It’s Faerie Friday! Last week we met the faerie king, this week make way for the Queen!

For many of us today, Titania has become the archetype of the fairy queen, if not of female fairies as a class. Her origins seem to be Elizabethan. In 1590 Edmond Spenser made his Faerie Queen a descendant of Titania, but the character was most explicitly and effectively introduced into fairy-lore by William Shakespeare in Midsummer night’s dream. She was not a traditional character of British folklore (as her name might, in any case, suggest) and the playwright was certainly very well aware of the British equivalent: Queen Mab features prominently in a famous speech by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, which was first performed in 1597.
Titania was the Summer Queen of the Feywild, leader of the Summer Fae, and possibly the mightiest of all archfey. She was also known as the Faerie Queen and the Queen of Light and led the Seelie Court