunately, he was poisoned by an usurper and rendered comatose, which not only caused his subjects to run while, but also caused the Fey half of Losomn to merge with the Dran half, allowing the former to start hunting the latter. The usurper is split into two seperate fey that share a consciousness, with one possible branch of the Losomn story seeing you kill one half of the imposter so that the other can finally be freed of the madness of their shared existence and become the new king. The One True King eventually awakens after the main story ends but is rendered ''completely insane'', becoming the ArcVillain and FinalBoss of ''The Awakened King'' DLC. His son, the Red Prince, can also be found in Losomn and will instigate a boss battle if you don't pay him a toll and might fight you anyway if you underpay him. [[spoiler:He still kills you if you do give him adequate tribute, but you get a nice weapon mod if he does, and if you paid his toll and speak to him after killing his father, he gives you a nice set of armor before ascending to become the Red King]].
752* ''VideoGame/{{RIFT}}'' includes faerie as a major faction of bad guy (excepting the rare ones befriended by druids), aligned with [[SocialDarwinist Greenscale]], [[LightIsNotGood the Dragon of Life]]. Many of them look like typical post-Elizabethan sprites, until you notice [[BlackEyesOfEvil one glaring problem with their looks]]...
753** The playable [[OurElvesAreDifferent elf races]] in ''Rift'' have their Fair Folk traits. The high elves spawned House Aelfwar (a bunch of Greenscale cultists), and the Kelari have a cultural [[AGodAmI divinity complex]].
754* In ''VideoGame/RomancingSaga3'', the fairies love to play tricks on humans by spiking their tea, if the are silly enough to agree to drink with them, and intentionally give wrong information on how to reach the Fire Palace located in their jungle. The only fairy that doesn't act like this is Peony, who foregoes lying to the player and tells them the real path, out of gratitude for saving them previously.
755* In the ''VideoGame/RuneFactory'' games, the faeries are small women with wings who shoot sets of fairly powerful, guided magic wind scythes. At mid-level, these are some of the most dangerous normal opponents.
756* The Mystics of ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'' used to be this way, and the nobles who dwell in their hidden region still are. Though they have gotten a bit better, and for example [[TheWildHunt hunting humans for sport]] has fallen out of fashion. Lower caste mystics show the trope best, ranging in appearance from mermaids to large troll-like creatures. The higher level nobles tend to appear as beautiful humans, with the highest level, according to AllThereInTheManual being the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent True Vampires]].
757* In the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games, where AllMythsAreTrue, there are Fairies and Elves around too. And while they're certainly both cute and pretty, that doesn't mean they won't kill you just for being there.
758** Or if you're a pretty Japanese boy, they may just simply kidnap you to be their pet, regardless that you're trying to save the world -- which happens to [[TheStoic Raidou]] in ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsKingAbaddon'' in a side quest.
759** Or Puck could side with your rival who tries to LovePotion you to abandon the quest, but accidentally ''get'' your female party member (the funniest scenes ensue in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'' because of this).
760** Or if they're brainwashed by a power hungry SerialKiller, then Oberon and Titania will order the other fairies to make you wander around aimlessly in their domain. Guess what happens in ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne Nocturne]]''.
761** In ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse Apocalypse]]'', they are a DyingRace barely surviving the setting thanks to the Holy Grail (Dagda's Cauldron) they recovered from the Angels. They summoned Lady Danu to help restore everyone. However, she has become Black Maria in order to protect them, and can no longer reclaim her old position. It fell to recurring ally Nozomi to accept the fate of becoming the new Lady Danu in order to save them from extinction. Easier said than done, as one of the first crises they faced was the attack of the forces from the [[MultinationalTeam Divine Powers]] led by [[TheBrute Titan]] who set the Fairy Forest ablaze simply because [[DisproportionateRetribution "it was on his way"]].
762* ''VideoGame/SongsOfConquest'': While certainly not evil, the Faey can be vicious to any who they perceive as trespassing on their lands or despoiling nature.
763* ''VideoGame/StarControl II: The Ur-Quan Masters'' portrays the Arilou Lalee'lay as patronizing LittleGreenMen who were behind the myths of The Fair Folk and fit the trope as enigmatic allies with "plans" for humanity.
764* The fair folk from ''VideoGame/ATaleOfTwoKingdoms'' are not downright malicious, but tend towards nasty pranks against humans (particularly but not limited to the player character). The powerful and beautiful fairy queen turns out to be [[spoiler:not so benevolent as she tries to permanently entrap you in the fairy world]].
765* The pixie Hellions in ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria''. In Edna's words "Earth-dwellers seem to think they're benevolent. That's cute."
766* Mostly subverted in ''VisualNovel/TearsToTiara'', where The Fair Folk turn out to be pretty nice people indeed. The closest one to this trope is the item shop owner Epona, who at worst is an HonestJohn. Her shop is even called '[[GratuitousEnglish The Good Folk]]', though this is more of an allusion to mythology (it's set in Britain during the Roman invasion) than a lampshading.
767* In ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', while there are benevolent fae who can help you by leading you to the valuable treasure or, if summoned by the Fairy Bell, illuminating the dark places, pixies residing in [[LightIsNotGood the Hallow]] are aggressive and malevolent, trying to kill you on sight, just like the rest of the Hallow. Special mention goes to [[spoiler:the [[OptionalBoss Empress of Light]], who was described as a vengeful fae goddess desiring to [[KnightTemplar purge the land of any and all impurity]]]].
768* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'''s actual fairies don't really fit the trope beyond being mischevious; they're universally stupid and weak. On the other hand, some of the {{youkai}} come pretty close, most obviously [[RealityWarper Yukari]], who is beautiful, mysterious, and [[BossSubtitles the one behind the spiritings away]].
769** The fairies aren't completely removed from this, however. They are known for having a [[BlueAndOrangeMorality twisted sense of morality due to being immortal]], and many of them are too stupid to consider the consequences of their actions. Because of this, they are prone to inflicting [[DeadlyPrank deadly pranks]] on unfortunate people. Luckily, most fairies are extremely weak and pose little threat, and are rarely intentionally malicious.
770* ''VideoGame/{{Unavowed}}'' plays it straight with the Fae, a race of haughty, pale humanoids with [[AnIcePerson ice powers]], a penchant for making [[DealWithTheDevil magically binding deals (with included unfavorable consequences)]] with humans, and a love for giving people riddles to solve. It even turns out that one of the {{Arc Villain}}s, [[spoiler:"Roy Fellows" aka [[Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream Robin Goodfellow]]]], is one of them.
771* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': The monsters' overall relationship with humanity is ultimately a reference to this trope in everything [[NotUsingTheZWord but the use of the words "Mortal" and "Faerie"]]. The Monsters you meet throughout your venture into the depths of Mt. Ebott are characterized as bizarre, random, and deceptively logic-defying near-immortal creatures. Their relationship with humans is revealed to be the same as commonly seen between the Faerie and Mortals, as they were banished for their chaotic, whimsical nature, along with the recently discovered fact that they could strengthen themselves even further than their already inhuman levels through consumption of human souls, which tend to linger after death, and are obviously plentiful in supply. It doesn't help that you, the player, can slay most, but not all, of these mythical beings which you encounter with but a ColdIron knife and nothing more, if you please. [[spoiler:The trope is ultimately proven to be justified, as the "Monsters" fear humans just as much as humanity fears the "Monsters". Some of them are merely ignorant to the current happenings, while some are even benevolent towards the player.]]
772* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has two races of elves: Night Elves and Blood Elves. Night Elves, members of The Alliance, tend to be more benevolent as they're mostly nature lovers, but they are also very fierce warriors who aren't fond of outsiders. The Blood Elves, members of the Horde, are downright evil for the most part as they're very vain and derive their magical power from an imprisoned alien. There are also High Elves, who were the closest to Tolkien's elves, but there are very few left as most of them became Blood Elves. Also, Sylvanas Windrunner, a former High Elf, became a banshee after she died and founded the undead Forsaken, another Horde race (who are arguably also evil by nature since they are undead).
773** For the most part, the Blood Elves that are with the Horde aren't evil. They imprisoned a Naaru out of desperation more than anything else, because they could potentially die without a new source of magic after the destruction of the Sunwell. They haven't been so bad since the Sunwell was restored and they were given the power of the Light. Now they tend to arrogant pricks at worst, and not too much worse than the Night Elves were.
774** The Blood Elves who followed Kael'Thas into Outland, however, ''are'' evil and are aligned with a faction of demons that is bent on destroying all life in the universe.
775** The Night Elves made their first appearance attacking the Orcs [[DisproportionateRetribution for cutting down trees]]. They were also incredibly haughty and xenophobic, ignoring a war going on right in front of them and often attacking both sides with little provocation. It wasn't until the Burning Legion showed up [[EnemyMine and they had no choice but to team up with both of their enemies]] that they were finally willing to work with any of the other races. [[BreakTheHaughty They were also humbled quite a bit]] after the destruction of the WorldTree (which gave them their immortality), and ended up joining the Alliance.
776** Properly speaking, there's a fourth faction of Elves as well, the Naga, former High Elves (from the time when this meant the ruling class of the Night Elves, including their ancient queen, Azshara) twisted by the magical backlash of the destruction of the original Well of Eternity (which ripped the continent apart, leaving the four main continents of Azeroth today) into serpentine forms. They appear bent on retaking their old place as lords of Azeroth. There's quite a waiting line for that spot.
777* ''VideoGame/YearWalk'', being based on ancient Swedish folklore and tradition, has five fair folks referred to as "The Watchers" who are all very alien in approach and demeanor.
778** The first one is the Huldra, who looks like a beautiful woman clad in white with sticks protruding out of her. She either lives in or ''is'' the biggest, oldest tree in the forest. She [[CompellingVoice leads men astray with her ethereal voice]] and, like a [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]], [[OutWithABang kills them by having sex with them]]. However, she's the friend of colliers, can bless hunters' hunts and if blood is offered willingly to her she might lend her assistance... provided she doesn't drain you dry.
779** The second one is the [[HellishHorse Brook Horse]], a [[SharpDressedMan Sharp-Dressed Horse]] who [[WouldHurtAChild drowns children]] that play in its waters, but it may also take in Mylings to care about and carry the spirits of the dead into the afterlife. In the game it wants the protagonist to [[FetchQuest fetch it the souls]] of four murdered children in exchange for a key.
780** The third are the Mylings, the ghosts of children murdered by their mothers or caretakers. If one hears the cries of a Myling but chooses to ignore it, the Myling will exact its revenge... all it really wants is to be reunited with its mother, though. That said, it's not unheard of for them to murder their mothers once reunited with them.
781** The fourth is the [[RavensAndCrows Night Raven]], a [[CreepyCrows small corvid]] that swoops in and [[ThievingMagpie steals the key]] the Brook Horse gave you. However, the corvid isn't really the Night Raven. You have to pull the ''real'' Night Raven ''out of the corvid's mouth''. Its true form is a ghastly FeatheredFiend. According to folklore, [[BrownNote merely seeing the holes in a Night Raven's wings can strike a person with horrible pain, terrible disease and/or immediate death]].
782** The fifth and final fair being is the Church Grim, a guardian spirit of a sacrifical animal (or executed criminal) with a human's body and a ram's head... actually, it might be more accurate to say that it's a ram's head wearing a coat... and under said coat is nothing, except [[BeatStillMyHeart the Heart of the Universe]].
783[[/folder]]
784
785[[folder:Web Animation]]
786* ''WebAnimation/{{Brackenwood}}'':
787** The [=YuYu=] are tiny, goblin-like beings who come out at night to steal people away to a dark netherworld, and can fuse with each other into a cloud of black smoke.
788** The early short "Bingbong of Brackenwood" features another group of similar beings, perhaps an early "draft" of the [=YuYu=] or perhaps something different. They resemble tiny featureless humanoids that glow a soft yellow like a candle, and with flames for hair. Bingbong finds them in a clearing, dancing in a circle while others play pipes and drums. He runs in to join them, at which point the humanoids look at each other, nod, and begin to dance faster and faster around Bingbong as their yellow glow turns orange, then red... [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth until Bingbong looks down to find them all lying dazed on the ground]], at which point he loses interest and wanders away. This is a reference to {{Fairy Ring}}s, which were believed to be where fairies would force the mortal entering it to dance to death.
789[[/folder]]
790
791[[folder:Webcomics]]
792%%* ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'': The Elves. Especially Thief.%%Quotes aren't context.
793%%-->'''Thief:''' Like it says in our national anthem ''Elfland, and fuck you too'', [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2008/11/29/episode-1065-team-up-spectacular/ "We are a race of total bastards"]]
794* In ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace'', the Fey have agreed to help Morgan become queen, for impenetrable reasons of their own (hence "Morgan le Fey"). However, they don't actually seem to be all that bright...
795* ''Webcomic/{{Blindsprings}}'' has the masked spirits to whom Tamaura is contracted. At time of writing their benevolence has yet to be established.
796* In the webcomic ''Webcomic/ChasingTheSunset'', Pixies are not evil per se but are chaos incarnated. The kind of things you do ''not'' want in a fireworks shop.
797* The Feyn in ''Webcomic/CityOfSomnus'' have insect wings and look like overgrown Tinkerbell. Do not be fooled by appearances. That's true, they CannotTellALie (it's their magical nature), but feed on human creative energy and take this "for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand" as an invitation to "rescue" lots of cute, creative kids. They also [[ImmortalImmaturity act like spoiled children themselves]], fight each other a lot (to pools of [[AlienBlood technicolor blood]]) and tend to be very in-your-face. And if you happen to be a grown-up, they turn outright cruel.
798* Fey in ''Webcomic/CodeNameHunter'' seem to be mostly a combination of the Scottish and Irish traditional fair folk. Including kidnapping of mere mortals in order to pay tithe to {{Hell}}.
799** Max once lampshaded the "Disney" idea most Americans have of fairies. [[http://www.codenamehunter.com/archive/comic/2011/11/14 "Trust me, a person would have to be desperate to go through a fey gate"]]
800* ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' may or may not invoke this trope; while the fae seem mostly good on the surface, at worst being strange and random, it has been shown that [[spoiler: Mab, one of the title characters, has secretly been manipulating her friends for her own (unknown) ends for an indefinite length of time. What she has been doing so far seems to be to their benefit, but only as far as we know...]]
801** [[GreatGazoo They]] [[CloudCuckoolander are]] [[TimeDissonance creepy]] [[DisproportionateRetribution enough]] [[MoodSwinger already]]. More on them [[http://www.missmab.com/Demo/fae.php here]].
802* Immortals in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' apparently [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2331 used to call themselves fairies,]] and they certainly live up to the old stories. The ones the audience has seen have done things like arranging an attack on a school, or trying to have an innocent killed, and even some of the nicer ones have manipulated children into killing a monster when there were better options available. They are voluntarily held in check by rules allowing them to "only guide and empower mortals," which mostly just means that they have to be subtle about their mischief.
803* The Dreen in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' are (probably) not literally fairies, but they are extra-dimensional beings of great power whose timestream runs "tangental" to humanity and who insert themselves (both for good and ill) into the latter's lives for utterly alien reasons.
804* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' Fairies are about halfway between the cute Pixie and the chaotic trickster types. They're capricious and largely lacking in tact and empathy, but the only harm they've done is emotional rather than physical, and mostly directed at other Fairies rather than humans. Still, this behavior provoked stunned silence (and breaking the GoshDangitToHeck rule) from the protagonists.
805** To add to their alien-ness, the ''Webcomic/CityFace'' interlude shows that they [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=563 don't distinguish between lengths of distance and lengths of time]].
806** Penchant for mischief belongs to the ''[[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=332 cute]]'' part.
807** Chapter 36 revisits Foley House, where former fairies and other Gillitie Wood creatures go, specifically the class of those four ex-fairies we have seen in Chapter 15. [[SpiritWorld Etheric side]] of the classroom is effectively one crazy playground, and inhabitants generally are childish, but so adorable and hilarious that Annie puts up with their manners (or rather lack thereof) and joins the fun... not that everything was so simple.
808* ''Webcomic/{{Hexenringe}}'' shows the faerie-like Xili [[http://http://hexenringe.blogspot.jp/2013/12/interlude-xanadan.html viewing activity in the human world]].
809* Creator/{{Humon}} often draws mythological creatures that lure humans to a watery death or the like. Even though they all look cutesy in her drawing style, most of the fair folk are, if not malevolent, at least dangerous. And then there are the hunters who think they captured a huldrekarl (a male huldra, they're hollow inside and have a fox tail) -- even though they have him in chains he ''smiles''. The comic has not been continued, but it's titled "who caught whom?", implying that those men are in for a nasty surprise. (Or a sexy one. Or maybe both.)
810* The fae in ''Webcomic/IntoTheMidnightCity'' are implied to engage in nefarious trickery, like stealing souls.
811* In ''Webcomic/IronGate'' the Fey enchanted Embers with her fire powers as a child, which resulted in her accidentally killing her parents. In the story called Whiteout, one of the Fey appears as a huge dangerous ice based monster with many ice minions at its command.
812* Elves in ''Webcomic/MSPaintAdventures'' behave more in this manner than the usual elf characteristics. In ''Webcomic/{{Jailbreak}}'', they're even willing to trade wishes for the right to a baby, much like the typical fae "give me your firstborn" type of wish exchange.
813* A major arc of ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'' pits the KidHero against some of the nastiest members of The Fair Folk. In this case, fae are split up into Seleighe and Unseleighe, both of which were originally a home-built immortal ServantRace, [[ZerothLawRebellion supernaturally compelled to follow obscure and poorly known rules]] in addition to any promises they make. The former are suggested to be a healthy lawful neutral with a minor fondness for some mortal species, but the Unseleighe are lawful only to the letter of the law, willing to [[KickTheDog rip a pet bird apart or steal human children for their own entertainment]], and in the words of Quentyn's narration live to "see how evil they can be without breaking the rules". TheWildHunt ensues, showing how dangerous they are.
814** The setting also contains fairies closer to the [[LighterAndSofter cute and friendly version]], who only interact with the material plane to drop glowing rocks in small circles, inside which living creatures occasionally hear the sounds from another dimension trickle over.
815* ''Webcomic/NothingSpecial'': Quite a fair bit of creatures in the Spirit World. Some are friendly and social but then of course you have a few snobs who don't bother with socializing outside their own kind (such as some faeries whom Callie was trying to get information from) and then there's the ones who think so highly of themselves to the point they think can decide if a person lives or dies i.e [[spoiler: Callie's Dryad mother, Lyla.]]
816* Sandoval, the Xoan Ambassador from ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}''.
817* Used as a [[http://plif.courageunfettered.com/archive/wc162.gif subversion]] (of the popular version) in ''Webcomic/TheParkingLotIsFull''.
818* The snow spirits of ''Webcomic/PennyBlackfeather'' have this vibe, although the one we have the most experience with is small and in distress.
819* ''Webcomic/{{Realta}}'': The fae were the antagonists in the prologue and still haunt the four kingdoms today. They appear as silvery spirits who attack travelers. They can normally be warded off by ColdIron, but characters note that it is becoming less and less effective.
820* In ''Webcomic/{{Rhapsodies}}'' Peaseblossom, the pixie featured in many of the strip's dream sequences, is at best capricious with a '''very''' mercurial temperament. At worst some of her "bright ideas" are kind of... [[http://rhapsodies.wpmorse.com/comic/never-wake/ fatal]].
821* In ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}'' (and in its SpinOff s ''Webcomic/GirlsNextDoor'' and ''Webcomic/DownTheStreet'') The Fair Folk is the (magical) [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] between {{Heaven}} and {{Hell}} and [[TangledFamilyTree one ''happy'' family]] so all related to the token fair teammate [[Film/{{Labyrinth}} Jareth]]. They seem to actually invoke InterspeciesRomance to increase their numbers and make the magic family tree *somewhat* healthier and accidentally created the MageSpecies (those hybrids who aren't strong or fair enough) in the process so any magical talent implies Fair(y) Relatives. They also do everything any self-respecting fae of this trope does, the child stealing included and... let's just say that almost all things NightmareFuel and FridgeHorror in the series have something to do with them.
822** Let's look at the Erlkönig: He thought that [[ChangelingTale stealing the little brother of his son's love interest]] is a good idea, that locking the cast in a LotusEaterMachine is a gift not to mention the time he pressured the token fair teammate (his son) into hosting TheWildHunt. And he is one of the ''nice'' ones.
823** As far as their society goes, they have themed courts all ruled by Kings, Queens, Royal Couples or a couple of royals all exalted by ''blood'' [[RoyalBlood inherited]] or [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt spilled]]. Over this is the [[OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Conclave]] to minimize infighting and bloodshed. Which generally means that they punish losers and accept winners, so people can go against them, just need to win or else.
824* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': Fae are divided into several different varieties. Cookie and ChristmasElves are cute, sociable, and relatively harmless, but far more dangerous kinds exist. The gang ends up needing to deal with a mushroom fairy. She is forbidden from harming adults, limited to messing with their minds and inflicting them with LaserGuidedAmnesia. Children however, she traps in her mists until their minds become weak enough for her to feed to her mushrooms.
825* ''Webcomic/SpinaCage'' has had a single faerie appear so far. He tries to eat the main character.
826* In ''Webcomic/TheWeave'', the fairies are organized in a complex society structure under the rule of the [[DecadentCourt Court of Queens]]. Most of them are self-serving, manipulative, and cruel to humans and their own folks alike. Besides that, they also deal in magic, can be murdered with ColdIron, and are an InhumanlyBeautifulRace.
827* ''Webcomic/ZebraGirl'': Some inhabitants of the Subfusc, as well as some of the things leaving it for the mortal realm (or waking up in it) seem to be this, most notably the [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Goblins]] and the [[HairRaisingHare Vorpal Pook]].
828[[/folder]]
829
830[[folder:Web Original]]
831* The Ellehemaei (all the main characters) in Literature/{{Addergoole}}.
832* The Forest Queen in ''Literature/AshAndCinders'' is literally bolted to her own throne by its branches weaving through her body, forcing her to move the branches of her throne with her mind if she wants to move at all. Cinder notes that she can't really tell if the Forest Queen is doing anything of her own accord, or whether her actions are manipulated by something more Fae.
833* The [=ThinkGeek=] website invoked this trope on their "[[http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/e9af/?cpg=180P Candy Unicorn Horn]]" item.
834** ''"We made a deal with faeries to get these candy treats."''
835** ''"(Seriously, we could have died. We probably still will. Faeries are tricky.)"''
836* In ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'', the Faerfolc are mysterious and powerful beings who can turn out to be friendly (provide a blessing) or hostile (kill or torture anyone who trespasses on their lands) depending on the circumstances... and what ''mood'' they happen to be in when you meet them. When they were released from captivity, they offered cryptic advice to the heroes but later on rampaged in Libaterra, killing hundreds of people in their lust for revenge before retreating back to the forests to live their life in peace. Currently the fey have two factions: the neutral, tradition-bound ones led by Morrigan who wish to live away from the corruption of mortal civilizations, and the fanatic destroyers led by Curdardh who wish to purge the world from "impure" races.
837* The single Gnome we've seen in ''Literature/HundredCompanions'' thus far seems to have these tendencies, apparently unable to distinguish between a hilarious prank and an assassination attempt.
838* ''Literature/{{Moonflowers}}'' is set in Ireland, where TheWildHunt are the antagonists. They've abducted the American Alima's parents, turned her father into a dog, and are hunting Alima herself while she's grieving for her missing family. [[FromBadToWorse It turns out that the Wild Hunt cursed her family to be three of the victims]] [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame in the Fairy Raid.]] However, the Wild Hunt is unusually extreme: Maidin the river-spirit is quite nice (even if he's [[CloudCuckooLander not all there]]), has been friends with a supporting character for decades, and is attempting to renew a ReincarnationRomance [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld with said character's grandson.]]
839** Ramped up further when their leader the Horned Hunter, [[PhysicalGod constantly stated as "almost a god,"]] is revealed as [[AnthropomorphicPersonification a straight-up force of nature]] representing ''[[NatureIsNotNice predators.]]'' Which is why [[GodsHandsAreTied the Irish gods have so much trouble]] helping the Song family--because ''very technically,'' obstructing him too much would [[ExactWords "go against the natural order"--]]plus, telling a predator [[SwiperNoSwiping to just stop hunting]] has a real danger of making him kill EVEN MORE PEOPLE in retaliation. While they can make him stop targeting the Song family, they'd need [[EquivalentExchange to replace them with other victims.]] Both humans and gods are frantically playing XanatosSpeedChess with the Hunter, resulting in one GambitPileup and [[EleventhHourRanger the Filipino goddess Mayari's]] unexpected arrival.
840* WebOriginal/{{Phantasia}} has fairies trying to kill humans [[GaiasVengeance for what they've done to the planet]].
841* Mentioned, but so far unseen, in ''Literature/TheSaints''.
842* ''Website/SCPFoundation''
843** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-001-o5 Bright's proposal for SCP-001]] mentions faeries as a race of beings that attacked the Foundation's predecessor. They looked identical to humans and were allergic to iron. The Foundation's predecessor was nearly destroyed by them, but thanks to [[spoiler:a DealWithTheDevil]] was able to fight back and kill all of the fairies.
844** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-562 SCP-562 ("Revel Rousers")]]. It's rather strongly implied that this is a modern version of the Fair Folk bringing people to a party in Faerie, including the YearInsideHourOutside effect on its victims and the way they are lured into agreeing to go to it.
845** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1323 SCP-1323 ("A County Fair")]]. This is in another dimension which can only be accessed at certain points and times in our universe. Customers have to buy tickets by paying things like "a joyful laugh and a sorrowful tear" or "a lost love". Anyone who eats food there has a chance of staying there permanently, the same way that people who ate food while in Faerie would be trapped there. The livestock pavilion contains (among other creatures) unicorns.
846** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4000 The nameless SCP in slot 4000]] is a forest inhabited by faeries (though the document doesn't call them that) with the unique property of having no names. Giving them (or the forest or the landmarks within) a name, or being named by a faery, is [[TheScottishTrope a very bad idea]], with consequences up to and including [[GrandTheftMe having one's name stolen]] (hence why it's not called "SCP-4000"). Foundation members who interact with the faeries must follow a lengthy list of rules to avoid angering them, and even then some of the faeries seem to be innately hostile to humans. One of the faeries claims that [[spoiler:they are the survivors of the attempted genocide mentioned in Bright's Proposal. In their account, the faeries used to be allies and helped the Foundation fight the Factory, but the Foundation's predecessor betrayed them, killing many and somehow stealing their very names. This is why some faeries hate humans in general.]]
847** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6800 SCP-6800 ("The White Ashes")]]: Pygnite is a metallic substance made up of the ground-up corpses of faeries.
848* There are theories that [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos the Slender Man]] may or may not be an example; one of the earliest tales is that he dwells in a forest and does something with naughty children. [[http://quiaegosicdico.blogspot.com/2010/07/bottle-unto-oblivion.html A Lack of Lexicon]] is less ambiguous about this.
849* In ''Literature/TalesOfMu'', Elves fall somewhere between this and a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of CantArgueWithElves.
850* The ''WebOriginal/TallTales'' short story "Trespasser" includes a fae [[spoiler: whose primary interaction in the story is to capture trespassers and send changelings back to the human world]].
851* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', the Faerie are an ancient race who think of humans as pets raised (originally) in a garden world. They apparently feel the same way about werewolves. Fey, one of the protagonists, was changed into her current appearance by an ancient Faerie spirit who now resides in Fey's head. While Fey is inhumanly beautiful, in "Ill Winds" her true form is a luminescent energy form that isn't remotely human.
852* [[https://i.imgur.com/T1H2BVB.png This series of posts on Tumblr]] posits that we, humans, are effectively this to animals.
853[[/folder]]
854
855[[folder:Web Video]]
856* ''Franchise/CriticalRole'': Being a Dungeons and Dragons ActualPlay, Fae creatures appear from time to time. They typically are not ''evil'' as much as they are amoral. Completely untrustworthy and unlikely to consider the effects his actions have on others. For htis reason, Allura warns Vox Mchina not to trust ''anyone'' they meet in the Fewild and be very careful what they say or agree to. One such creature, Garmelie satyr, draws caricatures of people and will offer assistance in exchange for some odd request.
857--> '''Matt''': Even the nicest Fey have their weird or dark sides.
858[[/folder]]
859
860[[folder:Western Animation]]
861* A lot of the spirits from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. Especially Koh, a giant centipede spirit who delights in [[FaceStealer stealing people's faces...]]
862* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', the leprechauns that Scrooge [=McDuck=] and his nephews meet aren't evil ''per se'', but they ''are'' willing to kill anyone who trespasses on their property, even by dumping them into a snake pit in their castle. (This almost happens to the protagonists, but when the Leprechaun King finds out that they were invited by the leprechaun who brought them there -- despite the fact that the leprechaun in question is a SnakeOilSalesman -- [[SacredHospitality he decides they can't do that]].)
863** The [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017 2017 remake]] includes Kelpies (styled like My Little Pony characters, no less), which as to be expected want to drown the main characters.
864* One of the monsters in ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' is an evil leprechaun who quotes a famous poem about fearing the Fair Folk.
865* Brian Froud's ''Fairies'' was adapted as a half hour animated special in the 1980's.
866* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' -- the magical creatures, [[FantasyKitchenSink even those not from Western mythology]], all seem to have a bit of this. [[DrillSergeantNasty Jorgen Von Strangle]] is an absolute sadist and Da Rules seem to mostly be made to frustrate everyone and do not help much. [[LiteralGenie Norm]] [[GenieInABottle the Genie]] (aside from being a general JackassGenie who delights in causing mayhem) has no clue that inflating a balloon that looks like a child's head and [[YourHeadASplode causing it to explode]] when you say that you want to "give each and every child a great big smile" is not a good idea if you want votes (and the fairies don't have too much of a clue about that, either). Cosmo has no clue that falling for various beautiful women would upset anyone (including his wife). Pixies don't know fun is fun and boring is not (or they don't care) and desire the entire world to be boring. Santa Claus is a two-timer that flirts with female genies after Norm explodes from magic back-up. Santa also acts quite selfish and gluttonous in "Have A Merry Wishmas". Cupid is greedy and can be bribed to do stuff for money, as well as being {{Pride}}ful. The series does all this even though they are {{Fairy Companion}}s. Finally we have Anti-Fairies, who kill time by giving humanity bad luck, cheat at the Fairy Olympics and have gotten to the point of [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroying the world]]... and they're the ''only'' ones who are [[CardCarryingVillain honest about it]].
867** Also, the April Fool in "Fools Day Out" called causing the Earth to go into an Ice Age by hitting several planets and stuff a "prank" or "joke".
868** One episode also has "Scary Fairies". A state brought on by a fairy being stuck in pitch black for too long, who compulsively desire to eat their Godkid. [[spoiler: Fortunately it's all just a practical joke on Timmy, due to him having played scary tricks on Poof earlier.]]
869** In "Crocker of Gold" there are a bunch of leprechauns called the [=McPunchies=]. Compared to previous leprechauns, they're a muscular mob-like clan who want their pot of gold back from Crocker. However, in a surprising turn, they want the ''pot'' itself, not the gold (apparently, it's an heirloom for cooking competitions.)
870* The "Third Race" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. They are said to be creatures of pure magic, and they are vulnerable to ColdIron, with varying possibilities; ranging from forcing them into servitude (as was done with Puck and the Weird Sisters), to outright harming and potentially killing them. Also, the general nature, their immense magical prowess and doing as they please is very true. Especially the episode when Oberon and Titania were out to capture Xanatos's son Alexander for the Gathering. Goliath thought it was so vile that he actually ''sides'' with Xanatos to prevent Alexander's capture.
871** Oberon is consistently depicted in the series as capricious, vain and arrogant, [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem making and breaking edicts on a whim]]. He ''is'', surprisingly enough, a GracefulLoser, and capable of being reasonable (though, fittingly, his reason is his own), until he feels he's being disrespected.
872** Aside from their morally questionable leaders, the other "Children of Oberon" in the series vary greatly in personality, disposition, and form. Though they all tend to be pretty mischievous, even the ones that like humans and Gargoyles.
873*** Interestingly, WordOfGod has said they used to be a whole lot '''worse.''' After being banished from Avalon, most changed considerably; besides Oberon who, at the time, was ''mature'' and ''compassionate'' in comparison, and didn't feel like he had anything to learn. And don't even get started on his [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen mother, Mab]]. In fact, Mab allegedly was so terrible that Oberon is generally seen as an improvement by his people.
874** Titania, his wife, seems to be of the other type thankfully, and is more than capable of controlling her husband (granted, she was actually much worse and the only reason she changed was because Oberon cursed her to learn humility). [[spoiler: Unfortunately, she's the instigator for the incident with Alexander. And then also the instigator for the interference of the Gargoyles]].
875** On the other hand, Puck, another prominent member of the Third Race, is a classical trickster with a great aptness for LoopholeAbuse. While more benevolent than fellow tricksters Raven or Anansi, he's a great schemer when he needs to be and not above playing Goliath and Co. for his own benefit.
876* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Dipper and [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Mabel]] discover the legendary creatures that exist in Gravity Falls. The BigBad [[spoiler:merges his dimension with the earth and inviting his otherworldly friends, causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]].
877* ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'', possibly as a nod to the considerably more [[VillainProtagonist violent and murderous]] character in the original comic, once met a fairy who'd been an ally to the Mask for the past 4000 years, and considers things like melting the skin off bones to be all in good fun. He soon realises that [[WesternAnimation/BugsBunny this]] [[HeroicHost Mask]] is [[DarkIsNotEvil different]], and the Mask ends up dragging him off... [[FateWorseThanDeath to school]].
878* The [[EmotionEater changelings]] in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', [[spoiler: whose queen disguises herself as Princess Cadance in order to open up Canterlot's defenses.]]
879** Discord, somewhere between a spirit of bedlam and a [[PhysicalGod god of chaos]], hews closer to the characterization of fairies and their ilk as being spiteful and petty.
880* ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'' has two Faeries visit the mortal realm on vacation, posing as Canadian exchange students. They're immediately established as mischievous by playing pranks on Gem and friends. They like the mortal realm so much they lure two of Sabrina's friends to the Faerie Realm intending to make them eat some Faerie food -- so they can take their place in the mortal realm. Oh and they're racist against mortals too.
881* ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'' : in the episode "The fliegel has landed" a mischievous and troublesome fairy named Grotta causes distress in the cave of the trolls, and even ends bewitching Cedric.
882* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': The fact that a little pixie tried to flay Luz with its huge teeth doesn't speak too well of the Boiling Isles. Overall, since it has been stated that many of our mythical beings are the result of beings from the Isles leaking into our world, is easy to guess that myths abouts fae and witches were inspired by encounters with people from the Boiling Isles. Their pointy ears, ability to use magic (thanks to an organ attached to their hearts) and condescending (and sometimes mischievous) attitude towards humans like Luz seems to reinforce this idea.
883* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'', of all cartoons:
884** For the greater part of the show, fairies are presented as kind and compassionate. Then, in season 4, we meet Earth fairies. Who, as soon as they're freed from their prison, they embark in a genocidal quest to exterminate mankind. [[spoiler:The Winx eventually manage to get them to stand down, but only after they had decimated Gardenia with plants and threatened to freeze the world.]]
885** Also, witches are basically the same thing, only wingless and with dark alignment. And the difference between the Three Ancient Witches, the Trix and the rest of the witches is the [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards]]: witches will try and ruin your festival out of spite if you don't invite them and are prone to [[TorchesAndPitchforks form lynching mobs]] [[DisproportionateRetribution in response to one of them getting slapped as she deserved]], the Trix started out as particularly sadistic witches with an agenda before succeeding and [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity becoming outright psychos upon getting the immense power of the Dragon's Flame]], and the Three Ancient Witches were ''worse''.
886[[/folder]]
887
888----
889''Now turn around thrice Widdershins, spit, and touch iron...''

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