Did you know that the Victorian era was particularly noted for fairy paintings? The Victorian painter Richard Dadd created paintings of fairy-folk with a sinister and malign tone. Other Victorian artists who depicted fairies include John Atkinson Grimshaw, Joseph Noel Paton, John Anster Fitzgerald and Daniel Maclise. Interest in fairy-themed art enjoyed a brief renaissance following the publication of the Cottingley Fairies photographs in 1917, and a number of artists turned to painting fairy themes.
The Brownie is a type of fairy, elf or tomte, and diminutive fairies of one kind or another have been recorded for centuries. The Brownie resides over the Lowlands of Scotland and up into the Highlands and Islands all over the north and east of England and into the Midlands. With a natural linguistic variation, he becomes the BWCA of Wales, the Highland Bodach and the Manx Fenodoree. In the West Country, Pixies or Pisgies occassionally perform the offices of a brownie and show some of the same characteristics, though they are essentially different.
Border brownies are small men, about three feet in height, very raggedly dressed in brown clothes, with brown faces and shaggy heads. They come out at night to do the work that has been left undone by the farm owners and servants. They make themselves responsible for the farm or house in which they live: reap, mow, herd the sheep, prevent the hens from laying away, run errands, and give good counsel at need. A brownie can become personally attached to one member of the family. Female Brownies are more rarely encountered than the males and many are strictly maternal. Brownie mothers are sometimes thought to live up chimneys and to have very long arms. A female Brownie called Hairy Meg (or Maggy) Molach is extremely industrious however, and is as legendary for her hard work as she is for her harsh temper.
Brownies can not accept “payment” or bribery of any sort for the work they have done. If payment of any kind is made, the brownie has to leave forever, never to return. The household can make offerings or sacrifices to the brownies, a show of gratitude if you will, by way of returning kindness, but only if it is not considered payment. If you fail to do this, the brownie may either stop helping, or possibly turn to mischief against you. Milk is often sprinkled in the corners of houses for the brownie’s use, or offerings of food are left out. Many homes used to have a “brownie stane” or stone, which was basically a stone with a hole bored into it, where they would pour offerings of wort, the liquid that ferments into beer. Also, in many Scottish homes a seat would be left open by the fireplace for the brownie.
Brownies are also associated with water. It’s said that while they don’t communicate with people, they are known to enjoy each others company quite a lot, and will often have celebrations and revelries near brooks, where their voices would mix and be hidden by the babble of the water. It's thought that perhaps the brownies were originally related to water sprites.
