The Enchanted Circle

FAERIES Described and Illustrated by Brian Fraud and Alan Lee Edited and Designed by David Larkin; Abrams; unpaginated; $14.95

As packets of pulsing light, faeries were the UFOs of our ancestral imagination. On closer encounter, the world of Faerie, as the authors designate their enchanting nutshell universe, reveals a swarm of terrifying and erotic forms: gruesome spriggans who specialize in kidnaping infants and blighting crops; horse-stealing pixies; a bat-frog that preys on Welsh fishermen; amphibious hags who drown and devour careless children; a birch spirit whose touch causes madness; a practical joker known as the Fir Darrig, and assorted boggarts, bogles, goblins and fachans--all up to no good.

The faeries' universe also includes a bevy of Spock-eared nymphets with innocent bodies and uncomfortably knowing eyes, and a lissome femme fatale, Leanan-Sidhe. On the Isle of Man this charmer is a bloodsucking vampire; in Ireland she lures poets to a glorious but short life.

One walks softly in this strange world because its mythical inhabitants neither think nor feel as humans do. Capriciousness and gratuitous cruelty are just as likely to greet the unsuspecting intruder as are delight and good fortune. Many are the helpful brownies who have transformed themselves into destructive boggarts when they have been offended or teased. Hence man has always placated faeries in general by calling them such names as "Good Neighbors" and "Mother's Blessings." When euphemism failed there were always such antifaerie ploys as displaying the Bible or a Crucifix and wearing one's clothing turned inside out.

The fey region illustrated and described by Brian Froud and Alan Lee owes more to sensuality than to the sentimentality that usually surrounds the subject. As the foreword suggests: "Faeries are themselves creatures of the raw stuff of life and are ceaselessly attracted to all forms of creativity and particularly to moments of high emotion in which they seek to be participants. Lovers, poets, artists, writers, sculptors, weavers, musicians and the like--all the arts, indeed, acknowledge a debt to an unidentifiable, invisible, capricious, sensitive, delicate, elusive and powerful force which is called 'inspiration,' or 'Muse' and is generally irresistible when present."

Readers of last year's Gnomes certainly found this to be true. That book, also published by Abrams, immediately hopped to the bestseller list, where it has shown remarkable staying power. This lively sequel obviously hopes to re-Ipeat the gnomic phenomenon. g Froud and Lee concentrate mainly on the folklore of the British land Emerald isles, though they note that nearly every culture has its appropriate Third World of mischievous wee folk. A Celtic bumpkin can be enticed by his loccal wood spirits into a jigathon that makes years seem like minutes. In America, a Catskill rube glike Rip Van Winkle loses himself in the revels of a dwarf bowling league.

The artist-authors prove adept at combing a broad range of styles. The influence of Arthur Rackham is clearly evident; so are touches as wide-ranging as Hieronymus Bosch, the Pre-Raphaelites and Maxfield Parrish. The result is a seductive ring of words and bright pictures that encircles mystery and merriment and, eventually, the reader.

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