J. Sheridan Le Fanu's The Child that Went with the Fairies: A Detailed Summary and Literary Analysis
- Michael Kellermeyer
- 5 hours ago
- 9 min read
Le Fanu’s ghost stories—like “Schalken the Painter”, “Green Tea,” and “Mr. Justice Harbottle”—are often seen as distinct from his folk-inspired tales, which draw heavily on traditional Irish legends. Unlike many of these folk stories that simply retell old myths with only a subtle Le Fanu twist, “The Child That Went With the Fairies” stands apart by blending a classic Irish myth—the changeling—with the unique, unsettling originality that defines Le Fanu’s best work. The changeling myth was commonly used in Ireland to explain children who exhibited unusual or troubling behavior: those who were violent, irrational, defiant of authority, or simply seemed unlike their families might be thought to have been swapped at infancy by fairies for one of their own.
This belief offered a supernatural rationale for developmental or behavioral disorders, long before modern medicine could provide explanations. But in Le Fanu’s hands, this folk motif becomes more than just a cultural relic; it’s infused with a deep psychological and existential horror that unsettles even the most familiar elements of Irish tradition.
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Crucially, Le Fanu’s portrayal of fairies starkly contrasts with the delicate, ethereal sprites popularized by Victorian-era fairy tales and modern media like Peter Pan or Fantasia. Irish folklore originally depicted fairies not as charming, fluttering beings but as powerful, often grotesque, and tyrannical entities—lords of an alien and dangerous realm. They were capricious and merciless, capable of cruelty and deception, much like the wrathful deities of ancient mythologies. Le Fanu rejected the sanitized, genteel “Tinker Bell” version that Victorian society preferred, instead portraying the fey as vain, covetous rulers who wield their otherworldly glamour to trap and destroy human lives.
These creatures descend from their lofty, supernatural grandeur to wreak havoc on humanity, especially targeting the vulnerable: the poor, the young, and the hopeful. Their beauty and finery are but a beguiling mask for the suffering they sow—ruin, despair, and death follow wherever they tread. In this way, Le Fanu’s fairies serve as a dark metaphor for oppressive, predatory forces—whether social, political, or personal—that captivate with false promises but ultimately devastate those caught in their sway. This fusion of folklore with a deeply unsettling moral and psychological dimension is what gives “The Child that Went With the Fairies” its enduring power and chilling resonance.
SUMMARY
The story begins in rural County Limerick, where the Ryan family—a poor widow named Mary and her children—live in a lonely thatched cottage nestled near the haunted hill of Lisnavoura. The cabin is humble, but carefully warded against supernatural threats with horse shoes, house-leek, mountain ash trees, and holy water. Lisnavoura itself looms nearby, known in local lore as a haunt of the “Good People”—the fairies—whose presence is both respected and feared. The widow and her daughter Nell are especially vigilant about keeping the younger children close at dusk, and locking up early, aware of the ancient tales of fairy abductions that surround the area.
One autumn evening, while the mother is returning from collecting turf and Nell is watching the dinner pot, the three youngest children—Con, Peg, and little Billy (Leum)—are playing outside. When the mother returns and asks after them, Nell realizes they are missing. Her initial irritation gives way to dread when, after calling for them and searching, there’s no answer. The silence and the darkening of the sky deepen her fear. Their mother joins the search, crying out for the children. Suddenly, two of them appear, coming from the direction of Lisnavoura. But Billy is gone. Con and Peg explain, “They took him away,” and that he went “with the grand ladies.”
The children recount a strange and mesmerizing encounter that would leave them bewildered and forever marked by its eerie beauty. As they played innocently by the roadside, a magnificent carriage suddenly appeared, rolling up the lonely country road with an almost dreamlike grace. It was drawn by two enormous, snow-white horses, so large and gleaming that they seemed almost unreal, their coats catching the light as if burnished.
The coach itself was attended by several footmen, but they were not ordinary men. These attendants were oddly small in stature—more like dolls or wizened children—with fixed, sinister expressions on their faces and clothed in gaudy, old-fashioned livery that shimmered in unnatural hues. Their presence was unsettling, and yet the entire scene was so fantastic that it overpowered the children’s fear.
The coach was described as “glowing with colours, gilded and emblazoned,” its surface gleaming with gold leaf, heraldic symbols, and ornate detailing that made it seem like something from a royal parade or a fairy-tale pageant. To the children, who had never seen anything finer than a turf car or a decrepit chaise from Killaloe, it was “a spectacle perfectly dazzling.”
From the interior of the carriage emerged a woman whose beauty defied description. She had golden hair and a voice as soft and musical as birdsong, and she called to Billy with tender affection, her eyes glowing with warmth and mischief. Without effort, she lifted the golden-haired boy into her arms and covered his face with kisses, cooing and stroking him as if he were her own beloved child.
But there was another presence in the coach—one far darker. Seated beside the radiant lady was a second woman, described chillingly as a “black lady,” not in complexion, but clothed in dark raiment, with a disturbingly long neck and large, goggling eyes that gave her an inhuman appearance. This figure did not speak directly but leaned toward her companion and whispered with a grin that radiated malevolent glee, her eyes fixed hungrily on the boy.
Despite the uncanny nature of the figures, little Billy seemed completely entranced. He smiled up at the beautiful woman with “wondering fondness,” as if hypnotized by her charm, and offered no resistance. Whatever spell the strange lady had woven around him, it was total. He appeared content—even joyful—as he was taken into the sumptuous coach, vanishing from his siblings' world with nothing more than a smile.
As the carriage departs, the lady distracts Con and Peg by dropping apples onto the road, each one leading them farther and farther from home. They follow, entranced and dazed, until the road leads to the foot of Lisnavoura, where a sudden whirlwind of dust envelops them. When the dust settles, the carriage, the horses, and little Billy are gone. Dazed and afraid, they hear a disembodied voice say, “Go home.”
The children run back to their mother, who weeps inconsolably. The door is barred, holy water sprinkled, and the family huddles in fear. The strange tale is told, and though the local priest and fairy doctors are consulted, no one can retrieve Billy.
In the months that follow, strange sightings persist. Con and Peg begin to glimpse their lost brother peeking in at the door, smiling silently and beckoning them with his finger. He always vanishes when they run to greet him. These ghostly visitations become less frequent over time, and eventually cease altogether. The children remember him as they would the dead, though there is no grave to mark his resting place.
The suggestion is clear: Billy now belongs to the fairy world, a changeling tale made real.
Nearly a year and a half later, Billy is seen once more, one final time. On a cold, early morning, his little sister—awake beside Nell—sees him enter the cabin, barefoot and pale, and warm himself by the embers of the hearth. He appears sickly and sad. When he notices he’s being watched, he quickly leaves again without a word. The sight is chilling, not comforting, and he is never seen again by his family. The haunting is complete, and any hope of return is gone.
In the end, the story closes on the eternal absence of Billy, who has no resting place in consecrated ground, only the lonely, shadowed hill of Lisnavoura to mark where he may lie. His memory endures in sighs and prayers from his brother, who glimpses the hill in moonlight and recalls the lost child. The tale serves as a mournful parable of loss, mystery, and the supernatural power attributed to the fairy folk, evoking themes of grief, powerlessness, and the blurred line between the natural and the Otherworld.
ANALYSIS
When commenting on The Child That Went With the Fairies, Kristin Sorensen insightfully highlights the strong postcolonial resonances that hover over the story like a gathering storm. By opening with a direct reference to King William III’s invasion of Ireland, Le Fanu deliberately primes readers to perceive the narrative not simply as a folk tale but as one deeply entangled with the historical wounds of imperialism. Sorensen’s analysis compellingly connects the fairy lady figure to the British Empire itself—perhaps an allusion to Queen Victoria—and interprets the black servant accompanying her as a symbol of overseas colonization and slavery. Meanwhile, Liam, whose name is an Irish diminutive of William but ironically also often anglicized to “Billy,” stands in for the vulnerable Irish youth. These young boys were frequently enticed or coerced away from their homes, metaphorically ‘taken’ by imperial power—whether into military service, subjugation, starvation, or colonial projects abroad. Sorensen writes:
“Replace the word fairy with foreigner, or even English, and additional nationalist implications emerge. Supernatural haunting becomes imperial dominance. The pomp and circumstance of the faerie procession become the trappings of an imperialist power. It presumes authority and superiority by virtue of its own long-standing tradition, implied in its 'antique splendour', and by virtue of birth, implied in its aristocratic grandeur. By likening the imperialist power to that of faeries it is rendered without authenticity or substance. Its only value is in appearance. It is unnatural, predatory and malicious. A harsh critique.
"The faerie lady's companion is also representative of ‘Otherness’, and suggestive of imperialism, and slavery. It is difficult to assess her role – we must not forget that the account of the encounter with the faeries is filtered through the perceptions of young children. Her exotic, dark countenance frightens the children.
"While they readily accept the overtures of the beautiful lady, they presume malice in the companion; they sense she is enjoying a private joke, perhaps at their expense. Yet is it amusement that makes her convulse and shake? Or, rather, is it fear, for the children, that makes her quiver, and fear, of the lady, that makes her stuff her mouth with a handkerchief and stifle the cry of warning that she would utter? Is it anger, as the children sense, that radiates from her eyes or is it horror at what is about to happen?
"In the lights of these alternatives, she becomes a figure of tragedy. Her face is described as a 'death's-head' which suggests a warning and a connection to the dead. One is reminded of the funereal adage, ‘As you are now, so once was I/As I am now, so you shall be’. Is she a ghost? Is her colourful, regal attire the echo of an erstwhile independent nation, now in servitude? Is she a warning of what happens to cultures that are absorbed or dominated by other cultures? Alas, her ‘Otherness’ distracts the children from the real threat.”
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There is an undeniable insidiousness about the fairy lady’s character. She seems to claim Liam almost as a toll or tax for having disturbed her procession—her seemingly sweet demeanor masking a deeper cruelty. The historical context sharpens this reading: although Queen Victoria herself had begun to wane in influence and appearance by the 1870s, during the Great Famine of 1847 she was widely regarded as a figure of beauty and imperial majesty, yet her reign and policies coincided with a horrific starvation that left countless Irish children emaciated and lost, much like the ghostly figure Liam becomes.
The fairy lady’s scarlet and gold servants, too, evoke the pomp of royal livery, reminding one of the British monarchy’s ostentatious display of power. The abduction of children evokes not only fairy folklore but chilling historical realities: the British government’s methods of forcibly recruiting young Irish boys through impressment, imprisonment, or transportation to penal colonies in Australia.
The abuses inflicted by Anglo-Irish landlords and officials such as John Toler are similarly reflected in the story’s atmosphere of exploitation. The black female figure who accompanies the fairy lady can be read as a complex symbol encompassing literal death, cultural erasure, and the legacy of slavery and colonization. Her unsettling presence and tragic mien serve as a dark counterpoint to the fairy lady’s imperial gloss and suggest the layered suffering beneath the surface of colonial power.
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Others interpret Liam primarily through the lens of the Great Famine’s devastating human cost, seeing him as a representation of the loss of a child to death and the psychological trauma endured by families who witnessed their loved ones wasted by hunger and disease. Liam’s family is tormented by his mysterious disappearance and the absence of a proper grave, underscoring the anguish of those denied a dignified mourning process. This detail strengthens the imperial allegory: many Irish youths forcibly enlisted, arrested for sedition, transported, or lost at sea would never receive a consecrated burial or a family’s final farewell—often laid to rest in pauper’s graves, mass burials, or forgotten prison yards.
More broadly, Le Fanu’s tale is a searing critique of how powerful elites, cloaked in grandeur and mystique, exploit and consume the lives of the vulnerable. The ‘faerie’ procession—resplendent but hollow—becomes a metaphor for the allure and deception of imperial authority, which seduces promising youths only to consume and erase them. The story delivers an angry indictment of the moral bankruptcy behind such abuses, revealing the human cost of empire’s glittering facade.
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