History Literature / TheGypsiesInTheWood

* AdultFear: Your children stray into the woods one day and go missing for a week. Then a strange, obviously mentally-damaged, middle-aged man stumbles into town insisting he's one of those kids. When the other one finally shows up, she's the right age but somehow something is even more "off" about her.

* ThisIsMyNameOnForeign: The artist behind Uncle Satt's Faerie stories is credited publicly as "B. Loved", which was probably the idea of the same person who originated the PhantasySpelling. When Charles lets her in on Davey's life story, she spots that "beloved" is the English translation of "David".

* SkunkStripe: At the end of the story, Maeve has one as a memento of an encounter with the Fair Folk.

* LockedIntoStrangeness: Played with. After Kate realises that Charles has changed the way he trims his facial hair since she last saw him, and correctly guesses that he did it to hide the fact that his beard is starting to collect white hairs, she jokingly comments that it's a surprise the strange things he's seen haven't already turned his hair completely white. At the end of the story, Maeve has a SkunkStripe as a memento of her strange experience.

!!This work contains examples of:

* EvilForeigner: Several times, Beauregard ruminates on xenophobic urban legends about shifty, baby-snatching foreigners -- gypsies, red Indians, even sinister Welshmen. He considers the possibility that this paranoia might have evolved from tales of [[TheFairFolk something]] much more "foreign".

* EvilForeigner: Several times, Beauregard ruminates on xenophobic urban legends about shifty, baby-snatching foreigners- gypsies, red Indians, even sinister Welshmen. He considers the possibility that this paranoia might have evolved from tales of [[TheFairFolk something]] much more "foreign".

* ShoutOut:
** Charles mentions owning a copy of ''De Vermis Mysteriis'', a grimoire from the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.
** Charles's library also includes an edition of ''The Collected Poems of Jeffrey Aspern'', the central character of Creator/HenryJames's ''The Aspern Papers''.
** The goblins lure Dickie into a trap with a trail of Clues that include "a dish of butter with a sprig of parsley sunk into it, a dead canary bleached white, a worm unknown to science" (references to NoodleIncident untold cases from the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories) and "a cigarette end with three distinctive bands" (the signature of the custom-made cigarettes smoked in real life by Creator/IanFleming and in fiction by Literature/JamesBond).
** The author Creator/GeorgeMacDonald and the artist Creator/ArthurRackham are mentioned as other people whose fictional creations have been influenced by the Fair Folk.
** Some of Dickie's family call him "Hawkshaw", after the detective in the 1863 play ''The Ticket-of-Leave Man'' whose name became a byword for "detective" the way "Sherlock" did for later generations. The narration implies that Hawkshaw actually existed in-universe.
** Inspector Mist is said to be part of the Bureau of Queer Complaints. This is a reference to a book written by Creator/JohnDicksonCarr, which was adapted in the fifties into a TV series called ''Colonel March of Scotland Yard''.
** The Diogenes Club's "Green Ribbon Files", cases deemed unsolvable and placed where people will hopefully forget about them, are a reference to ''Series/TheXFiles''.

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: A minor character is a stuck-up little girl named Becky d'Arbanvilliers, who has trouble with her Rs. The Maeve changeling comments mockingly that it must be hard to be named Rebecca "and yet pwevented by nature fwom pwonouncing it pwoperly".

** Inspector Mist is said to be part of the Bureau of Queer Complaints. This is a reference to a book written by John Dickson Carr, which was adapted in the fifties into a TV series called ''Colonel March of Scotland Yard''.

* ThatOneCase: Beauregard has ruminated on the Harvill case for eight years, knowing that something was "wrong" about Maeve but unable to prove it. Adding to his suspicions is that the Harvill's mother died under mysterious circumstances not long after he reunited her with "Maeve".

* AdultFear: Your children stray into the woods one day and are missing for days. Then a strange, obviously mentally-damaged, middle-aged man stumbles into town insisting he's one of those kids. When the other one finally shows up, she's the right age but somehow something is even more "off" about her.

* ChangelingTale: Two children disappear in the wood and return a few days later, strangely altered. The question of whether they're still themselves or have been replaced by changelings is important to the plot. [[spoiler:Davey, the most obviously different, is still himself. Maeve, superficially the same, is a changeling -- which becomes obvious over the years as she never gets any older. Davey was supposed to be replaced as well, but escaped before it could happen. At the climax of the story, the changeling tries to abduct Davey's nephew Dickie so he can be replaced and the original plan resumed; Charles and Kate intervene in time and get not only Dickie but the real Maeve back.]]

* CreepyChild: Maeve, after she returns from the disappearance. [[spoiler:Or rather, the changeling that is returned in her place]].

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: A minor character is a stuck-up little girl named Becky d'Arbanvilliers, who has trouble with her Rs. The fairy changeling comments mockingly that it must be hard to be named Rebecca "and yet pwevented by nature fwom pwonouncing it pwoperly".

* TheyWouldCutYouUp: Charles warns the fairy changeling that this will be her fate if the Undertaking get their hands on her.

* TwistedAnkle: Invoked by the fairy changeling, who fakes a twisted ankle as an excuse to stop behind while Dickie goes on alone into a trap.
* YearInsideHourOutside: Davey reappears a few days after he and Maeve disappeared looking twenty-five years older, complete with signs of malnutrition and long-term rough living and old scars that he didn't have before. In a weird twist, the doctor who examines him notes a lost tooth growing back, which would be normal in a boy the age Davey was but is unheard-of in a man the age he is now. He doesn't have any clear memories of the time he was away, so can't elaborate on what happened beyond that it's "been so long". [[spoiler:Maeve comes back looking no older, but that's because it isn't really Maeve. When they get the real Maeve back at the end of the story, she's aged a similar amount to Davey]].

** Billy Quinn, the publicist running public relations for the Faerie Aerie, originated in Newman's non-series story "A Drug on the Market", in which he was involved in marketing a recreational drug derived from [[Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde Dr Jekyll]]'s formula.