Fairy Women from the Portuguese Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro: Politics, Mysticism and Magic

Fairy Women from the Portuguese Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro by José Leitão presents a new group of names and fairy genealogies to further enrich the international court of Fairy Queens, Wives, Mistresses, and Lovers – and destroyers of male power and authority.

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The Papaveria Press Fairylore Series brings to life the classic texts of fairy mythology and folklore along with new work from scholars, authors, and independent researchers who share our deep love and respect for fairies as they manifest in poetry, politics, history, literature, and in the world.

The series begins with Fairy Women from the Portuguese Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro by José Leitão, a short monograph on the origins and influence of two Melusine-like narratives originating in Iberia in the fourteenth century: that of the Biscayan Lady Goat-Foot and the Galician Lady Marinha.

These stories, found in written form for the first time in a medieval book of lineages, can be understood as legitimizing narratives, meant to strengthen local power in times of regal or ecclesiastic encroachment. Though disseminated in circles entirely distinct from those of the more common fairy and fairy-like figures of the Iberian mythical folk pantheon, they are still complex repositories of local traditions and notions of land-based authority, whose ancestry can be traced to the pre-Indo-European age of Northern Iberia.

Along with an exploration of their medieval written origin, this work tracks these fairy women across the centuries, evidencing how these narratives become the models for other fairy and supernatural genealogies, and are eventually brought into the contemporary period through a variety of mediums, such as nineteenth-century Romantic short stories and poetry, twentieth-century mistico-nationalistic writings, and formal academic inquiry. Throughout these mediums, such fairy women gradually carve their own space in the Ibero-American imaginary, coming to not only feature in common legend collections, juvenile literature, and pop-culture, but also, and much more interestingly, are formally introduced into occult and esoteric practice as grimoire spirits within the tradition of the Iberian Books of Saint Cyprian.

Following an introduction to the tales of Lady Goat-Foot and Lady Marinha, Fairy Women from the Portuguese Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro offers, for the first time, an English language translation of both the Lady Goat-Foot and Lady Marinha narratives in their original fourteenth-century form.

With this, what is intended is to present a new group of names and fairy genealogies to further enrich the international court of Fairy Queens, Wives, Mistresses, and Lovers – the creators and destroyers of male power and authority.

The collector's edition is a sewn bound hardcover, with printed paper and foiled cover, ribbon marker, and printed endpapers.

Fairy Women from the Portuguese Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro: Politics, Mysticism and Magic
José Leitão
Cover artwork and design © S. Aldarnay
Papaveria Press Fairylore Series
ISBN 978-1-915933-64-5 (HB)
ISBN 978-1-915933-65-2 (PB)
178mm x 111mm
84 pages.