Research source

All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with…

Date of account: Nineteenth-century comparative survey
Source: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Reference: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries · selected passage 13
Rights: public_domain
Language: English with translated traditional material
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemur--the first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou[8]), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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