Reviews for Faeries

The average rating for Faeries based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-30 00:00:00 Jordan Brunner I bought this book for my wife some years ago. She was an artist and very talented. Near the end of her life one of the subjects she was beginning to work with was "fantasy subjects" including faeries. She was (as I said above) very talented and throughout her life as she would pick up different techniques and concentrate on different subjects she would expand her "catalog" so to speak. She was able it seemed to study a new type or style and within a few attempts she'd have captured it. She did landscapes, seascapes, English gardens, still-lifes (I think since the painting is a "still-life" the plural would be "still-lifes" rather than "still-lives") and did them at different times in different styles so to speak...modern to primitive. She went through a very long period of time doing florals. She took commissions from people to paint everything from their houses to their pets. As I said only a few years ago she was becoming interested in more fantastic subjects. She enjoyed books of art work and as she would find new interests I'd use that as a key or indicator for her next Christmas or birthday gift. This book I bought her not too long ago and it reminds me of her. She past August 1, 2009. There may be books of better paintings but this one and a few others will as long as I'm able to manage it stay on my shelf.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-30 00:00:00 Kinga Zak Faeries is a wonderful book: illustrations that are charming, eerie and beautiful, and stories and a wealth of information on fairy-lore. I learned some things that surprised me - for example, although I was aware that people used to attribute prehistoric flint arrowheads to the fairies, I didn't know that the word 'stroke' for paralysis derives from a belief in seizures caused by the touch of a fairy, or 'Elf-stroke'. And although I've read the Harry Potter series a number of times, and tend to notice which elements of myth and fairytale Rowling draws on, it wasn't until reading Froud and Lee's description of Brownies being insulted by the gift of clothes, that I made the connection between Brownies and House Elves (furthermore I was a Brownie Guide when I was about seven!). Faeries reminds me how people from not so long ago viewed the world very differently to how we do now. Our ancestors dwelt in a world that was mysterious and unpredictable, shaped by capricious beings whom they sought to propitiate and protect themselves from. My favourite pictures and tales in Faeries are those which emphasis the thin membrane between the human world and the enchanted one, such as fairy islands or or cities under the the surface of a lake. And those that remind me of the uncanny sense of magic I sometimes gain from the world I live in: in my walks along the River Kelvin near my home in Glasgow I can just imagine coming across a Ghillie Dhu in the birch trees, or a lonely, Gollum-esque Urisk