connection with
the beast. The same remarks apply to the Fairy Godmother in _Peau
d'Ane_. She, too, does for the heroine what beasts do in purely popular
European variants, and in analogous tales from South Africa.

The fairies in _Riquet of the Tuft_ are of little importance, as the
narrative is not really traditional, but of literary invention for the
most part. The fairy in _The Two Wishes_ is not a fairy in the South
African variants where divers magical or animal characters appear, nor
can _Mother Holle_ in Grimm (24) be properly styled a fairy. Thus, of
all Perrault's Fairies only the Fairies of the _Sleeping Beauty_
(repeated in _Riquet of the Tuft_) answer to Fairies as they appear in
genuine popular traditions, under such names as Moirai, or Hathors, in
ancient Greek, and Egyptian versions. These beings attend women in
child-bed, as they attended Althea when she bore Meleager, and they
predict the fortunes of the infant.

Perrault's fairy godmothers (unlike the fairies of real legend) are
machinery of his own, and even he dispenses with Fairies altogether in
_Blue Beard_, _Hop o' my Thumb_, and _Puss in Boots_; while in _Les
Trois Souhaits_ the mythological machinery of the classics is employed,
and Jupiter does what a fairy might have done. It is true that the key
of the forbidden door, in _Blue Beard_, is said to be _Fee_; but this
only means that, like the seven-leagued Boots in _Hop o' my Thumb_
('elles estoient Fees'), the key has magical qualities. The part of
Fairies, then, is very restricted, even in Perrault, while, in
traditional _Maerchen_ all over the world, Fairies or beings analogous to
the Fairies appear comparatively seldom.

In spite of this the Fairies have so successfully asserted their title
over popular tales, that a few words on their character and origin seem
not out of place. Fairies are doubtless much older than their name; as
old as the belief in spirits of woods, hills, lonely places, and the
nether world. The familiar names, _fees_, _fades_, are apparently
connected with _Fatum_, the thing spoken, and with _Fata_, the Fates who
speak it, and the God _Fatuus_, or Faunus, and his sister or wife
_Fatua_[23]. Preller quotes the _Fatuae_ as spiritual maidens of the
forests and elements, adding the other names of _Sagae_ and _Sciae_, to
Fatuae, and Fata[24]. He compares the Slavonic Wilis: and, to be brief,
the Apsaras of India, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, and the
Good La