So the Fairies marry the Peers, all fly off to Fairyland, and live happily ever after. Or do they? Certainly precident is against them; in almost all stories of fairies and mortals at least one of them becomes unhappy or dies. In addition, there is a logical problem with the ending which may cause them trouble.

In Gilbert's original, unpublished version, not only Private Willis, but all the Peers, become fairies before they marry. Thus the lady fairies are not breaking their law, and, since they marry other fairies do not need to change the law. This all makes sense. With the present ending, they are now married to fairies instead of mortals and are thus breaking the new law! In addition, what happens to Strephon? Is he still half and half? By the way, early in the story the Queen agrees to his marriage with Phyllis, but this should have meant that his fairy upper half would have to be executed. However, Iolanthe is a comedy; the problems need not be taken too seriously.

Most legends and fairy tales which involve fairies and mortals in love have unhappy endings. For example, Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid exchanges her tail for legs so she can follow her prince on land, but finds walking extremely painful. He marries another and she sadly returns to her watery home. In The Merry Widow we hear the story of a vilia, a wood nymph who enchants and then deserts a huntsman, leaving him alone and forlorn.

Like the Little Mermaid and Iolanthe, there are a number of stories of fairy-like water nymphs who can breathe on both land and in the water. However, if a water nymph marries a mortal she usually cannot return to her watery home; the other nymphs reject her. If her mortal rejects her, she must live at the very bottom layer of water and he can never marry again; both live on unhappily. Examples of such nymphs are Undine, Mélusine and the Slavic rusalki. The composer Dvorak wrote an opera, Rusalka about one who loves a prince and gives up the ability to speak in return for being able to follow him home. However, he finds the speechless beauty cold and rejects her for another. Then, when she returns home, he follows her, but her kiss causes his death.

Another problem with mortals who marry fairies is the strange time in Fairyland. What seems like a day there may be as much as 300 normal years. If a mortal does find happiness at first with an immortal spouse, he or she often becomes homesick and tries to return to home. Only disaster awaits; now ancient in mortal years, a horrible death usually follows immediately.

Fairies are particularly popular in Britain. Shakespeare celebrates them with Queen Titania, King Oberon and Puck (or Robin Goodfellow) in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet. However, while they may interact with mortals, they do not fall in love. In fact some still believe in them. In 2005, in Scotland, a developer started work on a new housing complex. As part of the preparation of the property they would have had to move a large rock under which fairies were said to live. The local people objected. While not really admitting there are fairies, the town council decreed that local customs and beliefs had to be taken into consideration. The developers had to revise their plans to leave the rocknot undisturbed. And, of course, there is Tinkerbell. Just maybe, if enough people believe, she will return.

There is at least one exception to the unhappy ending when a mortal marries a fairy. One of the stories in the Arabian Nights, Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu, may have been familiar to Gilbert. Three princes are vying for the hand of their father's ward. They were given several tasks to perform to determine who should marry her, one of which was to see who could shoot an arrrow the furthest. Ahmed's goes so far it disappears, and he goes to find it. He meets a fairy, Peri-Banu, who asks him to marry her. He agrees, and they live happily together. When she suggests he visit his father, he does and is assigned more tasks and has more adventures. Eventually Ahmed and Peri-Banu become sultan and sultana and are assumed to live happily ever after.

So enjoy Iolanthe, logical dilemmas and all, and believe that the peris and their not-so-bright peers do indeed live happily ever after.

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Revised December 2006
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