On The Religion of Fairies

It is known that fairies are of the old religion. This is generally taken to mean that they are pagans, but sometimes, in England, stories and articles seem to hint they might be a bit Catholic. I’d vaguely known this for a while and never followed up.

I've been reading Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry by W B Yeats. In the introduction of the book he has a source for the Catholicism of English fairies; Dr Corbett, Bishop of Oxford and Norwich. (The tales in the book have more than one where the Irish fairies hold priests in awe and fear, and others where they play tricks on priests and other preachers; they're not Christians in Ireland.)

This was Richard Corbet, bishop, humorist and poet, and the quotes are from his ballad The Fairies Farewell. Although taken at face value by later readers, it seems that Corbet was actually satirising the rise of the Puritans, the jollity of fairies being taken away by their austere ways. In other words, "we note the Fairies/ Were of the old Profession" is probably not an authentic folk belief, but one invented by Corbet for this poem.

Anyway, as it was written in the 17th century it’s out of copyright so here is Richard Corbet’s The Fairies Farewell. (Source)

FAREWELL, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The Fairies’ lost command!
They did but change Priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land.
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as Changelings ever since
For love of your demains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had;
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late, Elizabeth,
And later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were ‘Ave Mary’s’,
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure!
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished, sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
Oh how the commonwealth doth want
Such Justices as you!