Blog 8: Fairies & Fauns/Fawns

A fairy is a type of mythological being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term fairy offers many definitions. Sometimes the term describes any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes: at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature. Many folktales are told of fairies, and they appear as characters in stories from medieval tales of chivalry, to Victorian fairy tales, and up to the present day in modern literature.
While many of these depictions are considered purely fictional, creatures such as fairies, somewhat like human beings but with abilities that transcend the physical realm, find correlates in the angels or other spiritual beings of many religions. When a believe in the afterlife and the realm are accepted, the existence of beings that have such "supernatural" abilities becomes possible. Thus, it may be that the origin of such creatures lies not so much in the desire of human beings to experience all that the physical world that has to offer, but rather in fleeting experiences of creatures from the spiritual realm.

Puck is a mythological fairy or mischievous nature sprite. Puck is also generalised personification of land spirits.

In Roman mythology, a faun is a mythical beast with the upper torso of a human and the legs and tail of a goat, sometimes depicted with goat's horns coming out of their skulls; a fawn is a young deer.
The Romans also a god named Faunus and a goddess named Fauna, who, like fauns were goat-people. Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Innus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan.

According to the previous information about faries mythology and fauns or fawns, the fauns that were mentioned on the second stanza of the poem "Broken Wing" represent the field spirit, salvation and motivation as well. Fauns are half human and half goat with horns that represent strength, dignity of the divinity, and horns are extremely durable. These mythological creatures might have the power to heal the fairy's wing and her spirit could become strong enough to shine blue as she did it before.

Sources:

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Fairy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faun