LB, fairyphone, fairy history

Adam,

I don't think this is the first time you've asserted this, but now I have to ask: From where arises your certainty that the old fairies (now presumably on the third level) will not have any contact in the future with Alice & Co. (now on the second level)? (Not that the fairy communication with the first level Drinkwaters was all that crystal clear, of course.) This seems to suggest that you think they (fairies) were in contact with the Drinkwaters from the moment of their (the fairies) genesis in fairyland (and you do seem to think the fairies to be autochthonous to the next world, iirc). If this is truly your opinion, then please share what must be a fascinating timeline! Also, as to the "why" of the fairy migration: one or some around here have mentioned that the fairies "want to get away from the humans" as the reason for their migration to level three. Do you subscribe to this notion? Because it seems to me that if the levels are as hermetically (heh) sealed as they seem to be, then human egress to level two is virtually impossible (no dangers of a human freeway to fairy, whereas fairies visit level one at will); and since the fairies already have all of level two to themselves, they are already "away" from humans. Did the fairies somehow discover an empty new world at level three (somehow breaking through the barriers on their own because they are more advanced in the technology) and decide to migrate there, for whatever unfathomable reasons, is that your sense of it? =mantis=

I'm not certain at all, although I may sometimes have lapsed into expressing my views without qualifiers. My belief--or, to be even more precise, my impression--is based upon two things: 1) Mrs. Underhill's thoughts, especially in the first paragraph of "Give Way, Give Way" (VI, 5), where "she almost wished she could be" at the wedding party, but can't because "there was nothing more for her to do." Why would she not appear at the wedding party if she were going to stay in contact with the Drinkwaters? Also, the final glimpse of her thoughts at the end of "Come or Stay" (VI, 5) show no trace of an intention to revisit the Drinkwaters. 2) My sense of the fairies (and I don't have any citations for this) is that their interaction with the Drinkwaters has been solely motivated by the Tale. Now the Tale is over, so no further contact is necessary.

I don't think this (see above), nor do I see how it follows from what I do think.

I've never said so, iirc, and I never really thought about it. All I know about the fairies' genesis that they are "children of [Kronos's] children [i. e. the gods], related by marriage." ("Daughter of Time," IV, 3) This would suggest that the fairies' genesis is Olympus rather than fairyland, but you can probably make more out of that datum than I can.

Do I sense a wee hint of sarcasm here? I never claimed to be an expert on LB, and I never gave it the concentrated study that you have. I'm just trying my best to puzzle out the book's riddles, like everybody else. And for the record, I don't have a timeline for LB, and I don't know how I'd begin to construct one.

I may have put forward the escape-from-humans theory myself at one point, but it is a puzzle. Since the humans can't get to level two, the fairies should already be safe there, but they're not. Contrariwise, if the various levels are all the same world, just looked at differently (as is suggested at one point iirc, and as the wedding party's setting at Edgewood also seems to suggest) then they should be just as exposed on level three as they are on level two.

I don't really have a "sense of it." I'd have to reread the whole book to get a real sense of what the fairies are or what their motives are, and even then I probably would still be in the dark. Just flipping through now looking for citations, I've discovered stuff that forces me to alter my preconceptions. --Adam