Fairy Encounters in Medieval England: Landscape, Folklore and the Supernatural

Fairy Encounters in Medieval England examines accounts of encounters with fairies and other supernatural beings across eight centuries of medieval English testimony. Jeremy Harte draws on miracle collections, chronicles, saints’ lives and sermons, tracing reports of goblins, lovers, hunters, pygmies, dogs and shape-shifting figures, alongside revenants, local saints and fiends.

The book also connects these accounts with the places where such beings were believed to appear. Roads, pools, marshes, hills, hollows and meadows emerge through medieval narratives and a corpus of English supernatural place-names. Fairies are presented in tradition as forces that could cure or harm, prophesy or deceive, offering a view of medieval belief that extends beyond formal theology.