English religious (and Fairy) historian Francis Young reviews a new book Perilous Enchantment: The True History of Faeries by Sarah Clegg.

Read it on his Substack: “Perilous disenchantment?“

In so doing, he gives a history of Anglo-American “Fairy Studies” over the last fifty years, including his own Twilight of the Godlings which straddles Fairy studies and (historica)l Pagan studies, and which is currently in my To Be Read stack.

Perilous Enchantment has a number of strengths. As a non-specialist, the author is able to offer an overview that few scholars could manage – we are always doomed to get bogged down in our own specialisations (like the constant gravitational pull of the Baltic region in my own work, for example). Clegg’s visits to various fairy-associated sites (and not always predictable ones, either) ground the narrative and lend it atmosphere. Her knowledge of and feel for the medieval Romance tradition is excellent

For the less-positive remarks, you can read the whole review.

And you will get some idea of what you need to be reading in Fairy studies.

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