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  3. A cute little female about six inches high, with wings and a pretty dress is the usual description people give if you ask them w

A cute little female about six inches high, with wings and a pretty dress is the usual description people give if you ask them w

admin2013-04-22  61
问题      A cute little female about six inches high, with wings and a pretty dress is the usual description people give if you ask them what a fairy looks like. This image of the fairy as a tiny, lovable, angel-like creature dressed in white, goes back to about the seventeenth century. But before that time, fairies were very different. They were cruel and dangerous creatures which lived in the remote hills and forests of Britain.
     Farmers and hunters considered them to be as real and dangerous as the wolves and bears that lived in the wilder parts of the countryside. They were feared so much that people rarely spoke out loud of "fairies", preferring to use more respectful names such as "the little people" or "the hidden people".
     There were many different names for the hidden people: fairies, elves, pixies, leprechauns, brownies, and goblins, to name but a few. There were also a number of explanations of their origin. Some said they were spirits of wood and water. In Cornwall they were thought to be the restless ghosts of unbaptised babies. Still others believed them to be a separate creation, as real as humans and animals.
     They had the appearance of dark-skinned and dark-haired humans, although of course they were much smaller than ordinary people. Most accounts describe them as being the size of children, about four feet or so. Their clothing seems almost always to have been green or brown, although they occasionally went naked. Many early stories indicate that they were nocturnal. They had their homes in lonely and out of the way places.
     Generally the fairies hated humans and could be very cruel to them. A good example of this cruelty is the legend of the "changeling". The fairies would steal human babies, especially those with fair hair and blue eyes, and replace them with one of their own or just a piece of wood.
     Babies were not the only thing that the fairies would steal. Tools, plates, saucepans, practically anything small that they could easily carry. Food was also taken, as well as clothing. Fruit trees were raided in the night and cows milked dry.
     The first thing we notice about these people is that their needs were not at all supernatural. They wanted food and were ready to steal in order to get it. Surely these were not ghosts or natural spirits.
    One explanation is that stories of fairies are folk memories of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain. Folk memories are oral traditions handed down over the years by word of mouth, These traditions can be very ancient.
    The invasion of the Celts was an awful event for this island. It would not be surprising if some form of memory of such an important event should survive to this day. These legends survive most strongly in the Celtic parts of the British Isles: Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall.
    But could stories based on these events really be handed down by word of mouth over 2,000 years?
     We will never know the truth about the fairies.  However, this theory does seem more probably than most.
Before the 17th century, "the little people" or "the hidden people" were ______.
选项 A、highly respected
B、called universally as fairies
C、believed to be active at night
D、said to move about naked all the time
答案C
解析 根据第二、三、四段可知此题应选C，nocturnal的意思是“夜间活动的”。
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