Away with the Fairies

Dominic Arkwright asks why fairies - once threatening and scary meddlers in human affairs - have become innocent, pink and fluffy?

He's joined by Irish storyteller Eddie Lenihan, fairy illustrator and writer Faye Durston, and folklorist Juliette Wood.

We hear how Eddie successfully campaigned to save an ancient hawthorn near Shannon Airport which was threatened by a new bypass. It was, he argued, the portal to the other world of the fairies of Munster. The tree still stands, though surrounded by cars on three sides.

Producer: Mark Smalley.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2011.