Peri (parī)
The peri, or parī, is a being of Persian tradition. In early beliefs it was probably an evil spirit; by the Islamic period it had become a beautiful figure often translated as fairy.
.jpg)
Wikipedia says the image of the parī changed over time. In early Persian belief parīs were most likely a kind of evil spirit, and a positive view of them came later. By the Islamic period they were morally complex beings known above all for their beauty, and late in the tenth century they were drawn into the Arab tales of houris. Their usual foils are the ugly dīvs.
Siamak Adhami's 2000 Encyclopaedia Iranica entry, titled Pairikā, describes the same end point: by this stage the parī had shed nearly all its bad traits and become a lovely being, rendered as fairy or nymph, often paired with the less kindly jinn in the phrase jenn o parī. Adhami notes that Persian sometimes calls parīs by a phrase meaning those better than us. Nicholson and Christensen likened this to what European fairy lore calls the good people, and to the puṇya-janas, or good people, of Hinduism.
In Central Asia, A. N. Nizamov writes (2023), the folbin and parikhon are shamans and fortune-tellers who call up pari during their sessions; the second name joins pari with a verb meaning to summon. Nizamov cites A. Troitskaya's view that belief in peris is probably a remnant of ancient Iranian belief, in which evil lesser fairies appeared as beautiful women who lured and seduced people.
Fairy is also the word in the 1905 English Shahnameh by Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner. In the section on Gaiumart, a host of fairies marches alongside lions, pards, wolves and tigers.
"Over time, the depiction of parīs was subject to change and reconsideration. In early Persian beliefs, the parīs were probably a class of evil spirits and only later received a positive reception. In the Islamic period, the parī already developed into morally complex beings with a generally positive connotation of immense beauty,[2][3] and late in the tenth century, were integrated into the Arab houri-tale tradition. They are often contrasted by their nemeses, the ugly dīvs."
- PAIRIKĀ, Siamak Adhami, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2000)
- Отражение воззрений суфизма в обрядовой музыке народов Центральной Азии, A. N. Nizamov, Muzykalnoe iskusstvo Evrazii (2023), via CyberLeninka
- The Shahnama of Firdausi, vol. I: Gaiumart (Kaiumars), Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner, trans. (1905)