Unraveling the Charm: Exploring the Fascinating World of Fae in Romance Literature
- Courtney Leigh
- Mar 14
- 8 min read
Faeries. What are they? Where’d they come from? And why are we putting them in steamy romance books?
Today, I’m talking about fae, one of the most popular subjects in romance today. Lately, I’ve been seeing an outrageous amount of Sarah J. Maas love on social media and perhaps it is because I now run in a lot of those circles or because somehow the algorithm decided I’m suddenly a super fan.
(Or the cult of SJM has found me and maybe I’m never leaving)
Next thing you know, I’ll suddenly start liking Taylor Swift...
Now, perhaps SJM isn’t the first author to put fae in a very romantic light like she did, but she is certainly the name we think of when we think of the genre. Like we think of Stephanie Meyer when we talk about YA vampires even though there are a ton of authors that predate her. Or the way we think of JK Rowling when we think of magical schools. In truth, there are many storytellers that told these tales long before we had tiktok and those names have gotten a little lost. For example, Shakespeare created a romantic spin on fae and mythical creatures, particularly in A Midsummer Night’s Dream which was written in the late 16th century and was made popular shortly after his death. So this isn’t a new concept.
The point is, SJM seems to be the one to have put sexy fae on the map for our generation, but she certainly was not the first to refer to them in the ways that she does.
If you’re like me, however, you grew up thinking of faeries as small, beautiful, winged creatures that are adorable and live in flowers.
Today, authors adapt things from ancient lore all the time and romance authors are particularly fond of making creatures of old into modern beasts we can all fall in love with. And fae or faeries seem to be a very big topic. So? Where did fae come from and how did we come to create romance and even erotica featuring these somewhat mysterious beings?
When I did my orc romance deep dive, my research didn’t go as far as I expected. In fact, orcs being in lore before J.R.R. Tolkein made them popular through his books was kind of questionable. However, when I did this particular deep dive, I have to say I was pretty quickly overwhelmed with information. Many different cultures talk about faeries or faerie-like creatures and it’s hard to pin point where certain myths originated and how they were adapted by other societies, beliefs, and people. So, it’s important to me that you also do your own research if this is a topic that really interests you. I’ve been doing a lot of digging and I’m just relaying what I've learned, but of course, I’m not a historian.
We have to start somewhere, right? There is A LOT to cover and this is an abridged version of where the concept of faeries originated.
The term “fairy” dates back to European folklore in the middle ages. That in itself is a broad term considering the middle ages began somewhere around 470 AD and ended somewhere in the 15th century. And if math is as foreign a concept to you as it is for me, then we can just say that’s roughly 1000 years.
But the idea of fairy-like creatures and spirits has taken on many forms in many places around the world.
In Greek mythology, faeries were nymphs that protected the Earth. After the gods and
goddesses created the world, they created nymphs for the forests, meadows, and water.
Masculine nymphs or Satyrs were able to do good or bad while feminine nymphs were pure and innocent. Even sirens, who were half bird and half woman, are categorized as faeries by many historians although if you know anything about sirens, they seem purely evil.
In Indian religions, you have the Gandharva which are a class of minor deities who serve as divine musicians and performers. In Buddhism, people believed they were spirits between death and rebirth. In Arabic lore, you have the Jinni, which are spirits on Earth that go unseen by humans, but they possess great powers. It’s believed that they exist parallel to humans and like many folkloric figures, they evolved with religious texts, regions, and time.
Now, when people think of faeries, however, despite the numerous renditions of these otherworldly, earth-bound creatures or spirits existing in many other places and times, they think of England. This is largely in part to the encyclopedic work of Gervase of Tilbury called Otia Imperialia, which was arguably written somewhere in the 13th century. He was a world traveler who wrote a book about his findings, including his discovery of faeries. According to him they were tall, small, ugly, beautiful, good, and evil. (Which sounds very human if you ask me, but that’s just my two cents)
It was believed that faeries resided deep in the woods, underground, or near water and as rumors spread about areas where faeries lived, people avoided those areas.
But there’s more. If you are a reader of faerie fiction, you’re probably very familiar with the idea of fae courts. SJM uses them religiously in her books, but even if you don’t read the ACOTAR series, you have probably heard of the seelie and unseelie courts in passing at the very least. The idea of seelie and unseelie courts could have come from Germanic folklore where they talk about light and dark elves. In Scottish folklore they called these two courts seelie and unseelie. The word “seelie” is derived from the Saxon or Germanic word, Saelig, which means blessed, fortunate, or happy.
The seelie court was more prone to acts of kindness and would ask favors from humans and do favors in return. But the seelie court could also be vengeful if they were offended. The unseelie court is more darkly inclined and doesn’t always need a reason to be mischievous.
So, the idea of fae courts is not a new one. In fact, in the mid-13th century, Thomas of Cantimpré classified fairies into types. These types were neptuni of water, incubi who wandered the earth, dusii under the earth, and spiritualia nequitie in celestibus, who inhabit the air.
If you don’t know who this guy is and you’re interested in history, especially history that has played a large part in shaping the world as we know it, I highly recommend you put a little time into learning about him and his great works. He is responsible for the Liber de natura rerum (Book on the nature of things), in which he compiled the knowledge of natural history, including what we now call anthropology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, astronomy, astrology, and meteorology. Additionally, he wrote books on metals, animals, marine monsters, the solar system, the elements, and so much more and he did this in the 13th century.
Moving on, even with all of this history and lore, most people think of Tinker Bell when they
imagine faeries. She’s cute, she sounds like a bell when she talks, and she can sprinkle faerie dust on anything and make it fly. In the Tinker Bell movies, the faeries are born from the first laugh of a newborn baby and then they are assigned their job after they take a test to find their talent.
To be honest, Tinker Bell seems more like a pixie and even the faerie home is called pixie Hollow in the movies. Pixies are another type of faerie that dresses in green and enjoys dancing in the moonlight and leading travelers astray.
(If you can’t tell, I’m a huge fan of the Tinker Bell movies).
Tinker Bell ends up being a tinker faerie who basically builds things to help the other faeries. But the movie features faeries of every season and even elements and all of them together create a very intricate balance, but for the most part, none of them interfere or cross courts or territories.
(In fact, there’s even a tragic love story between the king and queen of two courts that can’t coexist so they met each other at the edge of the winter and spring courts every day until one of them crossed to be with the other and was changed forever aka the king of winter’s wing was broken in the heat of spring and he could never fly again. And a faerie that can’t fly is on the fast track to depression. From then on, they forbade crossing to different courts no matter what and agreed to end their relationship for good despite how in love they were. BUT, it’s Disney so of course love found a way because... how can you resist finding a happy ending with this guy, am I right? He rides a freaking owl.)
To sum it up, no, SJM is not the first to make the concept of fae courts a thing, but of course, she helped put the spotlight on it.
But Tinker Bell is tiny! Just like most of us imagined faeries to be growing up.
The umbrella term, faerie, doesn’t just refer to the “little people,” though. Other entities such as goblins, brownies, and guardian faeries fall under the broad category. You also have banshees and a slew of Scottish fae, mermaids, river spirits, etc. But, eventually, the concept of faeries took another turn and because Christianity was the dominant religion of the time, the church pushed the idea of faeries being fallen angels.
And who doesn’t like the idea of a fallen angel? The concept seems forbidden, rebellious, and dangerous as it goes against the rules put in place by religion and other organizations that have structured history. And rebellion and danger are two very prominent things in fiction and fantasy and, yes, romance.
Let’s circle on back to faeries or fae in books today because they are absolutely not what history depicts them as.
Or are they?
Throughout history, fae have been described as small and mischievous, but they’ve also been described as taking on more human-like forms.
In the realm of tiktok, people like to gate keep, and they like to talk as if they have all the answers, but let’s be real here, no one does. One of the great arguments I’ve seen circulating before is why fae is used as such a broad a term. I’ve seen people complain that authors put elves, dwarves, goblins, and other creatures under the term fae, hence muddying the concept of faeries. But if you were to go off of all the research I just laid out for you all, it seems that even history doesn’t have a clear answer for what fae are. They can be tall, small, elemental, physical, winged, not winged, and so much more. It seems that the only thing all cultures have in common is that faeries are magical.
I know there is another strain of weirdos on the internet that don’t particularly care for faeries being depicted as sexy men with abs, but let’s play devil’s advocate. Faeries are most often described as beautiful beings. Yes, they’re usually maidens, but if we combine the vast amounts of lore surrounding the concept of faeries, there have been plenty of masculine figures throughout history. And like I said, the only thing they all seem to have in common is that they’re magical in some way. They’re often connected to one or more elements or seasons, and there is a very broad variety of physical appearances that encompass them.
When I did my deep dive about orcs and romance, there was really no way for me to connect the dots there. There was no easing into orc romance. It seems like someone just said “hey, what’s incredibly unromantic and CAN WE make it sexy?” And then authors just started popping out books left and right. But lore does not back up romantic relationships with orcs. They were never described as good looking, which doesn’t have to be a basis for romance, but they were also never depicted as good natured. Fae, however, existed closely with humans in most mythology and not only that but they’re good looking! They can be evil or good, which gives storytellers a lot to work with when it comes to building dynamic characters that us human readers can relate to, and so on and so forth.
So when it comes to fae, it’s really not hard to see how and why authors began putting them in a romantic light. It feels like they were that way already and we just adapted it for our generation.
I thoroughly enjoy fae romance and I have a series of my own that many have called fae romance and that is Beyond the Merillian! A series of standalone elven romance novellas all set in the same universe and all available on Kindle Unlimited. (For now). If you want to check that out, please do. Indie authors need all the help they can get.