Fairies

are the dispossessed spirits which once inhabited human bodies, but are not yet meet to dwell with the “saints in light.”

“All those airy shapes you now behold

Were human bodies once, and clothed with earthly mould;

Our souls, not yet prepared for upper light,

Till doomsday wander in the shades of night.”

Dryden: The Flower and the Leaf.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.