Another name in the fairy world is "brownies" which may make you wonder about the Girl Scouts choosing that as the name for their younger members. [Warning on link. it is a witchcraft website]
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Actually, all the "sixes" in the Brownie Guides are named after faerie creatures, Sprites, Pixies, Elves etc.
http://www.guidinguk.freeservers.com/Sixes.html
It started when people stopped believing in such stuff and saw it as a cute thing for little girls. Specifically, brownies were benign house elves who did work about the place, the name was chosen to encourage little girls to Lend A Hand (the Brownie motto) about the home.
I was a Brownie as a little girl and this OP is actually correct, though there's nothing hidden or sinister about the connection.
During our Brownie meetings, we were outright read a story about how the group got its' name. Though it's been quite a few years, I recall a pair of siblings whose mother was overworked trying to keep their house clean. They heard a story about a magical creature who would clean homes during the night while people slept and went searching to see if they could find one for their mother. They met with an... owl?... I think. Who told them to look in a nearby pond to see a Brownie. Of course, when they looked in their pond all they saw was their own reflections. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of details but somehow they connected the dots and figured out the owl was trying to tell them to be the helpful "Brownies" and from then on they would help their mother by cleaning at night for her.
Basically, it's a cute folk tale to reminder young kids to be helpful and considerate. So of course fundies aren't going to like it.
I originally wanted to write something about the fae at least being not as worse as the fundies god, but I decided to look up Galatians 4 first. And I found a very interesting passage there:
21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 These things are being taken figuratively : The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.
Galatians 4, 21-25
Who would’ve guessed, even Paul, the one fundies listen more to than the actual Jesus, tells them to not take the Bible literally. Has someone told Ken Ham?
[Warning on link. it is a witchcraft website]
I love how their constitutions are so fragile they have to put up warnings for websites they disagree with. As if they're going to go all Dunamis and see demons coming out of their computer screens.
Back then, when we had Mercury on dimes, Liberty on various other coins, undraped goddesses on Stutz hood ornaments and cute folkloric or "pagan" figures visible on everything from baking power tins to public buildings, nobody gave a rat's ass about "supernatural threats." It's only now, that kids no longer get allegory and symbolism as part of their education, that the boogieman is allowed to creep back.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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