"fairy," OED 4a

[Charles Doyle]

The same possible ambiguity or confusion as to whether the "of" in Gower's phrase points to a place, a population, a substance, or a condition is paralleled in the first book of _The Faerie Queene_, where the comparable ambiguity is quite deliberate on Spenser's part (I'm sure).

The Red Cross Knight, a foundling, has assumed (like everyone else) that he is a fairy. In canto 10, however, it's revealed to him that he is human, destined to become St. George of merry England.  That is, he is a "man of earth," as the seer atop Mt. Contemplation informs him (playing on the name "George").  RCK hails from earth; he is of earthly kind; his body is compounded of earth; his quest is earthly (he must be warned against abandoning knightly deeds to adopt of spiritual life).

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:44:12 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Re: "fairy," OED 4a
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject:      Re: "fairy," OED 4a
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>
>I can't add anything to Doug's analysis.  Tolkien's larger point was that _fairy_ (as a creature) is rare in writing before the 17th C.
>
>  JL
>
>"Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
>Subject: Re: "fairy," OED 4a
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>
>>But by saying he is "of faerie," couldn't that also mean he was of the
>>faerie people or of the faerie, using faerie as a race or type of creature
>>and not a place name?
>
>It is possible, I think. In this case, the citation should be under sense
>2: "A collective term for the fays or inhabitants of fairyland ....".
>
>However, I think it seems superficially likely that the citation with "of
>faerie" exemplifies sense 1: "The land or home of the fays; fairy-land.
>.... see FAERIE."
>
>Or it might could go well under "faerie", sense 1: "The realm or world of
>the fays or fairies;fairyland, fairydom (cf. FAIRY _sb._ 1)." It would be
>by far the earliest example here.
>
>In the case of an abstract or imaginary "place" such as Faerie, it may be
>particularly difficult to perfectly distinguish these senses, I think. For
>comparison, it is not hard to find discussions of whether Hell is a place
>or a condition.
>
>As they say about changelings: "You can take the child out of Faerie, but
>you can't take Faerie out of the child." (^_^)
>
>[I use my poor-man's photoreduced OED. I do not have a copy of the Gower
>work handy.]
>
>But -- IMHO -- it would seem that ... if the passage really does have "of
>faerie" ... (1) it should read "of" in the OED and not "a"; and (2) it
>probably should not appear under sense 4, which refers to the individual
>fairy ("One of a class ...").
>
>I wonder whether there were different editions or versions of the source work.
>
>-- Doug Wilson
>
>
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