In an article entitled “Where Have All the Fairies Gone?” (1997) Gwyneth Evans delineates two trends in modern depictions of fairies: the “neo-Victorian” fairy and the “ecological” fairy. The ecological fairy, which is the type discussed here, denotes a class of “supernatural beings who are associated with the natural environment of a particular place, and concerned with its preservation," and Evans’ examples include Tolkien’s ents as well as the tiny flower fairies of the children’s movie Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest. Apparently, she concludes, the fairies have “[g]one to Greenpeace, every one."

            In my paper, I will use Evans’ concept of the ecological fairy as a departure point for an ecocritical interrogation of Emma Bull’s urban fantasy classic War for the Oaks. “The link between the fairies and one beloved place,” Evans writes, “is an essential element in the tales of what I have termed ecological fairies." The fairies in War for the Oaks are certainly closely tied to “one beloved place”, the preservation of which is their ultimate goal—but the place which they inhabit and defend is not a pristine forest, a rugged hill or a blooming meadow, but the modern city of Minneapolis. Nevertheless, like Evans’ ecological fairies, Bull’s fairies, too, are closely associated with “natural” features. Cities, Stefan Ekman (2013) argues, are “among the most interesting, and certainly the most distinct, interfaces between nature and culture”; and Leo Mellor (2014) points out that “wilderness can be found in the overlooked cracks in city-life." In War for the Oaks, Bull uses her fairies to call attention to the presence of the natural within the urban, designating as their dominion “every natural thing in this place." Embracing a broad definition of nature—the natural/magical sites of the novel include a naturally occurring waterfall as well as a park greenhouse, and even a modernist fountain—War for the Oaks moreover denies any rigid division between culture and nature. Instead, it presents a portrait of Minneapolis, infused with nature and magic, in which the modern city almost becomes a living organism in itself.