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© 2019 British Council

www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

Reading: B1
The legend of fairies

Read a text about the legend of fairies to practise and improve your reading skills.

Before reading

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation task
Match the definitions (a–h) with the vocabulary (1–8).

Vocabulary

Definitions

1.…… a tribe
2.…… fake
3.…… to support
4.…… to worship
5.…… origin
6.…… a spirit
7.…… a weapon
8.…… to invade

a.the explanation for how something started
b.the part of a living thing which is not the body and you can’t
see or touch it
c.to pray to
d.a group of people, usually connected to each other by place or
culture
e.something used to hit or hurt people
f.to attack a place with an army
g.to make something stronger
h.looks real but is not

Reading text: The legend of fairies

(1) Fairies today are the stuff of children’s stories, little magical people with wings, often
shining with light. Typically pretty and female, like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, they usually use
their magic to do small things and are mostly friendly to humans.

(2) We owe many of our modern ideas about fairies to Shakespeare and stories from the 18th
and 19th centuries. Although we can see the origins of fairies as far back as the Ancient
Greeks, we can see similar creatures in many cultures. The earliest fairy-like creatures can be
found in the Greek idea that trees and rivers had spirits called dryads and nymphs. Some
people think these creatures were originally the gods of earlier, pagan religions that
worshipped nature. They were replaced by the Greek and Roman gods, and then later by the
Christian God, and became smaller, less powerful figures as they lost importance.

(3) Another explanation suggests the origin of fairies is a memory of real people, not spirits.
So, for example, when tribes with metal weapons invaded land where people only used stone
weapons, some of the people escaped and hid in forests and caves. Further support for this
idea is that fairies were thought to be afraid of iron and could not touch it. Living outside of
society, the hiding people probably stole food and attacked villages. This might explain why
fairies were often described as playing tricks on humans. Hundreds of years ago, people

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© 2019 British Council

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actually believed that fairies stole new babies and replaced them with a ‘changeling’ – a fairy
baby – or that they took new mothers and made them feed fairy babies with their milk.

(4) While most people no longer believe in fairies, only a hundred years ago some people
were very willing to think they might exist. In 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright took two photos
of her cousin, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths, sitting with fairies. Some photography experts
thought they were fake, while others weren’t sure. But Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of the
Sherlock Holmes detective stories, believed they were real. He published the original pictures,
and three more the girls took for him, in a magazine called The Strand, in 1920. The girls only
admitted the photos were fake years later in 1983, created using pictures of dancers that
Elsie copied from a book.

Tasks

Task 1
Are the sentences true or false or is the information not given?

1. Fairies are not usually male.

True

False

Not given

2. Newer religions changed how people thought of fairies.

True

False

Not given

3. People used iron to protect themselves from fairies.

True

False

Not given

4. People thought very good babies were presents from the fairies.

True

False

Not given

5. Arthur Conan Doyle created some fake photos.

True

False

Not given

6. Elsie and Frances were surprised Arthur Conan Doyle believed them.

True

False

Not given

© 2019 British Council

www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

Task 2
Circle the best answer.

1.In paragraph 1, the word they refers to …
a.fairies.
b.children.
c.stories.
2.In paragraph 2, the words these creatures refer to …
a.tree and rivers.
b.the spirits of trees and rivers.
c.the Ancient Greek people.
3.In paragraph 2, the word They refers to …
a.pagan gods.
b.pagan religions.
c.Greek and Roman gods.
4.In paragraph 3, the words this idea refer to …
a.the idea that fairies were based on people.
b.the idea that fairies used metal weapons.
c.the idea that fairies used stone tools.
5.In paragraph 3, the word This refers to …
a.the fact that fairies were thought to be afraid of iron.
b.stolen food.
c.the possibility that hiding people stole food and attacked villages.
6.In paragraph 4, the word more refers to …
a.the girls.
b.the photos.
c.the fairies.

Discussion
What stories of little magical people are there in your culture? What are they like?

© 2019 British Council

www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

Answers

Preparation task

1.d
2.h
3.g
4.c
5.a
6.b
7.e
8.f

Task 1

1.True
2.True
3.Not given
4.Not given
5.False
6.Not given

Task 2

1.a
2.b
3.a
4.a
5.c
6.b