Diana, Queen of the Faeries

So… sometimes I really want to write something. Or there’s something that I really think you should know. And… sometimes… I don’t know how to say it. So there’s this cool thing called “copying from another source then citing the source so you don’t get sued”! That’s what I’m going to do… All about the Roman goddess of the Moon, AND Queen of the Faeries… Diana!
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The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Anna Frankin (copyright 2002) says this on the topic of Diana:
“DIANA is the Queen of the Fairies in Italian folklore. She is directly related to the Roman maiden goddess of the MOON and hund, armed with a crescent moon bow and ARROWS, and the Graeco-Thracian ARTEMIS, a personification of virgin Nature. Roaming through the moonlit wilds, followed by her dancing nymph disciples, some say it is possible that the goddess Diana is the origin of the whole idea of a fairy queen and her attendants.
“Late Roman sources and the inquisitors of the Middle Ages described her as the leader of the WITCHES. Leland argued that the ordinary people – especially the outcasts and the oppressed – clung on to the worship of Diana well into the Christian era, and that this developed into the doctrines of the Italian witches. Diana was described as the protectress of the ‘minions of the moon’: thieves, harlots, witches and the ungodly.
“One story that Leland recorded describes how the fairies, called the children of Diana, are born: Diana made all things, the stars in the firmament, and the men and women, as well as GIANTS and DWARFS. One night a poor young man sat in a lonely place and was amazed to see thousands of shining white fairies, dancing in the moonlight. He exclaimed that he would love to be like them, free from care and the need for food. What on earth were they? They replied that they were moonbeams:
’We are children of the Moon,
We are born of shining light;
When the Moon shoots forth a ray,
Then it takes a fairy’s form.’
“The fairies told him that he was already one of them, since he was born when the moon, their mother Diana, was full. As such, he was favored – if he should turn over the silver in his pocket once a month it would be doubled.”
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Like I said before, this can all be found on pages 65→66 of the paperback version of The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Anna Franklin (copyright 2002).
Blessed be!