Infomation about Celtic faeries? (Please no pop culture.)?

Question

I'm playing on trying to role play as a traditional Celtic faerie. The faerie would be somewhat like a ghost of a girl who was shipwrecked on a isle and well...

Answer 1

The cross between ghost and traditional Irish fairy is exactly what happened when the idea of fairies mixed with Christian beliefs.

What kind of fairy you would be would depend on the era from which you take the mythology. The earliest literature speaks of the people of the sidhe (means fairy mound and pronounced 'she') as very powerful semi-divine beings who were human-sized and very beautiful. In this story the Tuatha De Danann are the people of the sidhe:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cmt/cmte...

I don't know when the idea of the 'little people' came into being, but Alexander Montgomerie's 16th century poem "Flyting against Polwait" (or "Flyting with Polwait", seems to be some confusion here) mentions tiny fairies riding on plant stocks and coming out on Halloween:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XHw-Jqr...

The being that seems to most closely resemble what you are describing is the Banshee. A Banshee (ban = woman, shee or sidhe = fairy) strongly resembles in both behavior and name several of the old Irish/Celtic fairy women (or goddesses). However, she is generally believed to be the spirit of a member of the family for whom she foretells death or sometimes another type of ghost. This is the best book on the Banshee:

http://books.google.com/books?id=C0kMAAA...

The clothing worn at the time is very well described in this excerpt from the 12th century "Cattle Raid of Cooley":

http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/Co...

Pictures and patterns of Celtic clothing here:

http://www.gallica.co.uk/celts/clothing2...