Guess that's where kaleidoscopes come from.
Tropes about fairies, elves, leprechauns, and their ilk.
Compare Angelic Tropes, Elf Tropes, Genie Tropes, and Mer Tropes.
Tropes:
Main Trope:
Related Indexes:
Other Related Indexes:
- The Ageless: Fairies who can't die of old age but can still be killed using other methods.
- Alchemic Elementals: Fairies, pixies, and sprites are occasionally portrayed as air/wind elementals and gnomes as earth elementals.
- Alien Fair Folk: Mythological creatures turning out to be aliens, are confused for aliens, or pass themselves off as aliens.
- All Trolls Are Different: The diverse, and sometimes clashing, iterations of trolls.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Fairies with abnormal skin colors/tones.
- Can't Argue with Elves: A race that's always, always right.
- Changeling Tale: Fairies kidnapping human children and replacing them with fairy children.
- Christmas Elves: Elves who work for Santa Claus up at the North Pole.
- Cold Iron: A traditional weakness of fairies.
- Cultural Posturing: Elves or fairies believing their culture is better than another's.
- Elfeminate: Feminine-looking male elves.
- Elves Versus Dwarves: Elves fighting dwarves.
- Elvish Presley: A stock pun combining elves with Elvis Presley.
- Enchanted Forest: A deep, magical forest.
- Enslaved Elves: A once proud and powerful race forced into squalor and servitude.
- Exposition Fairy: A fairy sidekick who dispenses exposition.
- Faerie Court: Fairy nobility or royalty.
- Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: Mythical creatures doubting the existence of humans.
- The Fair Folk: Cruel, wicked fairies.
- Fairy Companion: A fairy sidekick.
- Fairy Devilmother: An evil Fairy Godmother.
- Fairy Dragons: Small dragons with fairy wings.
- Fairy Godmother: A character, often female, who magically helps the protagonist.
- Fairy in a Bottle: Fairies captured in bottles or jars.
- Fairy Ring: A circle/ring of mushrooms that may or may not be magical.
- Fairy Sexy: Attractive fairies.
- Fairy Trickster: A fairy or pixie who's a notorious trickster.
- Fauns and Satyrs: Humanoids with the lower halves of deer or goats.
- Food Chains: When eating food from a strange realm has serious, negative consequences.
- Garden Garment: Elves or fairies wearing clothes fashioned from flowers or leaves.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Sometimes used to distinguish good fairies from evil ones.
- Great Gazoo: An eccentric, possibly immature fey with incredible powers.
- Griping About Gremlins: Diminutive beings who tamper with electronics and machinery.
- Have I Mentioned I Am a Dwarf Today?: Bragging about and being proud of belonging to a proud warrior race.
- Hidden Elf Village: A secret location inhabited by isolationists who may or may not be elves or fairies.
- Hobbits: A race of short, simple folk who often act as an Audience Surrogate for modern-day humans.
- House Fey: A fairy who lives with and helps take care of a human family.
- Immortality: Sometimes, fairies are portrayed as living forever.
- The Imp: A small, antagonistic creature who's more annoying than outright evil or malicious.
- Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Elves and fairies are often beautiful far beyond normal human standards.
- Land of Faerie: A dimension, plane, or realm primarily inhabited by fairies.
- Leprechaun: Irish fairies who often dress in green and have pots of gold.
- Little Bit Beastly: Fairies with animal features, with insect antennae and wings being the most common
- Long-Lived: It's common for fairies to have long lifespans.
- Mushroom House: A house shaped like a mushroom or other kind of fungus.
- Nature Spirit: An Anthropomorphic Personification of the forces of nature.
- Nuckelavee: A creature resembling a rider merged with a horse.
- Our Banshees Are Louder: The different depictions of banshees, Celtic portents of doom in the form of a crying woman who started out as a kind of fairy, in fiction.
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Little to no variation among portrayals of dwarves.
- Our Elves Are Different: The different depictions of elves.
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder: The differing depictions of gnomes.
- Our Goblins Are Different: All the varieties of goblins.
- Our Kobolds Are Different: Originally a common name for German fairy beings, kobolds may still be linked to fairies.
- Our Nymphs Are Different: Female nature spirits originating from Classical Mythology.
- Our Ogres Are Hungrier: The varying portrayals of ogres.
- Our Orcs Are Different: The different varieties of orcs.
- Our Pixies Are Different: The varying portrayals of pixies.
- Peeve Goblins: Beings or creatures that exist to inconvenience others.
- Pointy Ears: Elves and fairies often have these.
- Power Gives You Wings: Powerful fairies with wings.
- Precursors: When elf or fairy culture comes before humans'.
- Proud Warrior Race: It's common for certain fey to be portrayed as such.
- Really 700 Years Old: When ancient fairies don't look their age.
- Screw You, Elves!: Telling off a Superior Species.
- Sidekick Creature Nuisance: A fairy sidekick who gets on everyone's nerves.
- Sinister Schnoz: Big, long, pointy noses are a common feature among some kinds of fair folk.
- Space Elves: Alien elves.
- Spark Fairy: Fairies depicted as simple balls of light.
- Standard Fantasy Races: Stock races of sapient beings frequently found in fantasy works. Fairies are one of the recurring non-central races.
- Tooth Fairy: A fairy who collects children's teeth and replaces said teeth with money.
- Unusual Ears: Non-standard ears for elves and fairies.
- The Wild Hunt: Supernatural beings, creatures, or entities hunting humans.
- Will-o'-the-Wisp: A magical or supernatural light that leads unsuspecting travelers into danger.
- Winged Humanoid: Modern fairies are often depicted as this.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time passing more quickly in the fantasy world than in the real one.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Time passing more quickly in the real world than in a fantasy one.
