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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
I don't see how we could call the muses 'fae', though they had some mythic role in common. They were divinities. Pan looks a little closer, though.
On balance, though, I'm not sure Classical Civilization even had a concept like 'fae', as such. Centaurs, river gods, etc., yeah, but the context was rather different than what we think with the word 'fae', though modern Westerners sometimes throw in entities from Classical belief, like fawns and centaurs, with the fae in fiction.]
The 'context' that we think of as fae seems to be a specific element of Western Civilization, derived in much from northern Germanic ideas and reshaped by contact with Christianity.
Most of the Germanic languages of northern Europe have, or once had before it was displaced by the English import, a word that is cognate with 'elf', and that carries some of the contexts of what we call 'the fae'. If we can trust our very limited sources on the matter, the pre-Christian Germanic peoples seem to have made a distinction of some kind between gods and fae, too.
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The minor Greek divine beings (nymphs, satyrs, nerieds, dryads, etc.) tended to play the same role as the fae in more northern Europe - capricious nature spirits who embody wildness not just in terms of place but also in character, such as in opposition to civilization and civil mores (giving us, for example, nymphomaina). The differences between a nymph and a huldra, or a siren and a rusalka are minor and largely cosmetic.
But if you still reject Greek sources, note that the dwarfs of Scandinavian mythology displayed abundant creativity in the realm of invention and construction. Of their own device and volition, they produced Mjolnir (Thor's hammer), Gleipnir (the ribbon that bound the Fenris wolf), Skidbladnir (a magical ship that can fold up and fit in a pocket), Gungnir (Odin's spear that never missed), Draupnir (a golden armband that could multiply itself), and many others. They were renowned for their craftmanship even among the gods.
Luke