The Vanishing People: A Study of Traditional Fairy Beliefs
Occult Folklore Mythology Celtic Studies British History Fairy Tales Spirituality
Katharine Briggs’ 1978 first-edition hardcover, The Vanishing People: A Study of Traditional Fairy Beliefs, is the cornerstone text that serious folklore collectors reach for when they want the definitive, footnote-rich guide to British Isles fairy lore. In 218 pages of crisp, scholarly prose, Briggs—a president of the Folklore Society—traces every major strand of “the Good People” from medieval chronicles through Victorian hearth-tales, showing how these stories shaped village law, calendar customs, and even landscape names that still dot Ordnance Survey maps. The book’s rarity in collectible condition, especially with its original illustrated dust jacket intact, makes this copy a prize for both researchers and interior designers who love the look of vintage academic volumes on their shelves.
What lifts this volume above later reprints is the combination of Briggs’ own field notes—gathered when elderly informants still remembered pre-war traditions—and the period line-drawings that ornament each chapter, giving visual life to changeling accounts, fairy funerals, and the eerie “pixie-led” moors. Readers seeking source material for fantasy writing, role-playing campaigns, or simply a deeper understanding of Celtic spirituality will find entire story seeds laid out with precise county and date citations. Young-adult and adult audiences alike appreciate the author’s respectful tone; she never veers into sensationalism, instead inviting us to see why rational villagers once left bowls of cream on the step or refused to build a barn on a fairy ring.
This particular copy carries a gentle inscription and date on the front endpaper, offering a pleasing provenance touch without compromising the text block, which remains tight, bright, and free of underlining or dog-eared corners. Only a scattering of tiny flecks to the bottom page edge betrays its four-decade journey. For collectors of first-edition folklore, fairy art, or British cultural studies, The Vanishing People in this well-preserved state is an investment-grade volume that seldom appears on the secondary market and rarely stays listed for long.
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