Fairy

Samodiva

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Tradition: Bulgarian Mythology, Macedonian Mythology
Alternative Names: Samovila, Vila, Samodivi, Yuda, Juda
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The Samodiva was a beautiful supernatural woman, usually tall and pale-skinned, with long flowing blonde or red hair and fiery eyes. She wore white garments with green or rainbow-colored sashes, and sometimes possessed wings that allowed her to fly through the air. Her clothing, veil, and wreath were sources of supernatural power, and a human who managed to steal one of these could render her powerless and sometimes force her into marriage. Samodivi were also said to ride light-colored stags, controlling them with serpents as reins, and could carry bows and arrows. Some traditions gave them wings beneath their arms, while others described them with goat-like hooves or as taking the form of a storm or whirlwind.

The Samodivi lived in wild and remote places, especially mountain springs, lakes, rivers, caves, forests, gorges, and ancient trees. Their favorite places included enchanted clearings where they gathered to dance in circles, leaving dark or scorched patches of grass behind. They were particularly dangerous at night, when travelers might accidentally enter their territory. A person who disturbed them could be struck with illness, blindness, madness, or death, while some unfortunate humans were abducted and forced to serve the fairies as musicians, nurses, laborers, or builders. Terrifying traditions even claimed that human beings were used as the materials for their castles, with men forming foundations, maidens becoming mortar, brides forming roofs, and infants serving as pillars. Samodivi were also associated with the souls of young women who had died violently or prematurely, as well as certain unbaptized children.

Yet the Samodivi were not purely malicious. They were closely associated with nature and possessed great knowledge of plants and healing. They could cure wounded heroes, restore the dead with living water, grant supernatural strength, bestow gifts upon newborn children, and help humans who earned their favor. They loved music and dancing and sometimes challenged shepherds and musicians to contests, with victory bringing rewards such as marriage to a young fairy or freedom from tribute. They could also fall in love with mortal men and become their wives, although such relationships could be dangerous or forced. At night they travelled in fairy processions, dancing the horo to bagpipes and drums, while some traditions said they returned during winter to a distant “dragon village” at the edge of the world. Their nature was therefore deeply ambivalent: the Samodiva could bring healing, strength, prosperity, and love, but could just as easily bring madness, destruction, abduction, and death to those who violated the boundaries of her supernatural world.

Sources

“Samodiva (folklore).” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samodiva_(folklore)

Trottes-vieilles

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Tradition: French Mythology
Alternative Names: Trottes-vieilles
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The Trottes-vieilles are three ancient fairies, said to be several thousand years old and to wear deer antlers upon their heads. They are described as daughters of the Gaulish god Cernunnos, giving them a close connection with the ancient supernatural world of the forest and wild animals. Their presence is particularly associated with the folklore of Saulnot in Haute-Saône.

At Christmas, the Trottes-vieilles watch over children and distinguish the well-behaved from the disobedient. Good children are rewarded, while naughty children are threatened with a terrible fate: the three fairies seize them, carry them away, and throw them into the nearest stream. Their warning describes how they impale the children upon their hard antlers before carrying them to the river and drowning them in its rushing waters. Despite this frightening role, their visit could also bring happiness to a household when they were properly welcomed.

Before nightfall, families traditionally prepared a large cauldron of milky porridge called paipai for the Trottes-vieilles. Leaving this offering was believed to win their favor, and a household visited by the three ancient fairies was considered fortunate. Thus the Trottes-vieilles could appear both as terrifying punishers of naughty children and as supernatural visitors whose presence brought prosperity and happiness to those who respected them.

Sources

“Trottes-vieilles.” Wikipédia, l’encyclopédie libre (French Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trottes-vieilles

Ahès

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Tradition: French Mythology
Alternative Names: Ahez, Ahès-la-fée, Gwrac’h Ahes
Category: Fairy, Giant

The Myth

Ahès was a mysterious female figure of Breton legend who could appear as a princess, a fairy, or a giantess. She was especially associated with the construction of roads across Brittany and was said to have carried the enormous stones needed to build them. Many ancient roads were consequently known as the “Paths of Ahès” (Hent Ahès), while other routes bore related names such as Fossé-Ahès. Her supernatural reputation was so strong that her name also became attached to the Milky Way, known as the “Path of Ahès,” and the constellation of the Little Bear, called the “Chariot of Ahès.” A giantess named Ahès was also said to lie buried beneath a dolmen at Prat in Trégor.

Ahès became particularly associated with Carhaix, whose name was traditionally interpreted as Ker-Ahès, the city or village of Ahès. In this tradition she was regarded as the founder of the settlement and the builder of the great roads leading toward it. The legendary builder Ahès was compared with the fairy Mélusine, another supernatural woman associated with monumental construction. Breton traditions preserve numerous roads attributed to her, including routes near Quimper, Carhaix, Vannes, Corseul, and the Bay of the Dead. A related tale from La Chanson d’Aiquin speaks of a giant named Ohès who constructed a great road as far as Carhaix.

Ahès was sometimes confused with Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon in the legend of Ys. Later traditions even identified Ahès as Gradlon’s daughter and portrayed her as a sinful princess who founded Ker-Ahès. However, Ahès and Dahut appear as distinct figures in other traditions, and Ahès’s older legendary identity is primarily that of the supernatural woman associated with roads, stonework, and the Breton landscape. She therefore survives in folklore not only as a fairy or giantess, but through the many ancient paths, bridges, and places that bear her name.

Sources

“Ahès.” Wikipédia, l’encyclopédie libre (French Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ah%C3%A8s

Malgven

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Tradition: French Mythology
Alternative Names: Malgwen, Malgwenn
Category: Fairy

The Myth

Malgven was the beautiful and formidable Queen of the North, portrayed as a warrior woman wearing shining armor and a steel chainmail corset, with a golden diadem and long flowing hair. Her hair is described as either golden or red, while her eyes were deep blue and possessed an enchanting quality. In the best-known version of her story, she was the wife of the aging King Harold and ruled a northern kingdom associated variously with Ireland, Norway, or Denmark. She was also portrayed as a Valkyrie or fairy of the North, combining supernatural beauty with the character of a powerful warrior queen.

Malgven encountered King Gradlon while he was raiding her kingdom and fell in love with him. She persuaded him to kill her husband, King Harold, and flee with her. The two escaped together on Malgven’s magical horse, Morvarc’h, riding toward Gradlon’s lands in Brittany. Their journey lasted an entire year, and during it Malgven became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Dahut. Malgven did not survive the birth and died, leaving Gradlon to return to Brittany with their daughter.

Malgven’s story provides the supernatural origin of Dahut in the later form of the legend of Ys. She is therefore remembered as the mysterious northern mother of the princess who would become central to the fate of the drowned city. The surviving tradition presents Malgven as a powerful otherworldly woman whose arrival brings a magical and tragic element to Gradlon’s story, joining the king of Brittany to a supernatural queen from the distant North.

Sources

“Malgven.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malgven

Shtojzovalle

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Tradition: Albanian mythology
Alternative Names: Shtojzorreshta, Shtozote
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The Shtojzovalle were small supernatural beings of extraordinary beauty who lived in forests and open pastures. Both male and female, they were normally invisible to humans and could only rarely be seen. They possessed the ability to fly and spent much of their time singing and dancing. At night they were said to spin the thread of human existence, connecting them with the mysterious forces that governed human life. A person could see them only if the invisible veil before their eyes was lifted.

The Shtojzovalle could sometimes form relationships with humans, and human men were occasionally said to marry Shtojzovalle maidens. A man could keep such a fairy as his wife only if he gave her his own clothes to wear. Their presence could also become dangerous when humans disturbed their territory. If someone built a house on land inhabited by Shtojzovalle, the supernatural inhabitants would haunt it by shaking heavy iron chains. A person walking through their territory could even step on one of the invisible creatures and be devoured.

In northern Albanian Christian tradition, particularly among Catholics of Albania and Malësia, the Shtojzovalle were given another origin. When the Archangel Michael fought Satan, the angels who remained neutral were transformed into Shtojzovalle. They regretted their neutrality and wandered the forests singing and dancing while weeping over their sin. Their tears were dangerous: if a tear fell upon a human, that person would die. This belief became associated with the Albanian expression i ka rënë pika, meaning that a drop had fallen upon someone and, figuratively, that the person had died.

Sources

“Shtojzovalle.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtojzovalle

Bendith y Mamau

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Tradition: Welsh Mythology
Alternative Names: Blessing of the Mothers
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The Bendith y Mamau, meaning “Blessing of the Mothers,” were the fairies of Glamorgan. They were known as supernatural beings who rode horses, visited human houses, and stole children, leaving ugly changelings in their place. People left bowls of milk outside their homes for them, hoping to keep their favor. The fairies were especially feared for taking beautiful human children and replacing them with stunted, wizened creatures that would never grow properly. Their presence belonged to the hidden fairy world that existed alongside ordinary human communities.

One story tells of a mother whose three-year-old child had been taken by the Bendith y Mamau. In his place she found a strange little wizened boy who was clearly not her own child. A cunning man told her how to discover the truth. She removed the top of a raw egg, stirred its contents, and the changeling immediately spoke with the uncanny wisdom of an ancient being. He remarked that he had lived for an impossibly long time, revealing that he was not truly a human child. The mother then followed the next part of the instructions, going to a crossroads at midnight during the full moon. There she saw the Bendith y Mamau passing by in a great fairy procession and realized that her real son was among them.

Finally, the mother was told to roast a black hen over a wood fire without plucking it. She followed the instruction and continued heating the bird until every feather had fallen away. When she looked at the changeling, the creature suddenly disappeared. The mother heard the voice of her own son outside and rushed to the door, finding that her real child had been returned to her. The strange ritual had broken the fairies’ hold over him and driven their substitute away.

Sources

“Бендит и мамай (Bendit i Mamai).” New Bestiary (Bestiary.us). Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://www.bestiary.us/bendit-i-mamai/en

Yuda

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Tradition: Bulgarian Mythology, Macedonian Mythology
Alternative Names: Fairy wind, Samovila, Yuda Wind
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The fairy wind appears in a Macedonian Bulgarian folk song as three powerful gusts of wind that are not ordinary winds at all, but three yudi, supernatural fairy beings. They arrive quietly at first, but then seize Stoyna, a young bride, and carry her away through the air to the great village of the yudi. There, the fairies prepare their own horo, or chain dance, and force Stoyna to join them. She dances among them while weeping for what she has left behind.

An old yuda samovila notices Stoyna’s sorrow and asks why she is crying. She questions whether Stoyna misses her mother, father, brothers, sisters, companions, or beloved, but Stoyna tells her that none of these is the cause of her grief. What weighs upon her heart is her little child. She worries about who will wrap the child, rock it to sleep, and care for it while she is gone. Her longing for the child is the only thing that makes her weep among the supernatural dancers.

The old yuda promises to help. She tells Stoyna that she will send a powerful wind through the human world and pass by the child’s home. There she will rock the child’s cradle, wrap the child, and care for it. The fairy wind therefore becomes the means by which the yuda can cross between her own supernatural world and Stoyna’s distant home, turning a frightening force that carried the young mother away into an act of compassion toward the child she left behind.

Sources

Stefan Verkovich. “Chapter 2.” In Narodni pesni na makedonskite Balgari (Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians). Liternet.bg.
https://liternet.bg/folklor/sbornici/verkovich/2.htm

Fairy of Vallorbe

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Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: The White Lady
Category: Fairy

The Myth

The fairies of the Jura near Vallorbe were beautiful women who lived in a great subterranean grotto hidden among the steep cliffs. They were tall and graceful, wearing long white dresses that covered their feet, and their most remarkable feature was their abundant golden hair, which flowed around their shoulders like a cloak. They possessed beautiful voices and could sing the local songs of Vallorbe and Romainmôtier. One fairy could sometimes be seen on Palm Sunday leading a white lamb when the coming year would be prosperous, or a black goat when hardship and famine were approaching. Another bathed at midnight in the blue pool of the Orbe spring, guarded by two powerful wolves. During the cold winter months the fairies sometimes entered the deserted village smithy after the apprentices had gone home, warming themselves by the fire until a rooster’s crow warned them that the blacksmiths were returning.

Among the people of Vallorbe lived an eighteen-year-old blacksmith’s apprentice named Donat. He was handsome, skilled, and daring, but also boastful, cheeky, and unable to keep a secret. Having heard many stories about the fairies in the cliffs, he secretly decided to enter their grotto. One Sunday morning he climbed through the rocks and brambles and entered the cave, eventually reaching a second chamber where he found a simple bed of moss and bracken. He fell asleep there, only to awaken before a beautiful white-clad fairy with golden hair and two delicate greyhounds beside her. She offered him a place beside her and promised that she would make him happy for a hundred years, teach him the secrets of precious metals and healing herbs, and introduce him to her sisters in the caves of Montcherand. Donat accepted. She gave him two purses, promising to place a gold coin in one and a pearl in the other each day that he pleased her. At midday, a small locked tomb opened and allowed him into her hidden dining chamber, where she served him an extraordinary feast of trout, venison, cream, honey, wine, and mountain fruits. She entertained him with stories and songs, but after every meal she disappeared through a particular door and strictly forbade him from following her. She warned that if he entered the chamber without permission, she would be forced to send him away forever.

Donat’s curiosity eventually became stronger than his obedience. On the sixteenth day, after the fairy had been especially kind to him, he followed her through the forbidden door, which she had deliberately left slightly open. Inside he found her sleeping peacefully on a bed of red velvet. Her white dress had shifted slightly, revealing that one of her feet had no heel and was shaped like a goose’s foot. One of her greyhounds suddenly barked, waking her. The fairy saw Donat and sadly told him that he had failed her test. Had he remained faithful for the entire month, she would have made him her husband and shared her power, secrets, and riches with him. Instead, she ordered him to return to his life at the smithy, though she allowed him to keep the two purses and warned him never to reveal what he had seen. As he left the grotto, a voice called after him: “Donat, secrecy or punishment!” But when Donat returned to Vallorbe, he immediately boasted to the other apprentices about the fairy, her treasures, and even her strange foot. When they mocked him and demanded proof, he opened the two purses. The gold he had been given had become nothing but lingonberry leaves, while the pearls had turned into juniper berries. Overcome with shame, Donat left Vallorbe, and nothing more was ever heard of him.

Sources

“Feengrotte.” SAGEN.at – Traditionelle Sagen aus der Schweiz. Reproduced by SAGEN.at.
https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/allgemein/feengrotte.html

Zagorkinia

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Tradition: Serbian Mythology, Croatian Mythology
Alternative Names: Zagorkinia
Category: Fairy

The Myth

Zagorkinia was a female supernatural being belonging to the tradition of the Wiły, inhabiting remote and inaccessible mountain places. She appeared in human female form and kept her dwelling far from settlements, deep in the mountains where people rarely ventured.

Zagorkinia generally avoided humans and was usually hostile toward them. Despite this, she could show compassion toward people who became lost or suffered an accident in the mountains. Those in danger could receive her assistance, making Zagorkinia a strange and unpredictable mountain spirit: a dangerous being toward ordinary travelers, yet capable of helping those who were genuinely helpless or lost in her domain.

Sources

“Zagorkinia.” Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia (Polish Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagorkinia

Oblakinia

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Tradition: Serbian Mythology, Croatian Mythology
Alternative Names: Obloučica
Category: Fairy

The Myth

Oblakinia was a slender female supernatural being belonging to the tradition of the Wiły. She was only about half the height of an adult human, yet had the proportions of a fully grown woman. Her delicate body was blue, as was her skin, and she moved effortlessly through the air as though gliding. She had a narrow face, a high forehead, long straight blue hair, and large eyes with a blue gaze. Around one ankle she wore a silver spiral decorated with a blue stone.

Oblakinia’s main occupation was sewing magical dresses. Rather than using ordinary cloth, she fashioned her garments from the materials of the sky and the natural world: snowflakes, dewdrops, fragments of clouds, mist, and strands of spider silk. These delicate materials were woven together into supernatural clothing and decorated with various objects, giving her dresses an ethereal appearance suited to a spirit of the clouds.

As a cloud-dwelling member of the Wiła tradition, Oblakinia belonged to the supernatural world of the sky, but the surviving description gives no further account of her behavior toward humans or of particular legends concerning her.

Sources

“Oblakinia.” Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia (Polish Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 5, 2026.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblakinia