Fairies have always been a part of the Zelda series, existing in many different forms and going through design changes several times throughout the ages. The smaller fairies and Great Fairies have had a slew of different incarnations, but there is one notably unique version of the fairies that has only appeared a handful of times, and that’s the Stray Fairies.
Originally from Majora’s Mask, these fairies acted as a dungeon collectible that restore a Great Fairy when all of a certain type are collected. They also made a brief appearance in the Oracle games, though they are simply mischevious forest fairies and their identity as a broken apart Great Fairy is not mentioned. They make one last appearance in the original Four Swords, acting as a catch-all-NPCs for the players, which is the version I’ll be focusing on today.
The Stray Fairies from Four Swords are similar to the ones from the Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages games as they also do not seem to be fractured parts of a Great Fairy, though Great Fairies are featured prominently in Four Swords. The Stray Fairies are mostly encountered in the tutorial level, the Chambers of Insight, and play the role of a guide, explaining the many game mechanics to the players. There are many of them scattered around the Chambers, all with a different lesson to teach the different Links, but outside of the tutorial stage, they are significantly less helpful and encountered instead as an entity that the Links can slash to generate Rupees.
These Stray Fairies notably have color variance similar to the ones that appear in other games, mimicking the colors of the Links alongside the addition of a larger golden Stray Fairy which drops an especially large amount of Rupees. Considering that every character in Four Swords that isn’t Link, Zelda, or Vaati is some kind of fairy, it would make sense that these strays are employed by their corresponding Great Fairy. Interestingly, the strays don’t directly reference their relationship to the Great Fairies very clearly, so we are left with speculation as to their relationship in the Hyrule of Four Swords.
Unfortunately, though the Great Fairies and smaller fairy spirits continue to appear in Zelda titles to date, this appearance of the Stray Fairies in Four Swords is the last appearance they have as of now. It seems they existed as an appropriate stand in for a fairy character that was large enough to talk but not so large it was a Great Fairy. I personally find these little guys very cute and, especially since Majora’s Mask is my favorite Zelda game, I’m a bit dissapointed they stopped appearing. I’m not sure why, but it seems pretty deliberate, as they made relatively frequent appearances from the years 2000 to 2003 until the abrupt and permanent stop afterwards. I’ll hold out hope that someday these goofy little fairies will reappear someday, but for now, they’ll have to live on in our memories.
