Gwydion is the great trickster of Welsh legend, who uses a mixture of deceit and magic to get what he wants. Like many tricksters, Gwydion is a shapeshifter, but he's also a master of animating the inanimate - turning trees into soldiers and flowers into brides.
🎨 Margaret Jones
In the early stories of Merlin, he would often laugh when his powers of prophecy revealed ironic situations, such as a man expressing love for his "son" without realizing the boy isn't his, or a woman buying a dress even though she'll drown before she wears it.
The Sluagh (the "Host") of Irish and Scottish folklore are sometimes depicted as ghosts, sometimes as fairies. They fly through the sky like a flock of birds, and carry off anyone they find. Some humans are left on a remote island, others are never seen again.
"Lest the awe should dwell
And turn your frolic to fret,
You shall look on my power at the helping hour,
But then you shall forget!
Lest limbs be reddened and rent,
I spring the trap that is set.
As I loose the snare, you may glimpse me there,
For surely you shall forget!"
Kenneth Grahame, "Wind in the Willows"
🎨 Arthur Rackham
"Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny."
"The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond.... All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere."
Myrddin Wyllt was a 6th-century prophet who inspired the Merlin legend. After being traumatized by war, Myrddin fled into a Scottish forest and became a hermit. He supposedly wrote down his intense visions, which are collectively known as "The Prophecies of Merlin."
🎨 Alan Lee
In the Middle Ages, many Christian Scandinavians believed that the Norse gods had actually been humans from Troy who had fled their burning city and immigrated to Scandinavia, where they had used magic to make the locals believe that they were gods.
To drink from the Well of Wisdom, the Norse god Odin had to give one of his eyes to Mimir, the Well's guardian. In some versions, this is simply a general sacrifice, but in others it's a trade - the eye gives Mimir Odin's knowledge just as the drink gives Odin Mimir's.
🎨 Emil Doepler
The huldufólk (hidden folk) of Iceland are human-sized fairies whose communities are hidden in the hills. Sometimes they are depicted with cow tails. It is said that if the huldufólk marry a human, their cow tails fall off, and they become human themselves.
🎨 Brett Manning
The Welsh hero Lleu was cursed by his mother to never have a human wife, so the wizard Gwydion used flowers from the oak, broom, and meadowsweet to create a wife for Lleu called Blodeuwedd ("Flower-Faced"). However, Blodeuwedd fell in love with another man....
🎨 Jenny Dolfen
Sometimes C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia feature walking trees and other times feature dryads. As the two never interact with each other, it's unclear what their relationship is or if they're actually the same species. However, the art depicts them as very different. Possibly Narnian walking trees are shapeshifted dryads.
🎨 Pauline Baynes
The cockatrice is a monster of English legend similar to a basilisk. It is born when a rooster lays an egg which is then incubated by a serpent; it resembles a rooster with a snake tail. The cockatrice kills with its gaze and touch, though the weasel is immune.
🎨 Marcus Gheeraerts