Without going too deeply into the question of terminology, the Catalan encantats are roughly equivalent to what English calls “fairies”, a word that has become an umbrella term for a multitude of more or less comparable beings found throughout European folklore, despite the considerable differences and rich nuances that distinguish them. In Catalonia, the word fada —“fairy”— came into widespread use mainly during the nineteenth century, at first in literary circles, before cinema and mass culture gradually carried it into popular usage.

Enigmatic beings and embodiments of mystery, they have sometimes been interpreted by anthropologists such as the Hungarian Éva Pócs as figures connected with the dead, fate and the ancestors. The fairy world encompasses an extraordinary variety of shifting and ambivalent characters: water women and maidens with golden combs; demon children —the changelings of English-language tradition—; supernatural beings who seek the aid of a midwife; or others who abduct a young man and reward him with deceptive gold that turns to bran at dawn. Here you will find legends of encantats —or fairies— from Catalonia and throughout the Indo-European cultural world, where such beings hold a particularly prominent place.