Friday 24 May 2013

Taxonomy of mythical beings

Mummy?  Said L this morning over the rice krispies. What's a gnome?
It's a sort of fairy.
Oh.  And what's a pixie?
Erm, that's a sort of fairy too.
Well how do you know the difference?  And is the tooth fairy a pixie or a gnome, or something else?

Of course, as any ful kno - and I realised, while pondering once she'd been packed off to school - a gnome has a beard and a pixie doesn't.  And neither of them  has wings, which a real fairy (and the tooth fairy, obviously) does.

But what about kelpies, or leprechauns, or sprites?  Or elves (I think they probably have beards too), hobgoblins and imps?

And why don't they cover this sort of thing in the parenting manuals?

8 comments:

  1. Well I have to say I'm totally let down by your lack of clarity here and frankly I would think that L will be too ;) Fairies are the only ones that actually fly. Gnomes are obviously gnomes (!) goblins are horrid things but as you say: Imp, Elves and Spirites are all a bit of a mix to me even though I could tell you what each looked like from the Brownies badges. I was a sprite but always wanted to be a leprechaun.......Just got back from spending too much time reading about all this on the web too LOL

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    1. I knew you'd be an expert - although was very disappointed to realise that Brownies (didn't know that was a sort of fairy either) aren't fairies (of whatever variety) any more.

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  2. I have no idea either. I do know I was a pixie in the Brownies and that's it!

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    1. I was a sprite and a pixie (I think, definitely a sprite though, but we moved house in the middle and can't remember which one was where).

      I didn't know what a kelpie was then either.

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  3. Now, the husband would be able to tell you all about this and they are definitely distinctly different... Imps are naughty, elves are helpful (shoemakers) and I think sprites are fairies gone bad...

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    1. Highly impressed! Why on earth does he have this rarified knowledge?!

      I suspect B would have been hard pushed to identify a fairy of any variety until we had girls...

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  4. I've checked - my taxonomy in reasonable... Further to above, brownies are Nordic... He principally has the knowledge because he didn't talk to a girl until he was quite old and spent a lot of time playing role playing games and throwing funny shaped dice.

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    1. Made me laugh - I know a few men like that. Never thought to ask them though!

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I know. I'm sorry. I hate these word recognition, are you a robot, guff things too, but having just got rid of a large number of ungrammatical and poorly spelt adverts for all sorts of things I don't want, and especially don't want on my blog, I'm hoping that this will mean that only lovely people, of the actually a person variety, will comment.

So please do. Comments are great...