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This is a ‘pookha’. (The faun is part of the fairy world – the fairy race – and the pookha is another subgenre) He was captured in dense woodland in the north of Ireland. The pookha are divided animal below human above, more or less. Other types of faun are of different dimensions and with different animal/human divisions.

The exhibition of the faun can vary – in a park or villa where he is free to wander ‘alongside’ the guests – he can be brought into a performance arena and shown there or he can be viewed in a zoo like enclosure with the assistant or owner in attendance. She presents him to them, and them to him. She is the verbal communication between beast and public, which alleviates any fear, prevents any ‘hooligan’ type jokes and encourages the public to express their reactions. The assistant is ‘a veterinary or mythology student’ working at a nearby research centre’ where the faun was brought after his capture and from where he will soon be released back into the wild. In a medieval setting she is the gypsy who has bought or captured the animal. This role is sometimes filled by a child.