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Fairy Ointment or The Fairy Nurse is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales. It has been told in many variants. Andrew Lang included one in The Lilac Fairy Book. A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ...
Joseph Jacobs (1854, Australia - 1916) was a British literary historian. ...
For the former National Basketball Association player, see Andrew Lang (basketball). ...
Synopsis Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. A midwife is summoned to attend a childbed. The baby is born, and she is given an ointment to rub in its eyes. Accidentally, or through curiosity, she rubs one or both her own eyes with it. This enables her to see the actual house to which she has been summoned. Sometimes a simple cottage becomes a castle, but most often, a grand castle becomes a wretched cave.
In the variant Andrew Lang included, the woman saw a neighbor of hers, kept prisoner as a nurse, and was able to tell her husband how to rescue her, pulling her down from riding fairies as in Tam Lin. Tam Lin is the hero of a Scottish Borders legend about faeries and mortal men (one of several Thomases in myth, such as True Thomas also known as Thomas the Rhymer). ...
Soon, the midwife sees a fairy and admits it. The fairy invariably blinds her in the eye that can see him, or both if she put the ointment in both eyes. It has been suggested that Trooping fairies be merged into this article or section. ...
Spoilers end here.
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