Overview
The People, informally known as fairies, are the relatively peaceful citizens of the Lower Elements. All the members of every family, excluding centaurs and trolls, can manipulate and control magic. If a fairy breaks any of the rules in The Book they will lose their magic. This is a permanent loss. The People also have much longer life spans then humans. As the oldest living dwarf is two thousand years old, and Holly Short, the youngest elf in the series, is around eighty years old. It is thought that all fairies had wings but some lost them to evolution, they theorize that they have ancestry with prehistoric winged reptiles, such as pterosaurs, due to the stubs of bone on their backs that, in a sprite's case, boasts wings. In "Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex (novel)" it is stated that very few fairies are above 4 feet tall.
Official Families
Technically "fairies"
Non-fairy
- Mud People (humans)
- Berserkers (vengeful Spirits)
- Danu (Deity)
Other
Note that though the species Troll, Gremlins, and Krakens are fairies (or at least distantly related to fairies), they aren't technically one of the eight families, possibly due because they are not sentient creatures and not humanoid, and are more like pets and animals known only to fairies and they don't have any known magic. Unicorns, which are related to Centaurs, are also fairies but are extinct. This makes a total of 12 species of fairies.
Humans used to have magic themselves until they lost it when they defected from the People. The only human to ever get magic and become a fairy in recent times is Artemis Fowl.
The latest book introduces a new species, berserkers (vengeful Spirits), which makes a total of 14.
| Fairies | |
| The Eight Fairy Families: Elf • Pixie • Gnome • Goblin • Dwarf • Sprite • Demon • Centaur |