One of the most prevailing traditions surrounding fairies is the notion that fairies are ancient beings, unsuited to the present. This trope – which can be linked to Max Weber’s idea of modernity as “disenchanted” – endures in contemporary fantasy, where fairies are often portrayed as dwindling in the face of modernity, or else posited as a contrast to the turbulent changes and destructive tendencies of the modern world. In this paper, however, I will discuss two works where fairy beings cope eminently well in the late-modern settings in which they are placed: Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl-series, and Charles de Lint’s short story “Pixel Pixies”. In these works, Colfer and de Lint knowingly manipulate the trope of ancient fairies, achieving comical effect through the perceived incongruity of their fairies’ adaptability and technological prowess.

            Science and magic are generally conceived as diametrically opposed. Weber considered the “rationalization” of the modern world as the cause behind its “disenchantment”. However, as Arthur C. Clarke famously noted, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In Artemis Fowl and “Pixel Pixies,” this notion is concretized as magic and technology are shown as literally inseparable. In Artemis Fowl, the hi-tech gadgets of the fairy civilization run on lithium batteries and magical spells in conjunction; and in “Pixel Pixies,” a computer crash caused by mischievous pixies lays bare the fact that, for many of us, the technologies we use every day are already “sufficiently advanced” to be “indistinguishable from magic.”

            With their humorous portrayals of late-modern fairies, Artemis Fowl and “Pixel Pixies” do not, perhaps, fully manage to re-enchant a present felt to be all too mundane. However, I argue, they do make visible the actual mysteries of this high-technological world, showing “rationality” to be quite as arcane as “magic”.