Fairies are originally nature spirits. The places they dwell are the forest, meadowlands, near streams and brooks, glens, hilltops, caves and heavily wooded areas. Every type of fairy is different. Their habits provide clues as to where they came from. Natural occurrences of four leaf clovers and fairy rings have long been associated with their existence. There are two broad categories of fairies namely the trooping fairies or social fairies or the aristocracy and the solitary fairies or peasantry. The social fairies can be seen feasting, singing and dancing in large groups and known to travel in long processions. They usually wear green jackets. Solitary fairies avoid large gathering and usually wear red, brown or grey jackets. Folk tales gives people an insight or the culture from which they sprung.
In some culture, they referred to only three types of fairies: the white, the green and the black fairies (Hunt 1834). The lovely white ladies frequent bridges. They sometimes ask passersby to dance. Those travelers who consent to dance will be blessed but those who refused will be thrown into the river. Their way of making travelers learn better manners. Locals who cross the Ballona Bridge or Fairy Bridge at the Isle of Man always offer greetings to the little folks believed to be staying beneath it. But bridges can be dangerous places because trolls lurked beneath them and throw stones at humans. The white or good fairies live above the ground. They are fun of sunshine, dance in fairy rings and sits on the leaves. The white fairies are divided into the water fairies or fairies of the fire and the fairies of the air or fairies of the earth (Yeats 1993). They passed on a troop in a singular multitude. Their bodies are like stems of flowers. Their dresses look like petals too. They stood still on green bushes where honey drops like dew. They then thrust out their tongues and licked the honey covered ground without stooping.
The dark or black fairies sometimes known as the underground fairies are the worst ones, and known to be irritable (Rosen 1991). They were the most malicious and the most dangerous fairies. They were said to be the dwarf, trolls and the ill folk in the continent. The green fairies are neither bad nor good. Green fairies do both evil and good (Tyson 2007). These small lively green fairies were said to inhabit the North of England. They were rumored seen in the South West area too. The Cherokee Fairy Little People were known to live in rocks and caves (Varner 2007). They were well shaped and handsome. They hardly reached up to a man’s knee but their hairs were usually long and almost fall to the ground. Tiny fairies in Africa called Abatwa lives in anthills. They allowed only children and pregnant women to see themselves. Immortals are also Cherokee Fairies who lives in townhouses under mounds of earth and said to look like and speak like the other Indians. Chaneques were described as old dwarfs with faces of children who live in waterfalls. Chaneques are part of the Olmec culture which was believed to dominate wild animals and fish.