How to find and keep a fairy lover

by Debbie Gallagher

Fairy frolics and fantasy flings for people who like dates with wings...

Popular culture has only recently admitted that male fairies are not only fickle and dangerous but also outrageously good-looking. Read our 10 top tips on catching and keeping a fairy lover...

For a long time it was impossible to fancy fairies, unless your thoughts turned to Graham Norton. Boy fairies were, well, just not sexy. Orlando Bloom changed all that. In the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, when most of us were wondering precisely what Peter Jackson meant by having four hobbits romp on a bed being watched by blokes in leather, Legolas brought the sex back into Elves. There he was, with his long fair locks, shining like a Croydon hairdresser's dream...he was cool, he was lithe, he was sexy-stunning. Fairy lovers were back.

To give you an advantage with supernatural lovers, here are some fairy dating rules:

1) Use protection. They don't.

2) Respect the surroundings. All fairies are rabid eco-warriors.

3) No iron. If you're going to wear any kind of metal stick to silver.

4) Don't take gifts if you are not interested. Gifts bond you to them.

5) Do not scream when offered a fairy pet. Fay animals turn out to be really handy, unlike gold that turns into pebbles, clothes that turn to rags etc. Responses like 'How am I gonna keep that in a studio flat in Peckham?' or ' Can I have a rabbit instead?' won't go down well.

6) Don't whine about them not coming back, They always do. They're waiting until you've married someone else,so that they can embarrass you in later life.

7) Try not to have an issue with the Ex. However fierce you think you get, she can out-barmy you any time.

8) Watch what they eat before you get in close. Just to be sure.

9) Keep your promises, however daft they seem. Fairy lovers love giving you pointless instructions that mean nothing. In this, they're just like their human counterparts.

10) Do not tell your mates about your invisible friend; either they'll all want one or they'll lock you in the medicine cabinet til the white van arrives.

Traditionally, faeries were always devastating - it just got lost in the minds of artists in the 19th and 20th centuries; Queens of Faery, from Mab to Titania, were excuses for paintings of female prettiness and lots of semi-taboo flesh. Male faeries were hideous goblins, and while lady faeries could come in all sizes, fairy gentlemen were inevitably very small indeed.

It wasn't always that way. 900 years ago fairy lovers were taken seriously. They were more than gorgeous, they were dangerous. There was Tam Lin the Fay Knight - getting a date with him was easy, you just turned up in the Carterhouse woods, plucked the wild roses, and there he would be, ready for more than a kiss goodnight. His problem was the queen of faery, jealous lover and ultimate bunny boiler. That, and Tam's habit of getting his human girlfriends pregnant, made relationships with him...complicated.

Pregnancy was always an issue with fairy lovers. Safe sex was never their deal. The Great Selkie of the Western Isles was a man on the land, a seal on the sea, and a thoroughly irritating partner. Baby would turn up, he'd be miles out across the bay stuffing his face on cod. When he remembered, he would return with a purse full of gold, disappear for another seven years only to come back and take custody of his child away to the sea folk forever. Motives? Confusing...

There were other fairy lovers not confined to sex and sea-food, like the Kelpie, a moody loner with brooding eyes and a gobsmacking six pack. His chat up line was to ask a girl to braid his hair. As she started to comb, she would notice his hair was slightly damp, with sand and tiny shells tangled in it. Then he would become a terrifying monster, drag her down into the water and and eat her; Loch Ness had a very famous kelpie everyone is still looking for. It's strange to think that the new boy in town might be a psychotic shape-shifting dinosaur, but at least you got the chance to find out before marrying him.

Debbie Gallagher is author of 'The Spider's Bride':

"It begins with a severed finger and with a gift in Winter. Not realising that she is being courted by a faery suitor, The Bride enters the cold and sparkling world of the Prince of Spiders..."

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