Book excerpt: There is a distinct tendency today to assume that faery kind are friendly and helpful towards us humans. The evidence of over one thousand years experience, preserved in British folk tradition, tells a very different story. British faeries are (like humans) selfish, greedy, violent and cruel. What makes things worse, of course, is the fact that they have magical powers too. This book deliberately focuses upon only the darker side of faery: how their magic can be used to trick and steal from us; how they will attack and abduct us; how we can offend them and how they can make us ill.