Welcome to not just the tutors from History Hit.

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And if you're an app or listener, you can subscribe for new ad-free episodes within the app. Clap your hands if you believe in fairies. In the early modern period pretty much everyone would have

clapped but Peter Pan also tells us that every time a child says I don't believe in

fairies a fairy somewhere falls down dead and no one in early

modern Britain would have thought that a bad thing. But they wouldn't have said it all the

same because they believed in a reverse danger.

Saying the word fairy cost the seer a year of life.

Well, my guest and I are going to endanger our longevity today,

as we're going to be saying it, a lot. And much of what we have to say concerns the way in which

fairies have been tamed but were historically very dangerous indeed. I'm joined by the brilliant

Diane Perkis, professor of English literature and a

tutorial fellow at Keeble College Oxford. Her books include The Witch in

History, Magical Tales, and the One We'll be drawing on especially today.

Troublesome things, a history of fairies and fairy stories. Professor Perkis, welcome to not just the Tudors.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

I am delighted to have a chance to talk to you about one of my favorite of your books which is

troublesome things and we're thinking about the history of fairies. The

fairy is a gatekeeper you say. The fairy stands on the threshold of transition what does this mean?

...