The stories typically involve stepsisters (a wicked woman's daughter favored and her step-daughter ill-favored), and a fairy by a well who rewards the polite girl (the stepdaughter) and punishes the ...

As she noted in her diary upon meeting a rural spinner: “We knew she was a fairy when we saw her. Unlike other women, she was dressed in a shawl and a scarlet petticoat with a white cloth tied ...