The book associates fairies with the elements and distinguishes water, mountain, forest and aerial forms. It also places rusalky, žínky, fate-spinners, Meluzína and several regional types in this group. Fairies vary in nature: some are benevolent, others dangerous; the lulkyně of Moravian Wallachia, for example, supposedly made travellers dance to death.
Where it appears
Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia; waters, forests, mountains and human dwellings.
What the old legends say
The main danger was being lured into a night-time dance or entering a place where fairies danced. Folk tradition used iron, the sign of the cross and prayer against harmful fairies. It was safer not to follow their singing and to leave the place before dawn.
SOURCES OF THE STORY
Sources of the original atlas Tajemná místa · page 42
This legend preserves a folk tale. Its motifs do not constitute evidence of supernatural events.
