Not Just the Tudors: When Elves & Fairies Lived Among Us

Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
Guest: Rachel Morris, historian & author of The Years of the Wizard
Date: February 26, 2026

Episode Overview

In this captivating episode, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb delves into the shadowy borderlands of belief, magic, and early science in 17th-century Britain. The conversation centers on the enigmatic Scottish minister Robert Kirk and his influential manuscript, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies, which treats fairies as real entities with their own society, customs, and deep connections to both metaphysical philosophy and Christian doctrine. Historian Rachel Morris, author of The Years of the Wizard, joins to explore how the boundaries between religion, magic, and the supernatural were deeply porous in a time of great intellectual change and why the allure of magic and wonder hasn’t disappeared from our cultural psyche.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Robert Kirk and His World

• The episode opens with a vivid depiction of Kirk: a modest, deeply religious Scottish minister who ventured into the "fairy commonwealth," documenting local beliefs as serious ethnography, rather than mere folklore (04:50–06:10).
• Kirk’s curiosity set him apart from most scholars—he took his parishioners’ accounts of fairies, second sight, and spirit doubles seriously, treating them as worthy subjects of rigorous inquiry.

“He examined them as if they were real people. And he was interested in what they wore, how they lived, what they looked like, how long they lived. And he went at it like an anthropologist trying to identify a hidden, secret race.”
— Rachel Morris (08:03)

Christianity, Magic & Fairies

• Kirk saw no conflict between his Christianity and his belief in fairies. Instead, he believed that evidence of hidden spiritual entities like fairies made belief in God more accessible (08:25–10:45).
• Rachel explains how belief was complex: even educated men sought to demonstrate the reality of a spirit world as proof of God’s existence.

"If you can prove or convince people of the existence of a secret race of spirits...then it's easier for people to believe in the greatest spirit of them all, which is God." — Rachel Morris (08:52)

Second Sight & Scottish Folklore

• Kirk collected stories of “second sight,” a claimed ability to perceive hidden beings and see into the other world (11:19–12:59).
• Notably, “co-walkers” were described—spirit doubles that accompany each person until their death.

“You get these extraordinary stories of the concept of the co-walker, the invisible spirit which walks beside every human being...until the day the human being dies.”
— Rachel Morris (11:49)

The Porous Borders of Belief

• The episode draws compelling analogies with works like The Cheese and the Worms—showing how people fused folk beliefs and Christian orthodoxy (13:54–15:27).
• Kirk’s work reflected serious attempts to systematize and reconcile supernatural belief with theological and philosophical rigor.

Scotland’s Magical Landscape

• Rachel describes Scotland as a landscape that feels “spooky, otherworldly, lonely, beautiful”—evocative of the supernatural (15:27–16:51).
• Rapid social and political change in the 17th century (e.g., wars, the plague) may have intensified magical thinking.

“Times of upset do make people tend towards magical thinking, I'm sure of it. It's to do with a panic about the world changing very fast.”
— Rachel Morris (17:09)

Elite and Popular Supernatural Beliefs

• Surprisingly, belief in fairies, spirits, and witches persisted among elites—members of the Royal Society included—longer than expected (17:51–18:30).
• The so-called “great disenchantment” (the decline of magical worldviews with the rise of science) is questioned; change was gradual and uneven.

“If anything, to my mind, I was slightly surprised by how close the elite views were still to the views of the ordinary people.”
— Rachel Morris (17:55)

The Fate and Influence of Kirk’s Manuscript

• Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth vanished after his mysterious death before being rediscovered in the 19th century by Walter Scott—its history full of intrigue and “vanishing” copies (25:03–27:24).
• 19th-century folklorists viewed Kirk’s work as a relic of a lost oral culture, but their interpretations differ from Kirk’s contemporary mindset, which perceived fairies as part of present reality (27:51–29:17).

Magic, Gender, and the Intellectual Landscape

• Discussion of John Dee highlights tensions between different kinds of magic: ceremonial (elite, male, bookish) versus folklore (often associated with women) (29:17–31:19).
• Dee’s reluctance to engage with fairies is framed as snobbery—associating them with lower-class or female belief systems.

The Transformation of Fairy Belief

• 19th-century folklorists “cuddlified” fairies, but in earlier periods, fairies were seen as potentially malevolent (31:19–32:31).
• Kirk’s own mysterious end—rumored to be fairy abduction for revealing their secrets—embodies the dangers attributed to meddling with the supernatural.

Reflections on Wonder and Rationality

• Rachel urges not to dismiss historical beliefs as “nonsense”: the past’s sense of wonder and amazement is something we risk losing (34:20–35:21).
• “We all owe science a great deal. But what they had back then...was a sense of wonder and amazement. And that is a lovely thing to wake up in the morning and wonder and be amazed by the world.”
  — Rachel Morris (35:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Belief and Doubt:
  “It is very easy, because we live in a very sciencey kind of world, to dismiss all this as nonsense. I'm not saying I believe it, but I do think that we should never dismiss the past as nonsense.”
  — Rachel Morris (34:41)

• On the Persistence of Magic:
  “It is quite easy for us to slip back into magical thinking in moments of tension.”
  — Rachel Morris (18:36)

• On the Gendered Nature of Magic:
  "There's a tendency for science to be assumed to belong to the world of men...and what they call magic and so on, to belong to the world of women.”
  — Rachel Morris (23:24)

• On Robert Kirk’s Legacy:
  “He is quite an introduction, quite a way into a mindset which vanished, I think, in the 18th and 19th centuries. But he is worth reading for that reason alone.”
  — Rachel Morris (24:20)

Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Focus | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:40 | Suzannah Lipscomb's introduction and scene-setting | | 06:03 | Rachel Morris introduces Robert Kirk and his unusual scholarship | | 08:25 | Kirk's Christian beliefs vs. fairy scholarship | | 11:19 | Second sight and the co-walker | | 13:54 | Fairies and folk cosmologies vs. Christian doctrine | | 15:27 | Scotland’s landscape and belief | | 17:09 | Social upheaval and magical thinking | | 17:51 | Elite vs. popular supernatural beliefs & the “great disenchantment”| | 25:03 | The mysterious journey of Kirk’s manuscript | | 27:51 | 19th-century folklorists’ interpretations | | 29:17 | Connections between John Dee, magic, and gender | | 31:19 | Transformation from malevolent to “cuddly” fairies | | 32:31 | The mystery of Kirk's "abduction" | | 34:20 | Reflections on misconceptions and the wonder of the period |

Bonus Feature: John Dee Segment (37:48–46:42)

• Mini-profile on Dr. John Dee, the renowned advisor to Elizabeth I, mathematician, astrologer, and ceremonial magician, with Dr. Benjamin Woolley.
• Dee’s engagement with angelic communication, the invention of the “hieroglyphic Monad,” his scryer Edward Kelly, and their European adventures.
• Highlights the overlap between magical and scientific exploration at the highest intellectual and political levels.

Final Thoughts

This episode is a deep exploration of how magic, spirituality, and science overlapped in early modern Britain. Through the lens of Robert Kirk and his serious, almost scientific inquiry into fairies, listeners gain insight into a lost worldview—one that prized wonder and left room for unseen worlds alongside religious and scientific advances. Rachel Morris and Suzannah Lipscomb expertly reconstruct an environment where enchantment was not antithetical to belief, but a powerful part of how people understood reality itself.

For listeners interested in belief, the supernatural, and the history of science, this episode is rich in context and full of surprising, thought-provoking perspectives.