A Muggle folktale had long been passed down in Eastern Europe.
In forests, lakes, mountains, and mist-shrouded woods lived a kind of shapeshifting female elf.
They could transform into animals such as swans, horses, eagles, snakes, or wolves, but their most common form was that of young, beautiful human women.
Dressed in gauze, they danced beneath the midsummer moon.
Wherever they had danced, "fairy rings" would grow—circular clusters of mushrooms and flowers.
Young men who passed by and saw them would become madly infatuated, forgetting everything in the world and neither eating, drinking, nor sleeping.
If one had the misfortune of joining their dance, he could only keep dancing until he finally died of exhaustion.
If he carelessly stepped into a fairy ring, misfortune and illness would follow him for the rest of his life.
Muggles had never believed they truly existed.
Even if they saw an animal transform into a human with their own eyes, they would dismiss it as a hallucination caused by inhaling the spores of certain hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Wizards, however, not only knew of them but could even communicate with them to a certain extent.
They were the "Velebit elves" of Croatian folklore, and the Veela whom the Ministry of Magic had originally classified as "beings."
Although they had now been classified as "beasts," other members of the elf order, such as water nymphs and nymph fairies, bore an extremely close resemblance to humans. Most wizards were therefore still willing to regard them as "beings."
Naturally, wizards were very interested in such humanoid creatures, who possessed powerful magical abilities and youthful, beautiful appearances.
After years of research, they discovered that Veela magic actually came from their hair.
If their hair suffered irreparable damage, they would lose both their magical power and their beautiful appearance.
When the