Fae Folk Quotes

Before, I never knew how far I would go. Now I believe I have the answer. I will go as far as there is to go. I will go way too far.

Clap her in chains," says Randalin. Never have I so wished there was a way for me to show I was telling the truth. But there isn't. No oath of mine carries any weight. I feel a guard's hand close on my arm. Then Cardan's voice comes. "Do not touch her." A terrible silence follows. I wait for him to pronounce judgement on me. Whatever he commands will be done. His power is absolute. I don't even have the strength to fight back. "Whatever can you mean?" Randalin says. "She's-" "She is my wife," Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. "The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.

I am the Queen of Elfhame. Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen. And that means Madoc isn't just trying to take Cardon's throne. He's trying to take mine.

It is at that unfortunate moment that one of the knights stops me. "You. Mortal girl in the mask," he says. "You smell like blood." I turn. Frustrated and desperate as I am, I blurt out the first thing that comes to me. "Well, I am mortal. And a girl, sir. We bleed every month, just like moon swells.

It's so hard to be sassy to the Fair Folk. You people never get jokes

Together they’d run away. Together they could find a place to call home. Together they’d finally form their own constellation and never break apart again. He would be her starlight again and she his sun.

The whole place looks straight out of a fairy tale, the kind where love is a simple thing, never the cause of pain.

I rub a hand over my face. By the fire, a spindly, insectile faerie stirs a big pot. "You want soup, mortal? " I shake my head. "You want to be soup? " It asks hopefully.

When I met Eldred, he rode up on a milk-white steed, and all the imaginings of my life were as dust and ashes.

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours

We- the Folk- don't love like you do,' Locke said. 'Perhaps you shouldn't trust me with your heart. I might break it.

One of the guiding principles of dryadology,” I said, “is this: do not cross the sort of Folk who make collections of human body parts.

The revel will go on, I realize. Everything will go on. But I am not sure that I can.

It is very near us that country is, it is on every side; it may be on the bare hill behind it is, or it may be in the heart of the wood.

I’ve never paid any attention to time. Dancer says I’ve enjoyed a luxury most people never have. He hates clocks and watches and everything that has to do with time. He says people already have too many lost days and that most folks live in the past or the future but never the present, always saying stuff like “I’m unhappy because ‘X’ happened to me yesterday, or I’ll be happy again when ‘Y’ happens to me tomorrow.” He says time is the ultimate villain.

The boughs of trees stretched high overhead, leaves of dappled green and black mottling the sky. It was called the black forest for more reasons than the inky-black foliage. The wise and cautious seldom travelled by night along its poorly-tended roads, and banditry wasn’t the main reason. In the minds of many, shadows of a threat lurked in wait, seeking an opportunity to strike during a moment of weakness. It was known among the old folk that not all who dwelled within the black forest were of human or animal-kind. Some beings were much older and believed far more dangerous.

Are there then trees flown unto by angels? So strangely drawn forth by concealed, slow gardeners, Which bear them for us, without their being meant for us? Have we never been able, we shadows, we shades, With our rash ripening behaviour and then our wilting, To disturb the equanimity of that calm summer?

Unglamoured, my skin is the pale blue-grey of hydrangea blooms, smeared with dirt along one cheek and across my nose. My hair is so woven with leaves and twigs and mud that it would be almost impossible to know that underneath it is an even darker blue. I have the same pointy chin I had when I thought I was mortal. A thin face, with large eyes, and an expression of startlement, as though I expect someone else when I look in the mirror. At least my eyes could pass for human. They're green, deep and dark. I smile a little to see the awfulness of my sharp teeth. A mouth full of knives. They make even the Folk flinch.

You could simply tell them you prefer silver." For this is the customary offering in Ireland, at least for the courtly fae. Almost every species of Folk disdains human metals, yet the Irish fae are unique in their ability to tolerate---and, indeed, to love---silver. It is said that they fill their vast, dark forests with silver mirrors like jewels, which drink in the little sun and starlight that penetrates the boughs and reflect it back at the will of the Folk; it is also said that they use silver to construct fantastical staircases that wind up and up those vast trunks, and bridges that hang between them like delicate necklaces.

You can't reveal to me that you're Folk---it must have been part of the enchantment that exiled you from your world. Isn't that it? I've heard of that---yes, that account of the Gallic changeling. And isn't it a peripheral motif within the Ulster Cycle?* * There are, in fact, several stories from France and the British Isles which describe this sort of enchantment. In two of the Irish tales, which may have the same root story, a mortal maiden figures out that her suitor is an exile of the courtly fae after he inadvertently touches her crucifix and burns himself (the Folk in Irish stories are often burning themselves on crucifixes, for some reason). She announces it aloud, which breaks the enchantment and allows him henceforth to reveal his faerie nature to whomever he chooses.

What do you tell someone who hasn't live through it all? Try to explain what it's like, living under a pressure-front of madness crawling up out of the sea - the fairy folk nearly done with their centuries-long crossing of the Atlantic. Tell him about the watchtowers of the air, brought to earth by fire in New York. Tell him about New Orleans, all its magic and voudoun drawing the Fey like a magnet, the ocean rising up to meet it. By the time they burn like wildfire all across the country to Hollywood, the whole world will be dreaming their dreams.

I adored your fluttering touches and effervescent kisses nestled among great roots. The sunlight dappling your shoulders. Vines curling in your hair. Our cheeks burning. Wandering through hidden places. A secret love skirting the shadows. The water and wind sang for us. The trees danced with us. The beetles whispered their blessings. We ate the plump wild-berries. I soon found my mouth bitter and stained. Your petal-soft love turned to thorns. The mist faded in the bright morning but left me cold and damp. The mossy ground charred. My lips starved and bleeding.

How on earth will you sneak in?" "I will not sneak. I will simply walk." The collar of my cloak had begun to itch against my neck like sandpaper. I ignored it. Ariadne looked as if she thought she'd misheard me. "What?" "I've done it before," I said. "Once at a goblin court in Shetland. Last year I walked into a winter fair in Ljosland and made off with two captives. You cannot hope to evade the notice of the courtly fae in their realm; the only option is deception. Pretense." "And--- who will you pretend to be?" Ariadne said slowly. "Someone who will not surprise the Folk," I replied. "Myself.

It was impossible not to stare at each of them, not only because my encounters with the courtly fae are so rare I could count them on one hand, but because they were more lovely and more disturbing than any faerie I had set eyes on before. The Ljosland Folk had seemed shaped from the harsh landscape of their home, a pattern that seemed to extend to the courtly fae of this realm. The memory blurs, much as I try to pin it like a butterfly in a display case. The best I can do is record the impressions I've retained: a woman with her hair a cascade of wild roses; a man with tiny leaves dotting his face, like freckles. Several faeries with their skin faintly patterned with whorls, like tree rings, or in the variegated shades of bark. Another woman who flashed silver-blue in the sun, as if she were not made of flesh and blood but a collection of ripples.

Below us was a frozen lake. It was perfectly round, a great gleaming eye in which the moon and stars were mirrored. Lanterns glowing the same cold white as the aurora dangled from the lake's edge to a scattering of benches and merchant-stands, draped in bright awnings of opal and blue. Delicious smells floated on the wind---smoked fish; fire-roasted nuts and candies; spiced cakes. A winter fair.* * Outside of Russia, almost all known species of courtly fae, and many common fae also, are fond of fairs and markets; indeed, such gatherings appear in stories as the interstitial spaces between their worlds and ours, and thus it is not particularly surprising that they feature in so many encounters with the Folk. The character of such markets, however, varies widely, from sinister to benign. The following features are universal: 1) Dancing, which the mortal visitor may be invited to partake in; 2) A variety of vendors selling foods and goods which the visitor is unable to recall afterwards. More often than not, the markets take place at night. Numerous scholars have attempted to document these gatherings; the most widely referenced accounts are by Baltasar Lenz, who successfully visited two fairs in Bavaria before his disappearance in 1899.

A moment later, her hand comes up, running over his cheek. Her fingers push into his hair, then slip over his nape to his shoulder. He goes very still, afraid that if he moves it will startle her into pulling back. She has never touched him this way, as though things could be easy between them. “You must stop,” she says, he voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond. He frowns in puzzlement. Her hand has dipped down to his chest, and even a she speaks, she opens her palm over his heart. He has barely moved. “Stop what?” “Being kind to me. I can’t bear it.” He tenses. She withdraws her hand, letting it fall to the coverlet. The blue stone in the ring he gave her glints up at him. “I’m not…I am not good at pretending. Not like you.” If she is speaking of her coldness toward him, she is fae better than she believes. “We can stop. We can call a truce.” “For now,” she says. “Then today, my lady, speak freely,” he tells her with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You can deny me tomorrow.” She looks up at him, he lashes falling low. She seems to be half in a dream. “Is it exhausting to be charming all the time? Or is it just the way you’re made?” His grin fades. He thinks of the magic leaching out of him. He can control his charm, sort of. More or less. And he can resist using it. He will. “Have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you?” she asks in that same fond, unfocused voice. Her words are a kick to the stomach, the more because he can tell she doesn’t mean to be cruel. And because he hadn’t thought of it. He sometimes wondered if gancanagh blood meant Folk liked him a little better than they might have otherwise, but he was too vain to think of it affecting Oriana or his sisters.

Now, there are a few dryadologists who could resist the opportunity to sample faerie food, the enchanted sort served at the tables of the courtly fae---I know several who have dedicated their careers to the subject and would hand over their eye teeth for the opportunity. I stopped at a stand offering toasted cheese---a very strange sort of cheese, threaded with glittering mold. It smelled divine, and the faerie merchant rolled it in crushed nuts before handing it over on a stick, but as soon as it touched my palm, it began to melt. The merchant was watching me, so I put it in my mouth, pantomiming my delight. The cheese tasted like snow and melted within seconds. I stopped next at a stand equipped with a smoking hut. The faerie handed me a delicate fillet of fish, almost perfectly clear despite the smoking. I offered it to Shadow, but he only looked at me with incomprehension in his eyes. And, indeed, when I popped it into my mouth, it too melted flavorlessly against my tongue. I took a wandering course to the lakeshore, conscious of the need to avoid suspicion. I paused at the wine merchant, who had the largest stand. It was brighter than the others, snow piled up behind it in a wall that caught the lantern light and threw it back in a blinding glitter. I had to look down at my feet, blinking back tears, as one of the Folk pressed an ice-glass into my hand. Like the food, the wine smelled lovely, of sugared apples and cloves, but it slid eerily within the ice, more like oil than wine. Shadow kept growling at it, as he had not with the faerie food, and so I tipped it onto the snow. Beside the wine merchant was a stand offering trinkets, frozen wildflowers that many of the Folk threaded through their hair or wove through unused buttonholes on their cloaks, as well as an array of jewels with pins in them. I could not compare them to any jewels I knew; they were mostly in shades of white and winter grey, hundreds of them, each impossibly different from the next. I selected one that I knew, without understanding how, was the precise color of the icicles that hung from the stone ledges of the Cambridge libraries in winter. But moments after I pinned it to my breast, all that remained was a patch of damp.

—¿Sabes lo que significa «mortal»? Significa «nacido para morir». Significa «aquel que merece la muerte». Eso es lo que eres, eso es lo que te define: la muerte.

—Porque eres como una historia que aún no ha sucedido. Porque quiero comprobar qué harás. Quiero participar en el desarrollo de la narración.

—En los cuentos no pasan cosas buenas —replica Taryn—. Y si pasan, es porque después va a ocurrir algo malo. De lo contrario, el cuento sería un rollo y nadie querría leerlo.

«Jamás es igual que para siempre»,

Acaricio el gatillo con el dedo. Me siento serena, gloriosamente serena. Anteponer el miedo a la ambición, a la familia o al amor es una muestra de debilidad, pero es una sensación agradable. Te hace sentir poderoso.

A menudo me he preguntado si mi pasado es la razón por la que soy como soy, si eso me ha convertido en un monstruo.

«Te arrepentirás de esto». No lo digo en voz alta, pero miro a Cardan y pienso esas palabras con tanta fuerza que es casi como si estuviera gritando.

—¿Crees que yo planeé tu humillación? —Se ríe—. ¿Yo? Eso implicaría esforzarse.

«A ti no te limita ningún juramento. Si te arrepientes de tu jugada, haz otra. Aún quedan muchas partidas que jugar».

—Me han hechizado y llevado a rastras a una fiesta, llorando y sola. Bajo mi punto de vista, la única diferencia entre esta noche y todas las demás en las que tuve que soportar humillaciones sin protestar es que aquellas te beneficiaron a ti. En cambio, al soportar esto, ahora la que sale ganando soy yo.

He's supposed to look regal. I helped choose the clothes, helped make him this way, and yet the effect is not lost on me.

He's supposed to look regal. I helped choose the clothes. helped make him this way, and yet the effect is not lost on me.

Yes, we place all humanlike faeries into the category of courtly fae—you understand, then, that there are two main groupings of Folk, courtly and common. As far as the courtly fae are concerned, there are too many subcategories to list, and I’ve little idea whether any of them will apply to those you call the ‘tall ones.’ ” “We rarely call them anything,” Finn said. “It’s bad luck.

The fae hated slavery, and engaging in it was a surefire way to get yourself damned. Papa had said it was because some unscrupulous craftsfolk, like the cobblers and spinners in the stories, had once set traps to enslave fair folk to work for them tirelessly without pay.

Liberate yourself from ideas of heroes and villains, good an evil, right and wrong. Here we are all villains. Here there is no judge or jury to decide whether good prevails or perishes; whether evil dies or thrives. There is only balance —in all its infinite permutations.

Long ago, folk believed the sea fae could heal anything,” Sigurd said. “Through their song, their touch, their kiss.

She sucked in a quick breath, paling, and he did not have to look to guess at what had drifted through the Oak’s low, wide door. He could smell them, since they used no glamour to mask themselves here. Clammy rotten dirt, decaying linen, pale metal at throat, wrist, finger, and belt. A chill went through the Rolling Oak, and there was a general rustling movement as the Folk within collectively stiffened. The lone wight moved aside, and others pressed behind him. The branches at the door shriveled to blackness, and behind the bar the half-giant, half-drow Kosthril the Mammoth’s four arms dropped to his sides.

I’m not,” Ben said. “I’m careful. There’s a difference.” “Of course,” my father said. “I’d never—” “Save it for the paying customers, Arl,” Ben cut him off, irritation plain in his voice. “You’re too good an actor to show it, but I know perfectly well when someone thinks I’m daft.” “I just didn’t expect it, Ben,” my father said apologetically. “You’re educated, and I’m so tired of people touching iron and tipping their beer as soon as I mention the Chandrian. I’m just reconstructing a story, not meddling with dark arts.” “Well, hear me out. I like both of you too well to let you think of me as an old fool,” Ben said. “Besides, I have something to talk with you about later, and I’ll need you to take me seriously for that.” The wind continued to pick up, and I used the noise to cover my last few steps. I edged around the corner of my parents’ wagon and peered through a veil of leaves. The three of them were sitting around the campfire. Ben was sitting on a stump, huddled in his frayed brown cloak. My parents were opposite him, my mother leaning against my father, a blanket draped loosely around them. Ben poured from a clay jug into a leather mug and handed it to my mother. His breath fogged as he spoke. “How do they feel about demons off in Atur?” he asked. “Scared.” My father tapped his temple. “All that religion makes their brains soft.” “How about off in Vintas?” Ben asked. “Fair number of them are Tehlins. Do they feel the same way?” My mother shook her head. “They think it’s a little silly. They like their demons metaphorical.” “What are they afraid of at night in Vintas then?” “The Fae,” my mother said. My father spoke at the same time. “Draugar.” “You’re both right, depending on which part of the country you’re in,” Ben said. “And here in the Commonwealth people laugh up their sleeves at both ideas.” He gestured at the surrounding trees. “But here they’re careful come autumn-time for fear of drawing the attention of shamble-men.” “That’s the way of things,” my father said. “Half of being a good trouper is knowing which way your audience leans.” “You still think I’ve gone cracked in the head,” Ben said, amused. “Listen, if tomorrow we pulled into Biren and someone told you there were shamble-men in the woods, would you believe them?” My father shook his head. “What if two people told you?” Another shake. Ben leaned forward on his stump. “What if a dozen people told you, with perfect earnestness, that shamble-men were out in the fields, eating—” “Of course I wouldn’t believe them,” my father said, irritated. “It’s ridiculous.” “Of course it is,” Ben agreed, raising a finger. “But the real question is this: Would you go into the woods?” My father sat very still and thoughtful for a moment. Ben nodded. “You’d be a fool to ignore half the town’s warning, even though you don’t believe the same thing they do. If not shamble-men, what are you afraid of?” “Bears.” “Bandits.” “Good sensible fears for a trouper to have,” Ben said. “Fears that townsfolk don’t appreciate. Every place has its little superstitions, and everyone laughs at what the folk across the river think.” He gave them a serious look. “But have either of you ever heard a humorous song or story about the Chandrian? I’ll bet a penny you haven’t.” My mother shook her head after a moment’s thought. My father took a long drink before joining her. “Now I’m not saying that the Chandrian are out there, striking like lightning from the clear blue sky. But folk everywhere are afraid of them. There’s usually a reason for that.” Ben grinned and tipped his clay cup, pouring the last drizzle of beer out onto the earth. “And names are strange things. Dangerous things.” He gave them a pointed look. “That I know for true because I am an educated man. If I’m a mite superstitious too…” He shrugged. “Well, that’s my choice. I’m old. You have to humor me.

The faeries, be them in good humor or otherwise of a dubious nature, seem to be comfortable intermingling with the human people of the town. Should one fail to be wary of their surroundings, I fear it an easy fate to fall into the whims of the fae folk.

Despite objections by Evans (1901), Blanchet (1904), and others, "faun" remains the accepted nomenclature for all species of hoofed common fae regardless of size or origin, one of several terms whose lineage can be traced to dryadology's roots in early-seventeenth-century Greece.

Are UAPs (Unexplained Aerial Phenomena, the more precise name for what was erstwhile called UFOs) to be blamed on a technological-advanced interstellar society? Time travelers? Dimensional visitors? The fae folk in shiny metal suits?

You’re a priest?” I raise a single eyebrow in question. “You can be anything you want to be these days.” Miranda pauses. “Except a goat fucker. We’ve decided folks lose their head for that one.

Tis possible the Faerie Queen grew so linked with Gloriana in the minds of England’s folk that Gloriana’s passing could take the Mebd with it. And if the Mebd dies without loosing her bonds, all those Fae who are knotted in her hair die with her.