The 1908 version presents Fairyland in the form of an island resembling England, bordered by the ‘Sea of Dreams’ and ‘Enchanted Sea,’ suspended beneath ‘Rainbow Land,’ gateway to ‘Moonland.’ The surface is scattered with places from nursery lore and folklore alike: Peter Pan’s House, La Belle Dormante’s Palace, the Bridge of Roc’s Eggs, and warnings such as ‘Here be Bogles’ or ‘Warlocks live here.’ Its iconography ranges from friendly elves and pixies to witches, ogres, and monstrous worms. The current example – one of only two known to exist – is annotated in the upper margin ‘to be obtained from B. Sleigh 2 Ludgate Hill, Birmingham 5/2,’ was likely a proof or promotional copy.

Ex Carta

Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Map of Faerie-Land presents a panoramic chart uniting the mythic realms of folklore and literature.

Bernard Sleigh (1872–1954) grew up in Birmingham, an industrial heartland of England, and was ‘indelibly inspired after seeing Peter Pan performed on stage’. He was also profoundly influenced by William Morris’s aesthetic vision and left school at the age of fourteen to take an apprenticeship as a wood engraver. This led to work on projects including Arthur Gaskin’s (1862–1928) edition of 

Stories & Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

 (1893), as well as work for popular periodicals of the age such as 

, Sleigh’s iconic Fairyland panorama might seem an unlikely creation in 1917, its shimmering Arts and Crafts fantasy emerging at the height of the Great War. Yet such engagement with the supernatural proliferated during this period of existential crisis. In the same year, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) publicly endorsed the authenticity of the ‘Cottingley fairies’ photographs, while Arthur Machen’s (1863–1947) story ‘The Bowmen’ contributed to the emergence of the ‘Angels of Mons’ legend, which imagined supernatural assistance being granted to British troops. Like Conan Doyle – whose claims on the subject he supported – Sleigh’s interest in fairy lore was not solely artistic. In the 1890s he was treated for an inner-ear abscess by trepanning – a hole being drilled in his skull. This resulted in Sleigh experiencing ‘sudden, overpowering, colour visions’ and what seemed to be encounters with other realms of existence, which he explained in psychic terms. Sleigh’s belief in other worlds was literal, despite being visually expressed by him using the traditional cultural framework of the fairy tale.

Published by Sidgwick & Jackson, An Anciente Map of Faerie-Land was issued with a sixteen-page explanatory booklet, A Guide to the Map of Fairyland, which offered readers a key to the multitude of literary, folkloric, and mythical references depicted. The list includes several personages, items, and locations present elsewhere in this collection: Asgard, the Holy Grail, Peter Pan, and Never Never Land.

The 1908 version presents Fairyland in the form of an island resembling England, bordered by the ‘Sea of Dreams’ and ‘Enchanted Sea,’ suspended beneath ‘Rainbow Land,’ gateway to ‘Moonland.’ The surface is scattered with places from nursery lore and folklore alike: Peter Pan’s House, La Belle Dormante’s Palace, the Bridge of Roc’s Eggs, and warnings such as ‘Here be Bogles’ or ‘Warlocks live here.’ Its iconography ranges from friendly elves and pixies to witches, ogres, and monstrous worms. The current example – one of only two known to exist – is annotated in the upper margin ‘to be obtained from B. Sleigh 2 Ludgate Hill, Birmingham 5/2’. It is likely a proof or promotional copy.

A ‘mobile mural’ as much as a map, Sleigh’s Fairyland conjures a megalopolis of wonder: castles, enchanted woods, and caverns all flow seamlessly into one another in a bird’s-eye vista. The collaboration of ‘W. H. D.’ on the lettering and captions further grounds the work in the decorative ethos of the Birmingham Arts and Crafts movement. It has been suggested that Sleigh’s collation of a range of folkloric and literary sources in the map is an early example of ‘maps born from fandom culture, retrospective plottings of journeys undertaken first in the imagination.