The word “fae” comes from elvish, as far as anyone has been able to determine, and has entered unchanged into all the Europan tongues. This is a little unfortunate because several different kinds of peoples are grouped together as if they were all related. Among the elves, the word means, more or less, “not us” but includes not humans or dwarves or gnomes or ogres. The word has also occasionally been translated as “nuisance.” Confusing the matter further is the fact that humans and dwarves have long used the word to include elves as well. This exasperates elves and sprites alike.
Creating a taxonomy for the fae is a task that has occupied entire careers. For this essay, we shall consider only the more common: sprites, pixies, dryads, and imps.