Many of the fairies and spirits mentioned within this book come from regions where information on the fairies isn’t readily available in English elsewhere. A few of these include; Mari-El – In the heart of an ancient forest which was so vast and isolated it allowed the people within to remain the last pagans in Europe. For the people of this land never converted to Islam or Christianity, and so to this day they still value the spirits of the forest. Their woodlands are filled with a dizzying array of spirits, from bathhouse spirits that appear as shooting stars to spirits which always run and move backwards.
I've posted a large encyclopedia of fairies on Google Books for free. "Fairy Encyclopedia"
Today I would like to talk about Puck.
You know the ruggedly handsome man who helped women with their chores and of whom they had many naughty stories.
Or as Buccola put it,
"Nothing pleases Puck more, Latham claims, than to make the morning fire, sweep the house, grind mustard and malt, draw water, and help the maids with breaking hemp, bolting and dressing flax, as well as spinning…. Robin Goodfellow was typically depicted with a huge phallus and a broom. It takes little present-day imagination to come up with reasons why early modern women might have sat around the fire over their darning sharing tales about a figure with such attributes….
That’s right women sewing and spinning loved to tell stories about a huge fairy man who could help them with their chores.
Puck is connected to the Robin Goodfellow and the hobgoblins, “rough hairy spirits, which do domestic chores…. Useful as they are they are easily offended and often mischievous. They are not exclusively domestic, but are often associated with streams, pools, and rocks…”
At this point it is worth looking at a related fairy from Puck’s Anglo-Saxon homeland, the Puk or Niskepuk. These stories evolved elsewhere and so don’t represent an original Puck but the similarities in their characters are interesting. Here Puck were often wild fairies that people would bring into their homes by building them nests out of straws or logs with holes in them, they could then capture or offer the fairy some food, often butter or oatmeal to live with them. Those homes with these fairies would prosper, beer brewed better, cattle thrived, household choirs got done quicker, and everything seemed to generally go well.
That said, inviting a wild fairy into your house is a little like inviting a wild cat into your house. I mean it can go great most of the time, but every once in a while, the mood for mischief will strike, and the cat will pounce on your keyboard while you’re trying to type, or scratch up some of your furniture. Further, niskepuk could steal from the neighbors, but they would fight the neighbor niskepuk if it tried stealing from you.
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” it is interesting to note that the fairy and Puck introduce him differently. For the fairy mentions that he is the one who frightens maidens, steals the cream from milk, makes it harder for butter to churn, and beer to brew properly, causes people to get lost. Yet, she also mentions that those who call him Hobgoblin will have their work done by him and good luck.
Puck, however, speaks of making Oberon smile and of punishing those he feels have violated some fairy morality. He takes the shape of a roasted crab apple in a gossips drink, so that he can bob and cause her to spill ale on herself. He also takes the form of a three-foot stool in order to cause those telling sad or boring stories to fall, so that everyone will laugh and have a marrier time.
Within these lines we can see the push between Puck’s multiple natures. He is a mischievous trickster on whom bad things were blamed, a helpful figure which was believed to bring fortune, and of course a moralizing figure.
Contrasting their wild fairy nature in chapbooks, Robin Goodfellow was often said to be the half human child of the fairy king Oberon, who was granted the power of shapeshifting by his father. Which adds a fun layer when watching him cause Oberon trouble during Midsummer Night’s dream.
It’s difficult to say how early this aspect of his character was added, if it was a purely literary device.
During this time there was a spike in literacy and Yeomen began writing about the fairies. These writers knew the fairies “well from their mothers and grandmothers, and their new readers knew them, and loved them because they were familiar… they appealed to the court as well as to the country, and the fairy vogue was made.”
Further, in the past, people didn’t want to display too much knowledge of fairy lore which could have led to charges of heresy. When this changed, people wrote more regularly and honestly about the delightful aspects of fairy nature.
At this time the English world had been turned on its head as it went through rapid changes as well, the religious assumptions were being reexamined. The English Civil War had beheaded a king, holidays like Christmas had been outlawed by his non-king successor.
People were grasping for something, what people often grasped for during times like this was in part spiritualism and fairies.
During this time people began to focus on the more frolicsome, frivolous and tiny side of fairies.
“a little school of friends among the poets, Drayton, Browne, Herrick, and the almost unknown Simon stewards, caught by the deliciousness of Shakespeare’s fairies, and coming from counties where small fairies belonged to the folk tradition, amused themselves and each other by writing fantasies on littleness.”
Nimphidia and the Wedding of a Fey
The fairies are hopping,
The small flowers, cropping,
And with dew dropping,
Skip thorow the greaves
At barly break they play
Merrily all the day
At night themselves they lay
Upon the soft leaves
The idea of tiny frolicsome and whimsical fairies didn’t begin at this time. Rather these aspects of their nature were emphasized.
Another aspect of Puck was emphasized early on, but faded later, that of Puck as a moralizing figure. Like most house fairies he hated laziness and certain bad behavior writers used Puck as a way teach people the importance domestic morality.
Over time this was replaced, however, with a focus on whimsy and mischief.
I have a much longer article about the gnomes or zwerg as they are called in Germany in my discussion on Snow White. Also, I answer some of the most common internet questions about gnomes at the end of this article.
“Once a woman was suffering through a difficult labor alone, when the zwerg that lived underneath her home appeared and served as her midwife, easing her pain and helping her give birth. (Franz Leibing, 1868)”
This little memorate of a fairy living underneath a German lady’s home, who has clearly come to care about her, illustrates perhaps the most important thing about the fairies, they are humanities neighbors. Garden gnomes or Gartenzwerge, as they are known in Germany from which they came, were named such because they didn’t live in some distant land, but because they frequently inhabited our gardens. Here these zwerg could bless the crops to grow in abundance or could steal the peas, as they so frequently did.
The German folklorist Grasse (1868) noted that in Wilstermarsch Germany: "Every morning, the housemaids would spill milk for the underground people. Beer and crumbs from the table were also offered to them in a similar way. If the milk wasn't offered, the underground people would steal it.
People wanted them happy, for everywhere they went they caused the beer brewed better. In Alversdorf, the underground people would steal pots and kettles, and cause other mischiefs. Yet they also blessed people's cattle to never become sick [cattle were a primary means of wealth, so this mattered a lot]. They also left magical pots for people which caused the seeds held in them to grow faster, milk gathered into them to churn richer, and water held in them to make those who drank from them healthier"
It makes sense that humans would share their food with the zwerg, for fairies needed human food in many tales, or at least food prepared using human ovens and or utensils.
These zwerg were mischievous to be certain, and could even be dangerous, for as with all fairies and humans there was a contrast between individuals. On the whole, however, they were helpful creatures, not just of the woods, but of the more beautiful lands around our homes and villages.
the Zwerg were constantly seeking out human food and cooking tools. This connection through food helped to form strong bonds between the humans and the fairies. In one story;
A zwerg would frequently borrow a pot from a farmer. Once when she came to borrow the pot to boil some potatoes the farmer noticed that she was pregnant and mentioned he would be interested in standing godfather for the baby. Later the zwerg’s husband came and formally asked the farmer to be the godfather to his and his wife’s child.
Later the farmer grew nervous about the prospect of being a fairy’s godfather and went to the pastor for council. The pastor told him that he had to stand godfather, since one couldn’t rescind the offer to do so. So the farmer went to the baptism of the baby zwerg and the feast in the mountain. As he was leaving the zwerg asked him to look behind the door, where he found garbage, which they asked him to sweep up and carry home with him. Annoyed he did so, but to his joy he discovered that the garbage had turned to gold when he got home.
Zwerg gave people blessings in return for the food and drink that they shared. Yet, because they were our neighbors they might also share their food with people. It was common for a man to be plowing at the edge of his field, in the middle of nowhere, when he smelled some delicious cakes being cooked. He commented on how much he would enjoy those cakes, and when he’d plowed back to the same spot he found a plate with an offering of the cakes upon them, which he ate and thanked the zwerg for the meal.
I find these tales of humans interacting with the fairies like neighbors absolutely enchanting.
A few final notes
In addition to gnome zwerg is often translated into dwarf in English. As in Snow White and the Seven Zwerg.
The zwerg’s red hats are what they use to turn invisible, so when they stole people’s peas, the people would use sticks to try to knock their hats off so they could see them.
Breaking these zwerg down is more complex than we have time for, and so it will need to be done in a future video, along with the darker side of zwerg and dwarves.
What are gnomes? - Gnomes are zwerg in German fairy tales, the same as the 'dwarves' who helped Snow White. They are a synchronization of Norse dwarves and Celtic fairies.
What do gnomes do? - Gnomes obviously do a lot of things, although they love dancing and celebrating. Indeed, they seemed to have so much fun most of the time that some people wished to marry a gnome and be happy, and some people even did marry gnomes. They would often give good presents to their nieces and nephews after this. Some gnomes liked to mine, many would bless gardens, or on occasion steal from them. Because of the diversity of the things they did it is difficult to come up with a comprehensive answer for "what do gnomes do?"
What is the story behind gnomes? - If you are wondering about garden gnomes, the story is that gnomes or zwerg as they were called, could bless gardens to grow better, but also might steal form them. If you are wondering about the Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft gnomes, the story behind gnomes is that they were spirits created by alchemists. It is this connection with alchemists that makes them tinkers and researchers in these games. Keep in mind that garden gnome is actually a bad translation of zwerg, so the alchemical gnomes and the garden or fairy gnomes have nothing to do with each other in mythology.
What is the meaning behind gnomes? There are many, as the zwerg that gnome was translated from could be tutelary spirits of the land, they could be a separate set of magical people, they could be semi-divine beings in old pagan religions.
Gnomes what are they? I feel like I've answered this already.
What is the meaning of garden gnomes? It is difficult to say what the original meaning was. They started being made in the 17th century, a time when many people began to amuse themselves by writing stories of fairies and decorating with fairy related items. So it may just be that someone thought they were fun decorations, a call back to the folklore of creatures that helped people in their homes, gardens, and farms.
"In Popeca, vampires are said to be at their worst before Easter"
The blood drinking, milk curdling, lords of the dead who haunted the living in a terrifying parody of what people believed to be good and decent.
It's important to remember that there isn't one type of vampire, but many regional variations. Irish vampires might ensnare someone's mind to get them to do as they wanted but in many other places vampires were more likely to crush someone to death. These "things" about vampires then are, as with all things regionally specific.
1-December is the time of vampires, for there were a series of Holidays starting in November and ending in early January in which they were most likely to come out, sometimes in the form of owls, or mice, or many other animals. In Romania they would all go to the cross-roads and battle each other in a huge night long fight.
2-Vampires might also fight each other over hunting territory like any territorial animal. There are stories of one vampire chasing someone into another vampires territory, at which point the two vampires fight over who gets to feed on the victim for so long the sun came up and the vampires collapsed, returning to being corpses, allowing the person to escape.
3-Romanian vampires would sometimes cut their victims faces into a permanent smile, putting them on stakes, and positioning them in such a way that they were most likely to scare the living. One girl thought her friends had survived a vampire attack and waved to greet them happily, only to discover the horrifying truth moments later.
4-In many places there were people who were born as vampires. Really anyone who was born under weird circumstances could be a vampire. In 19th Century Greece if the elder child began to grow sickly a mother might suspect that their youngest was a vampire. These living vampires would send their souls from their bodies in the form of a bluish flame, an animal, or person, to search for blood. They would also drain cows of their milk and blight fields, just as any undead vampire would.
While they were outside their body they were vulnerable, for if anyone moved their body they would die.
In one story from Transylvania a women fed some poor soldiers some porridge. When they'd finished they went to find and thank their hostess, and in the attic they found her with seven other bodies laying down. Afraid they fled. Looking back they saw seven lights descending on the house. These were the souls of the vampires returning to their bodies.
5-People were more likely to accuse those they knew of being vampires than to accuse strangers. This is because vampires were most likely to attack family members and friends. They did this as a subversion of Christian covenants (evil starts at home).
6-If a vampire could kill his whole family, then the entire village within seven years they would be able to move to a new country, become human, and have another family which would become vampires on their deaths.
7-Some vampires might return to their families and continue to live as they had in life (secretly) they would chop wood, do field work, care for children, spin thread, whatever they'd done in life. Yet they were likely either abusive or dangerous to the neighbors, as women would at times ask their children to kill the vampire (the reason the children were asked isn't always given)
8-People would sometimes burn a suspected vampire, mixing its ashes into a drink to give life energy back to the people the vampire had stolen it from. Others would pass through the smoke of a burning vampire to gain protection against evil. If one bone of the vampire remained unburned, however, the vampire would grow back from it.
9-Vampires could enter unclean homes, homes without clean water, homes in which there was no one, or homes which weren't holy without an invitation.
10-Many times vampires could ask objects inside a home to let them into the house. Agnes Murgoci wrote in her book on Romanian vampires that "All lamps may be put out and everything in the house turned upside down, so that if a vampire does come, it will not be able to ask any of the objects in the house to open the door."
especially thread which was spun in the moonlight (at night). It was therefore dangerous to spin any or sew at night as that gave the vampire an ally within your house...
By the way it might interest you to know that many factories run 24 hours a day, so many of your clothes would be made at night.
With that pleasant thought, sleep well.
11-If a vampire could make you sneeze three times in a row they would have power over you.
The
folkloric nature of goblin is so amorphous as to be impossible to pin down.
This is because people began to use it in a fairly general way, to mean one of
many different possible fairy creatures, but despite the often-frustrating ways
which the English language often mixes words around there does seem to be a
group of beings from which many of the ideas of ‘goblins’ sprang. These are tutelary
deities, that is fairies of the household, which have been driven from their
home, and or wild fairies that people tried and failed to domesticate.
Etymologically
the word has two possible origins, one was used to describe traitors and
demonic spirits, the second was used to describe household spirits, protectors
of rooms and perhaps especially the bed chambers. In this one of the goblin’s
folkloric ancestors, the kobold, is well known for its wild and raucous laugh.
More than this they were also well known for stealing treasure from neighboring
households.
William
Sayer’s in their article on the origins of goblins states that:
An Old English protector of rooms can have been both
evicted from the home to the wilderness and burdened with a derogatory foreign
name. There the goblin survived but surely with an irreversible darkening of
mood.
While
I state that goblins were likely former domesticated fairies, it is important
to keep in mind that household and forest beings were often intermixed, such
that forest fairies often became house fairies and vice versa, what’s more it
wasn’t always clear which one was dealing with. Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, who dwells
within the woods, also dwelt within the home and helped with the cleaning.
Pixies were at once a fairy of the moorlands and of the farms, who helped with
the threshing and rewarded those who kept their homes clean.
There
are perhaps five types of household spirits of interest here.
First
are ancestral spirits who continue to live within a house and or with a family.
The
second are tutelary spirits that are either connected to the house or the land
it is on. That is, the soul of the house, the spirit who owned the land before
a house was built, etc. One child, for example, was attacked by the spirit of a
tree which had been cut down to make a house.
The
third type is the fairy from the wilderness who is invited into the home to
become a house fairy.
Third
are the fairies which live near the home and help with domestic tasks but are
still, essentially wild such as the pixies of Dartmoor.
Finally
there are the deities of domestic things, such as the fairies of weaving, or
which are involved in churning butter, caring for cows, etc. Even Zeus falls
into this category, as he would take the form of a snake to protect homes and
so might be found dwelling by a person’s fireplace.
These
are, of course, likely intermixed with unrelated fairies such as the zwerg and
knockers of mines.
One
of the easiest ways to understand ‘domestic goblins’ is to examine Loki as
there is so much written about him. Loki in folklore was a house fairy, seemingly
very different from the mythological portrayal of him. As Eldar Heide put it: “It
seems there were two Lokis. One was a vatte 'domestic spirit' living under or
by the fireplace, helping farmers with the farm work and attracting wealth to
the farm. The other, the mythical character, was very different but still
derived from the vatte.”
Eldar
Heide has an engaging article explaining the connection between Loki, the
Nordic house fairy or Vatte, and the trickster character of folklore known as
the Ash Lad. These Ash Lads and the Vatte would upset the natural order of
things, aiding the peasants against the wealthy and kings. This would explain
why the mythology we have, which was told and penned down by the wealthy
disliked a figure like Loki, after all, robbing from the rich as Robinhood did,
or overthrowing the judge as Loki did, might be all well and good for a peasant
but it is an evil act in the mind of the nobility.
The
ash lad is a dirty boy from a poor family who seems lazy, small, and weak. A
dreamer who thinks in unusual ways he prefers to stay at home by the fire, but
when forced to go out into the world he turns out to be extremely clever and
able to trick powerful beings in order to get what he wants. They also, inexplicably,
end up in the court of a King where traditionally they would seem to have no
business being, just as Loki found himself in Odin’s court, despite being an
outsider. More than this he became Odin’s blood brother.
The
king in folklore promises the Ash Lad half the kingdom in return for his help,
but then when the ash lad completes the quest the king tries to backpedal on
his word, before finally having to give in. "It is understandable that the
king is unwilling to accept as his son-in-law and successor on the throne a
dirty, ragged, poor low-born boy who is comfortable with effeminacy and
humiliation and who is supported by oddballs and hags, and animals from the
wilderness. Accepting the Ash Lad amounts to a revolution."
Everyone
assumes the Ash Lad will fail because they are so odd and don’t exhibit what
would be thought of as heroic traits, but instead they succeed because of their
oddness and non-heroic character. He succeeds because he negates the hierarchy
and the snobbish establishment. The otherworld is an inversion of the human
world, and so while the Ash Lad has trouble navigating or understanding the
human world, they are the only ones who can succeed in getting treasures or
rescuing someone from the other world.
Many
kings would attempt to negotiate with these magical and spiritual outsiders in
Germanic lore. Indeed, Odin became blood brothers with Loki, perhaps as a way
of getting Loki to help maintain Odin’s vision of the world and his power. Loki
in this case being primordial force or spirit that Odin sought to domesticate
to obtain power, the way many will seek to domesticate and sometimes forcibly tame
fairies to serve as house fairies. This worked for a while, Loki saved the gods
on many occasions, helping them out of serious jams and aiding them in obtaining
great treasures the way helping spirits often aided shamans. But as is so often
the case the trying to tame wild spirits can backfire, and so it was the Loki
would inevitably betray and destroy Odin once he failed to keep up his end of
the bargain (Warner).
Just
as Loki was an outside spiritual force brought into the home of Odin, house
fairies were often spiritual forces brought into the home. Just as Loki often
went on adventures with Odin’s son Thor, so too did house fairies often
adventure with the children of the house, but this often turned out bad for
them, as Loki often suffered in adventures.
House
fairies and Ash Lads like Loki used cleverness and cunning and wit to obtain
treasures for the house. Yet like Odin their family would eventually betray
them by acting immorally
(notice Loki’s criticism of the Gods), by acting too self-centered and certain
(notice his attack on the judge), or by not feeding them properly.
Loki
can be thought of as a lesson on how to treat and avoid mistreating a house fairy,
for fear that they should become a goblin. For make no mistake, while some house
fairies were ancestral spirits, many if not most were still wild beings that
had entered people’s homes, more than this they were spiritual beings and such
beings are very ambiguous.
Household
fairies in Germanic lore were often thieves who stole from the neighbors, and
in Slavic lore they were often dangerous to the neighbors. It is possible that
their thieving nature originated as a desire to steal from one’s wealthier
neighbors and as fear that someone’s neighbors would steal from them. Fairies,
as Perkiss points out, are often a reflection of our dark desires and sins. That
is, we accuse them of that which we wrongfully did or want to do. So, people
loved their house fairies but often feared the fairies of others. There are
numerous stories of these fairies stealing from neighbors, trying to smother
house guests, etc.
Fairies
and ancient deities were ambiguous figures in general. That is, they could act
in ways that were both good or bad depending on their mood and relation to the
person they were encountering. We must first recall that Zeus would protect
people as a domestic deity, but in many stories, he would also assault them.
Consider
also Sylvanus, the god of farms and woodlands in Roman lore, who was so beloved
that he was one of the most venerated deities in Rome, however, people also had
to keep him away from women giving birth for he would harm them and the child. Or
Hermes, the god of shepherds who would come down the chimney to snatch children
away. Fairies and deities in lore have always been associated with both danger
and wealth. What else could we expect from nature which gives us food and predators?
As
I have pointed out in the past fairies and deities are frequently their own opposites,
having multiple souls that can be both kindly and dangerous and we certainly
see that with house fairies. In one Welsh Story, a bwca (house fairy) was
insulted by a servant he’d thought was his friend, he attacked her then turned
into a bogle, a monstrous goblin fairy, haunting houses and causing trouble for
years before finally finding a new friend who could help him settle, then when
their new friend died, they turned back into a destructive bogle.
Household
fairies were often capricious, in part, because they existed in a precarious world
in general, torn between humanity and fairyland. We see the danger of this in
the story of “Puss in Boots”. After inheriting nothing but his father’s cat a
young man says; “but for my part, when I have eaten up my cat, and made me a
muff of his skin, I must die of hunger."
Jacob
Grimm presumed that the cat in question was a house fairy, and this makes sense
for a number of reasons, and this moment certainly shows the precarious situation
house fairies could find themselves in. Although eating them likely didn’t happen
often in lore, there are certainly stories of them being threatened with knives
or beaten and banished from homes in tears.
Peeves,
Dobby, and the Goblins - It is interesting to note that goblins can often be
thought of as poltergeists or the house fairies from the borderlands between
Scotland and England called dobies. That is, they are the spirits of a building,
place, or ancestral spirits who grow troublesome, or house fairies that are
troublesome.
The
Underground Others – It
is likely that there were fairies who dwelt underground and loved shiny things or
were associated with treasure for longer than people have cared about gold. Whether
the zwerg (dwarves) of Germany, the Shirte of the Nenets in Northern Asia, who
have beautiful beaded objects and silver and lived underground, or the little
people of Yupik lore in Alaska.
These
little peoples most often lived underground and could be associated with industry
and mining, or among hunter-gatherers with hunting luck and food. Yet they were
also tricky and would put people under their spells, deceive people, and of
course steal from people’s food stores. They often had animal features or twisted
features that appeared ugly to human eyes, although some could be beautiful,
they were all strange.
These
others, or underground people, don’t have to have a common origin per say,
although they might. They could, also however, come from the fact that they tap
into something that many cultures, from Africa through Asia and the Americas
find engaging. They are one of our most important and oldest pieces of folk
religion and folklore, because they have emotional and psychological value,
because they offer us truths.
As
has always happened people spin false tales about the goblins specifically and
fantasy in general. These new tales are as damaging as any spun by the nobility
and kings of old. Rulers who clung to power by claiming that the others of lore
were demonic figures, were against the heavens, represented something people of
their and our day despised. Those in power have always disliked goblins and the
underground people, perhaps because they refuse to be controlled.
This
isn’t to say that goblins aren’t dangerous, or that they are safe and good. Goblins
are of value because they aren’t safe. They warn us of mistreating those who
are helpful, they give us symbols of rebellion, they poke fun at the status
quo, they offer us the psychological and emotional benefits of horror stories,
and so much more.
House
fairies aren’t tame, they are supernatural and often wild entities. Say a curse
word around one and it might just burn down the home in revenge. Get in a loud
argument and it might just give you a disease out of spite.
So,
what are goblins? Well, in this iteration they are fairies and deities when
they are acting destructively as part of their ambitious nature. Or they are
house fairies who have been wronged and turned destructive, or they are wild
beings which someone attempted but failed to tame. Rather than a species of
being then, they can be thought of as an aspect of spirits.
However, Goblins are also Trickster Beings. Something I will explore more in future articles, along with their more violent and funny natures.
+Download
the ebook for Understanding Fairy Mythology.
Wanner, K. J. (2009). Cunning
Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty. History
of Religions, 48(3), 211–246. https://doi.org/10.1086/598231
Heide, E. (2011). Loki, the “Vätte”,
and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Material. Viking
and Medieval Scandinavia, 7, 63–106.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/45019150
Sayers,
William. “The Dispossessed House-Spirit: The Etymology of goblin and Some
Thoughts on its Early History”
The greatest value of art is in helping
people emotionally and psychologically.
Although often derided by art critics as kitsch,
cute works of art have power to change the way people think, feel and act, and
most often for the better.
Research into cute imagery by Steinnes, Blomster, et al.
(2019) has found that cuteness evokes emotions of kama muta, which media
psychology has shown can cause people to act more caring and kindly towards
others, while also reducing stress and anxiety.
When paired with a strong active
message such as “Recycle Now” cute art increases the likelihood people will
take action (Wang and Patrick, 2017).
Of course, anything that can illicit feelings so easily in
others can be hijacked for other purposes. A cute brand logo makes people more
likely to forgive a company that does something wrong (Septiantoa and Kwon).
And “exposure to cuteness leads men to be more risk-seeking
and women to be more risk-averse.” (Li, Yuan & Yan, Dengfeng)
What’s more it’s been shown that people work better when
they can see pictures of cute things and are more likely to respond carefully
to questions when there is a cute picture on the survey form, or on a test.
There are almost no works of so called great art which have
such a powerful and immediate psychological impact on the viewers, and
certainly few would actually cause people to act more kindly towards others.
There is a reason, after all, why so much of the internet
thrives on cute.
People have a powerful desire to protect that which is
small,
Cuteness, seeming to
have a will of its own, also demonstrates aggression by imposing demands. For
example, it may demand that we allow it to submit to us. Its immediate visceral
impact is often counteracted by the viewer’s sense of having been manipulated,
arousing the viewer’s suspicions. It desperately awaits our evaluation of and
interaction with it. It is a supplicant awaiting our judgment, a judgment that
will give it power over us. Cuteness thereby engenders its own discipline by
enforcing particular behaviors of the viewer; in turn, it engages and
disciplines its viewer. Its disavowal of power is one of its powers. (Elizabeth
Howie)
Cuteness therefore engenders primal emotions, which likely
explains why cuteness is so often used in relation to objects of religious art.
Claire Maria Chambers points out that Korean Buddhist temples have figures of
small chubby monks and “temple devotees ritually bathe a statue of the Buddha
as a small boy.” In America Precious Moments toys have become important to a
number of Christians. These cute, innocent figurines, often include spiritual
and biblical quotes. They are like children but better, “they also sincerely
express experiences of comfort, love, and community in the face of the
difficulties that the riddle of faith presents for thousands of consumers
around the globe.” (Claire Maria Chambers)
While we associate cute things with children, adults are
more likely to have the need for nostalgia and the level of stress necessary to
fully appreciate the emotions that cuteness elicits.
Cute things reduced stress in work environments. While
children do homework that might require this, adults are often much more likely
to suffer stress and anxiety in their daily lives.
Cute art can relax those who are stressed, anxious, and
fatigued.
Both cuteness and awe
have been shown to be connected to increased levels of prosociality and a sense
of connectedness to others…
cuteness has been linked
to stress reduction and, when paired over time with another stimulus, has also
been shown to increase the quality of positive experience with paired stimuli.
….Awe has also been
repeatedly linked to stress reduction specifically, but is also linked to more
negative affect than cuteness…. Both awe and cuteness however, have the
potential to contribute to an upward spiral in positive affect through repeated
exposure.
There are exceptions, however, as with all things.
Those who work in healthcare or as online content moderators can suffer from
‘compassion fatigue.’ As a result online moderators who are forced to spend
long periods of time caring and struggling with the worst of humanity become
more anxious and stressed when seeing something cute as the need to protect
builds stress in them.
Still, the presence of such strong emotional reactions shows
how readily these images can have a physiological impact on those who witness
them.
So, yes, cute images have power, even if many would deride
them.
☆ Author links open overlay panelYuanLiaDengfengYanb
Li, Yuan & Yan, Dengfeng, 2021. "Cuteness inspires
men’s risk seeking but women’s risk aversion," Journal of Business
Research, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 239-249.
Wang, T., Mukhopadhyay, A., &
Patrick, V. M. (2017). Getting Consumers to Recycle “NOW”! When and Why
Cuteness Appeals Influence Prosocial and Sustainable Behavior. Journal
of Public Policy & Marketing, 36(2), 269–283.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44878341
Too cute to be bad? Cute brand logo reduces consumer
punishment following brand transgressions Author links open overlay panelFelix
Septiantoa Junbum Kwon
Awe Versus Aww: The Effectiveness of Two Kinds of Positive
Emotional Stimulation on Stress Reduction for Online Content Moderators
CHRISTINE L. COOK, National Chengchi University, Taiwan JIE CAI, New Jersey
Institute of Technology, USA DONGHEE YVETTE WOHN, New Jersey Institute of
Technology, US
Steinnes, Kamilla & Blomster Lyshol, Johanna &
Seibt, Beate & Zickfeld, Janis & Fiske, Alan. (2019). Too Cute for
Words: Cuteness Evokes the Heartwarming Emotion of Kama Muta. Frontiers in
Psychology. 10. 387. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00387.
Evaluation of Kawaii Feelings Caused by Stuffed Animals to
Reduce Stress Michiko Ohkura, Hina Arashina, Takafumi Tombe & Peeraya
Sripian
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