20:42 Feb 18 2007
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Research: Faeries in Magick and Folklore
In working magick and performing ritual, one inevitably comes into contact with the realm of spirits. Indeed, an ability to perceive, understand, and interact with this realm is crucial to almost all magickal workings. Though ghosts are perhaps the most familiar sort of spirit one may encounter on this level of reality, there are a number of relatively common spirits that share no such former ties to humanity.
Such entities have been known by a number of different names in the past, including demons, faeries, elementals, and angels. Magickally speaking, this order of beings can best be termed "spiritual entities." The most common among them are the faeries, also known collectively as the fey. In general, they are other than human, and their natural state is the ethereal or astral. They come into contact with humans on occasion and can interact with the physical realm to a limited degree, but they are, on the whole, not native to our reality. If they are native to any reality, then it is the in-between state which hovers betwixt spirit and matter.
Beings Between
Existing between realities, they are not bound to any single one, and are thus free to roam as they please. If there is a realm which they are native to, it is one which exists apart from yet alongside our own. There are gates or thresholds which serve as cross-over points between our realm and theirs, yet these act something like one-way doors. The fey can both perceive and apparently utilize these thresholds. We can only perceive these thresholds under rare circumstances, and even then it is rarer still that a human may pass through the gates.
According to the folklore, the threshold between our realms is more easily crossed over during the liminal times of the day, such as dusk or dawn. Also, at certain times of the year, especially around Beltane and Samhain, the barrier which separates our realm from theirs grows thin. During these times, the gates are thrown wide and the fey roam freely through our realm. This invasion from an alien realm of spirits prompted the ancient Celts to light jack o'lanterns on the night of Samhain to ward the wandering spirits away from their homes. Similarly, in Northern Europe on May Eve in a festival known as Walpurgisnacht, great bonfires were lit on hillsides to keep away those beings which roamed by night.
It would seem that the most that can be said about this order of beings is that we know very little about them. Though there is a wealth of information dating back for many centuries (if not millennia) which records humanity's chance encounters and interactions with the fey, most of the data accumulated invariably raises more questions than it answers. Surveying the folklore, it becomes clear that the faeries are a race of beings alien to our reality, our perceptions, and our way of thinking. They seem typified by their otherness, and their dealings with humanity are often strange and unpredictable. They may be benevolent one moment, then turn suddenly vicious: there are a number of tales which recount the labors of a benevolent brownie for a certain farmer or another. In these, the brownie requests only humble payment, such as cream or some cake. One day, when some slatternly servant forgets to leave the payment out (or takes it for herself), the brownie ceases his altruistic labor for the farmer and instead turns to plaguing him mercilessly by breaking things and throwing them about, poltergeist-style. In other cases, the most intimidating among them may prove to be utterly benign, despite a malevolent semblance. Johnny Squarefoot is such a faerie. His appearance is monstrous, as he has a boar-like head with long, wicked tusks and bright, beady eyes. Yet like the common brownie described above, he gladly lends his help to local farmers by performing arduous chores at night. In the end, it seems we must admit that they are enigmas, as the rules that govern them and the goals that motivate them seem wholly alien to us.
Most of our information regarding this order of beings has come down to us through folklore. There are innumerable tales from the Celtic countries, many recorded less than a hundred years ago, which describe human interactions with the race of beings known as faeries. The wee folk and the little people are not native only to the Celtic isles, however. Incidences of their mischief are recorded in folktales the world round. Faeries from Eastern Europe to Native America were renown for leading travellers astray, intermarrying with humans, stealing away human children, and occasionally inviting a grown mortal guest back to their realm who, upon returning to his native land, found that countless years had passed while he was away.
Faeries and Magick
Magickal workers and those who follow the Old Path know that faeries are not relegated only to the realm of myth. They are very real entities, and their presence near a magickal workspace can greatly help or hinder the rituals held there. For this reason, it behooves a magickal worker to come to understand his little neighbors, but this can be a long and difficult process. There are a great number of books which address the existence of faeries, but this apparent wealth of information can be misleading. Most of the books available today were written around the turn of this century (even apparently "new" texts are mostly just reprints of these classic works). Many use the same sources and therefore contain almost precisely the same information. Few writers attempt to go beyond the accepted folklore of faeries, and those that do get lost in recounting personal experiences with the fey which may be of no practical help whatsoever to anyone else who needs to deal with them.
Recently, several modern writers have attempted to define the fey. Some have even attempted to describe a magickal system which works with our good neighbors. However, most of these ultimately get lost in the wealth of folklore available about faeries. By the time a modern writer has attempted to define the various races of the fey, from pixies to the Sidhe, from the Tuatha de Danaan to bogles, phookas, goblins, knockers, and whatnot, all sight has been lost of what essentially defines a faerie. The races of the fey are legion, and if the folklore is to be credited, they are as diverse and varied as species of flowers or breeds of dogs. And the folklore is not always exact. A wide range of entities are described in faerie folklore, and often true faeries are confused and crossed-over with other folkloric beings such as hags, were-creatures, and even vampires.
In order to truly understand faeries, it is imperative not to get confused by their many strange and varied breeds. According to folklore, faeries are mutable in form anyway, able to take on whatever appearance they desire. Their bodies are ethereal, light like air and as delicate as mist, so the myriad of forms recorded for them may only be semblances they show humanity for their amusement -- like masquers at a grand ball. An old Irishman who had encountered the gentry near Ben Bulben on several occasions tells us:
They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me and seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said, "I am bigger than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the small big." (Evans-Wentz)
Yet if this is true, how can we ever know for certain what we are dealing with?
Most of our definitions of various faeries rely heavily upon the appearances they present. Even the distinctions between those who belong to the Seelie (light fey) and Unseelie (dark fey) courts eventually fall back upon the faeries' outer form. So how can we know what we are dealing with when we encounter one of the fey? The answer lies in determining the essential qualities of the faeries, regardless of the shapes they wear. And, however varied and confusing the folklore on the fey may be, there are still some characteristics that are consistent throughout. These characteristics should be our guidelines for dealing with the fair folk.
Modern Encounters with the Fey
A young man from Cleveland Heights had an experience with a faerie early in the summer of 1997. He was at home with his room-mate, watching the television. A special on Emily Dickinson was on, and as both he and his room-mate are fond of poetry, they were watching with avid interest. At a particularly intense moment during which one of her poems was being read, the television suddenly shut itself off. The remote sat on the table in front of them, so there was no chance that they or the cat had accidentally hit a button. Not terribly unnerved by this, the simply turned the T.V. back on and continued to watch. Then they began to hear noises from various points around the apartment.
At first they assumed it was the cat, but he turned out to be sleeping on one of the chairs. The knockings persisted, along with a sensation that there was something else in the apartment with them. Then the smoke alarm began to go off for no apparent reason. The young man had to take the battery out in order to shut it off. Finally things quieted down for a bit. The room-mate left, and the young man decided to watch a video.
Alone in the apartment, he turned off all the lights and settled back down in front of the television. Then another noise caught his attention and he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He tried to ignore it, hoping it was a reflection from the streetlights outside or a trick of his eyes, but the movement was too persistent to ignore. Finally he looked straight at it, expecting it to disappear. It did not. It was pink in color and seemed to be made entirely out of light. It had the aspect of a butterfly, primarily because of its large, semi-transparent wings. It flitted around the apartment with no apparent direction, flying over to one corner, then into the next room but never alighting anywhere.
The young man was incredulous but continued to observe its motion as it flew around the apartment. He searched the windows for a light source out on the street that could be casting so complex a reflection, but the thing was too mobile to just be light cast from the street. Then there was the color: decidedly pink. He reached for the light next to him, expecting the thing to disappear the moment he illuminated the room. The light, however, would not turn on.
A little panicked now, he stumbled across the room to another light. This one turned on and, as expected, the moment it did, the butterfly-thing disappeared. When he recounted his experience to his room-mate, she confessed to having seen what she described as a huge dragonfly flying around the apartment on several previous occasions. Both assumed that the object seen was somehow responsible for the noises and strange occurrences they had witnessed earlier that night.
A World of Faeries
In France, the faeries are known as lutins. Lutins are little men, dark and hairy like dwarves, who live all day in caverns they have built underground. They come out at night and skulk about farms. Their greatest delight is in playing pranks on pretty young women. They hide their knitting needles, pull on their hats, and perform all manner of mischievous deeds. To this day, the verb lutiner survives in the French language and means "to play pranks like a lutin".
Much like the lutin, the faeries of the British Isles are renown for their tricks. In Dartmoor, Pixies are reputed to take great delight in leading travellers astray, oftentimes getting them hopelessly lost in rather dangerous, isolated areas of terrain. Their favorite trick is to confuse the traveller so that he cannot tell which way is right or left and then alter the landmarks in the area through which he is passing when he is not looking. This is a process known as being Pixie-led. Sometimes, the Pixie himself will take on the appearance of a particular piece of sod which would otherwise serve as a landmark in a long, flat stretch of land. The pixie-sod situates itself near to where the traveller is passing, then, when the hapless fellow is not looking, it will get up on its legs, run ahead a bit, and set itself down somewhere completely different. In a similar fashion, will o' the wisps lead unwary travellers into dangerous areas of swamps and bogs, and seem to take special delight in leading their victims into treacherous places that are likely to get them killed.
Even the darkest and most ill-reputed faeries, however, seem to be motivated more by mischief and a delight in trickery than any true malevolence. Death is simply a misfortunate by-product of some of their fun and games, almost as if they fail to comprehend that their mortal play-things are fragile in this way. An Irish faerie, the Fir Darrig, is said to "delight in practical joking of a rather gruesome nature". Though many of the objects of his jokes wind up dead, the Fir Darrig is nevertheless just having fun with them.
The Phooka is an Irish goblin who can appear in a number of different forms but seems to favor animals that can be ridden on. Regardless his form, he is almost always described as "jet-black with blazing eyes." He lures the unwary to take a ride on his back, at which time the Phooka takes his rider "for a wild and terrifying gallop across the wettest and most thorny country, eventually to be dumped headlong into the mire or deposited in a ditch" (Froud & Lee). The Scottish Kelpie is much like the Phooka in that he most often appears as a young horse to travellers. The hapless soul who mounts the Kelpie, however, runs the risk of drowning, for as soon as he has a rider on his back, the Kelpie will dash off to the nearest body of water and give him a soaking.
Even when repaying a favor of a human, the faeries cannot seem to resist the urge to play pranks. In Chinese folklore, a tale is told of a mortal woman who served as midwife for the wife of a dwarf. When it came time for her payment to be rendered, the dwarf asked her to hold out her apron so he could fill it. He cautions her not to look at what he has given her until she has gotten home. Then he sends her on her way. Of course, unable to resist her natural curiosity, she opens her apron to see what she has been given and finds only blackened coals. Feeling cheated, she throws the lot away but keeps two as evidence of her poor treatment by the dwarf. Once she gets home, however, she discovers that the coals have turned into precious stones, and she bemoans her imprudence at throwing the others away.
In all, it is this child-like mischief-making which seems to typify the fey. As it has been described earlier, they can "make the big small and the small big." In this, they are masters of illusion. This illusion not only serves to amuse them, it serves to define their natures. They are almost unanimously described as beings "born of air," and it is this airy nature which confers to them their mutable and illusory characters. Regardless the situation, regardless the type of faerie you seem to be dealing with, always keep this in mind. They delight in playing with humanity, often amusing themselves at our expense. As dangerous as some of their pranks may at times be, they are performed in all innocence, as the fey seem either ignorant or incapable of foreseeing the more dire consequences of their actions.
The most certain thing you can know in regards to the fey is that you can never be certain about them. They are mercurial beings, and their moods are subject to change at a whim. Their dealings with humanity are universally unpredictable. For this reason, they are very difficult to work with in a magickal context. When casting a circle or performing a ritual in an area they are known to frequent, it is a good idea to invite them into your work if only to be polite. Certain strictures may be applied to the invitation, so that the circle is open only to those spirits which intend no harm to the work or its workers. One of the most common euphemisms for the fey in the Celtic countries is "the good neighbors". They seem to appreciate being treated as just that. Treat them like you would neighbors, inviting them over for special occasions. Your neighbors are far less likely to call the police on a boisterous party if they are there, sharing in the good cheer.
Even so, such an open invitation may not prevent the fey from playing their pranks when you are not actively involved in casting a circle. If this is the case, find an old tree, tree-stump, or a rock somewhere on your property and begin to leave offerings there for the fey. Spice cakes or libations of milk are most often appreciated. Such gifts do not have to be left every day or even every week. Once every full or new moon (full moon if you think you are dealing with Seelie faeries, new moon if you think you are dealing with the Unseelie court) leave a little something and your faerie troubles should be at an end. You may even find that the fair folk will grow helpful, finding things you have lost and putting them where you can't miss them, or warning you with noises when something is not right near your home. In all cases with the faeries, it is better to be safe than sorry, and since magickal workings seem to attract the wee folk regardless of whether they are native to a given area, those who live the magickal life are better off prepared.
--Michelle Belanger
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