Fairy cup legends are folk and other tales usually relating to the theft of a "fairy cup", sometimes in the form of a drinking horn, usually from a "fairy mound" (i.e. from a tumulus). The legends are found in northwestern Europe.
Fairy cup legends are classified under Reidar Thoralf Christiansen's scheme as migratory type 6045.[1] Stories of this type originate from England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Isle of Man, and Scotland.
In many versions of the tale the vessel is in the shape of the horn;[2] usually the vessel is gold, or of some other precious material. Tales often begin with a hole in the ground or similar opening up mysteriously, revealing "little people" living underground.[3] In some versions the fairy person offers a drink from the cup, which the protagonist refuses or discards - with the vessel's discarded liquid often acting corrosively.[4] Usually the vessel is stolen by the human protagonist of the tale, them then being consumed by fear and often chased by angry supernatural beings[5] - the vessel is sometimes recorded as ending up in the possession of a member of the nobility[6] or the church.[7]
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Numerous types of vessel (usually pottery) are found associated with British tumulus burials, including items that were either cremation containers, or assumed to be containers for food offerings for the afterlife, or simply treasures or personal effects. Of these some have been identified as 'drinking cups', usual associated with non-cremated interments. Roughly similar cups have been found in Northern Germany, Denmark, and Holland.
The form of these cups differs from those found in Roman or Anglo-Saxon burials in Britain. The pottery is hand made, not made on a wheel, and is usually well decorated. The usual form in Britain is a well decorated 'beaker' shape, though cups with handles are also known from the Yorkshire Wolds, and elsewhere. considered that the generally detailed decoration made them impracticable for general daily use, and that they were made specifically for burial with the dead.
Non pottery cups include one made of shale, found near Honiton, an amber cup from near Hove (the Hove amber cup), and the Rillaton gold cup.
also gives the story of The Rillaton Gold Cup as being of this type, though the tale is different being of an inexhaustible cup offered by a druid. This tale is associated with Rillaton Barrow. The Trowie "Pig", from Scotland, also tells of an inexhaustible jug.
There is a Scottish folktale from the 17th century of a man who sees a whirlwind in a field and hears voices saying "Horse and Hattock" - he repeats the phrase and is swept up by the wind and wakes up the next day in the King of France's cellar with a silver cup in his hand.
A fairy origin legend has also been given to the glass known as the Luck of Edenhall, a 14th-century drinking glass originating in the Middle East. In the legend, which may have been invented in the 18th century, the cup was obtained when fairies were interrupted drinking at a well at Eden Hall (Edenhall), and left the glass behind.