Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner
"Kingdoms of Elfin" is a collection of sixteen interconnected short stories by British writer Sylvia Townsend Warner, primarily published in *The New Yorker*. The narratives explore various fairy kingdoms, including notable locations like Brocéliande in Brittany, Elfhame, and Foxcastle, as well as settings in Austria, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Wales, and England. The stories feature fairies, who are depicted as nearly human but smaller in stature, possess wings, and live for centuries, remaining invisible to humans unless they choose otherwise.
The collection incorporates classic motifs from fairy lore, such as the timeless sojourn in fairyland, exemplified by the tales of Sir Thomas of Ercildoune and James Sutherland, who experience extended lives among the fairies. Additionally, the theme of changelings—human children replaced by fairy counterparts—plays a significant role, highlighted in stories like "The One and the Other." The book also touches upon the motif of romantic relationships between fairies and mortals, although this theme is less prominent. Overall, "Kingdoms of Elfin" weaves rich narratives that engage with traditional fairy tale elements while presenting a unique literary perspective on the enchanting world of elves and their interactions with humans.
On this Page
Kingdoms of Elfin
First published: 1977
Type of work: Stories
Type of plot: Fantasy—magical world
Time of work: Pre-Christian times through the nineteenth century
Locale: Various places in Europe
The Plot
Sylvia Townsend Warner, although a British writer, first published in The New Yorker all but two (“The Climate of Exile” and “The Late Sir Glamie”) of the sixteen stories included in Kingdoms of Elfin. The characters are different in each of the stories, although a few appear in more than one. Beliard, for example, is a minor character in “The Mortal Milk” but the central character of “Beliard.” Several stories are set at the elfin court of Brocéliande in Brittany (in northwestern France), a place familiar to readers because of its connection with Arthurian legend. Other settings are the fairy kingdoms of Elfhame and Foxcastle in Scotland, Wirre Gedanken and Schloss Dreiviertelstein in Austria, Bourrasque in France, Zuy in Holland, Rings in Ireland, Ash Grove in Wales, Pomace and Catmere in England, and the kingdom of the Peris (from whom all elfins are descended) in Persia.
The fairies are about four-fifths the size of humans (also called mortals) and otherwise resemble them except that the fairies have wings, live for hundreds of years, and are invisible to humans unless they choose to be visible. The plots and characters of the stories fit well into two of the three main motifs of fairy legend recognized by scholars of fantasy literature and legend.
The motif of a mortals timeless sojourn in fairyland is contained in “Five Black Swans,” in which the mortal Sir Thomas of Ercildoune—a familiar character in legends of this type—wanders in Elfhame and meets and loves Queen Tiphaine, and in “Foxcastle,” in which James Sutherland, a scholar from the University of Aberdeen, is captured by fairies and grows old living among them and studying them.
Several stories use the motif of the changeling, in which human children are stolen and replaced by disguised fairy children. In the first story in the volume, “The One and the Other,” Adam, a human infant, is stolen, renamed Tiffany, and groomed to become the Royal Favorite of Queen Tiphaine of Elfhame. A fairy baby takes Adams place in the human world. When Tiffany ages, he is expelled from fairyland, as aging changelings always are, and is eventually killed accidentally by the fairy Adam, who experiments on him to satisfy his curiosity about fairies. In “The Revolt at Brocéliande,” when Queen Melior decides to have two eunuchs, she chooses two changelings to be castrated. Like Tiffany, they are expelled from fairyland when they get older, as is Gobolet in “Winged Creatures.” Fairy changelings do not fare well with humans either. When the Reverend Baxter, in “The Occupation,” becomes convinced (wrongly) that his child is a fairy changeling, he repeatedly tries to abandon it on the heath.
A variation on the third main motif, that of marriage between a fairy bride and a mortal male, is glimpsed in the illicit love between the beautiful fairy Nel and a young mortal in “Castor and Pollux” and in Queen Tiphaines love for Sir Thomas of Ercildoune in “Five Black Swans.” This theme is used less frequently and insistently than are the other two.