There’s a popular genre, filled with beautiful, human-sized fairies having sex with humans (often quite violent sex, but the people reading it seem to enjoy it). Word is that it’s badly written and unashamedly escapist – all golden, glittering palaces, wild adventure and, of course, gorgeous fairies. It’s certainly popular – plenty of the stories have been translated into numerous languages, spreading across continents.
Serious commentators are sure it spells bad news: at best, it’s just a load of trash; at worst, it’s actively leading people astray. Most damningly of all, women produce and consume it. Welcome to the 12th century, where fairy romance is all the rage.
The romantasy that fills our shelves and bestseller lists – from Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses to Callie Hart’s Quicksilver – is not a new genre, but part of a centuries-old heritage. You only need to look at the medieval predecessors of the modern romantasy novel to understand why it’s enjoyed by millions and why, even after hundreds of years, fairy romance has such power over us – and why there are still those who want to diminish and dismiss it. Medieval romances originated in the French courts of the late 1100s and were wildly popular, quickly spreading throughout Europe, not only from country to country, but also down the social scale, so that even farm workers and impoverished nuns knew the stories.
They drew on tales of fairies in earlier myths, especially within Arthurian legends, and were adapted and expanded to be as thrilling as possible, providing people with the same escapism that romantasy does today. Read either the medieval or the modern tales and you’ll find glitter and blood and adventure, not to mention crystal palaces, glorious and perilous enchanted realms, terrifyingly handsome fairy knights, and queens who live in unearthly splendour. As one author of a 13th-century romance pointed out, speaking about the real world brings “grief and torment” – so why not turn to fairies?
The wild sexual freedom of modern romantasy was there in medieval romance too, which overflowed with sexually active fairies, both male and female. There are detailed descriptions of fairy bodies, legs and breasts, and while the veil tends to be drawn over the act itself, both fairies and mortals are always “taking what they desire”, “making merry together”, “holding each other in their arms” and getting each other pregnant – even when either the mortal or fairy is married to someone else, or has only just met. And while there are fairy lovers who are kind, gentle and courteous, medieval audiences also thrilled to the idea of a brooding fairy shadow-daddy: the fairies often simmer with threat, never losing their darker edges even when the story ends with the lovers paired off happily.
As with romantasy today, the medieval stories, by dint of being fictional, were a safe place to experiment with sex in a repressed society. This was even more important as medieval romance, like modern romantasy, was often written by women (such as the 12th-century poet Marie de France), and had a large female audience (something even Chaucer commented on) – so these stories were often a place for women to explore their desires, free from the idea that they should be chaste and subservient. (For reasons too complex to get into it right now, it was generally accepted that fairy sex didn’t quite count, so women who slept with fairies were still thought of as virgins.) Romantasy still provides this space now: although women may be more sexually liberated than they were in the middle ages, we’re often still uncomfortable with female desires. It’s certainly not a coincidence that many romantasy books today are targeted at teenage girls, who may not be able to talk openly about sex, and are popular with women from more conservative backgrounds.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
