WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT
Fairies
In my opinion this is the best book on Fairy and quite possibly the only one you will ever need. Morgan Daimler is my guru on all things fairy and this book is now my new go-to guide. Leaving behind all the gossamer wings and flowery petal skirts (thankfully) this book covers all you need to know and more from traditional fairy to the modern world and everything in between. If you want to step away from the glitter and into the REAL world of fairy then this book is a must have. Highly recommended.
Rachel Patterson, author of Kitchen Witchcraft, The Cailleach and Moon Magic
Impeccably researched and delightfully well written, Fairies – A Guide to the Celtic Fair Folk is a book that every pagan who is interested in following the fairy path should read. Morgan Daimler is a leading expert on traditional Celtic fairylore and this is her finest work on the subject to date.
Lucya Starza, author of Pagan Portals – Candle Magic and A Bad Witch’s Blog
Living in the Irish countryside where fairy raths, paths and strange goings on are part of everyday life, I was captivated by Fairies: A Guide to the Celtic Fair Folk. As with all of Daimler’s books I was impressed by her thorough research, her clarity of writing and the inclusion of a chapter giving basic guidelines for dealing with fairies. There is so much to commend in this book that I believe it is the most thorough guide to the Good People I have read.
Jane Brideson, Artist and blogger at The Ever-Living Ones – Irish Goddesses & Gods in Landscape, Myth & Custom
Other Books by Morgan Daimler
Fairycraft
Following the Path of Fairy Witchcraft
Fairy Witchcraft
A Neopagan’s Guide to the Celtic Fairy Faith
Irish Paganism
Reconstructing Irish Polytheism
Gods and Goddesses of Ireland
A Guide to Irish Deities
The Morrigan
Meeting the Great Queens
Brigid
Meeting the Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Forge, and Healing Well
Where the Hawthorn Grows
An American Druid’s reflections
First published by Moon Books, 2017
Moon Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
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Text copyright: Morgan Daimler 2016
ISBN: 978 1 78279 650 3
978 1 78279 696 1 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932673
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.
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CONTENTS
Imram – A Poem
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Fairyland
Chapter 2 – Basic Facts About Fairies
Chapter 3 – The Courts and Divisions in Fairy
Chapter 4 – The Kings and Queens
Chapter 5 – Denizens of Fairy
Chapter 6 – Fairies in Tradition
Chapter 7 – Mortal Interactions
Chapter 8 – Fairies in the Modern World
Chapter 9 – Dealing with Fairies
Conclusion
Resources
Appendix A
Appendix B
Author’s Note
Bibliography
For those who seek the truth in the legends.
This book is dedicated to those who give me reasons to believe. With great thanks to Aileen Paul, for your support and encouragement.
And thanks to Gemma McGowan for being the amazing priestess you are, and for everything at Tlachtga, the dark moon, Samhain, 2016.
Imram – A Poem
Like a shadow, shifting, seeking
what I’ve found yet still must find,
wrapped in motion, wrapped in time,
bound yet still compelled to bind
echoes like ripples of each action
as here and there merge in my mind
spirit balanced in the eager edges
Wandering the Otherworld is chancy
though the fairy road is always near
tempting and teasing and tangling
touching this to that, and there to here
a bare breath away, a whole world apart
pulled and pushed by hope and fear
I am compelled to turn and return again
I am on wings, flying, swiftly silent
eyes keen in the darkness of night
seeking what is waiting for me
someone found in shade and light;
I am a white hind in trackless woods
running, racing, sharp and bright;
illusions hold the truth of form here
The paths I walk are distant memories
the place I rest a long forgotten tale
my companion, fierce and fearsome,
so that, compared, I seem faint and frail,
there is music, sourceless, around us
and the moon, a lantern, clear and pale,
so painfully idyllic I look for thorns
Dark and dangerous this dreaming
like ground ivy, twining, creeping
intoxicating as sweet rowan mead
into my heart and mind softly seeping
leaving no corner or crevice empty
planting, tending, nourishing, reaping,
changing from the core to make anew
I feel it digging deep and deeper
wearing me away like water on stone
working relentlessly towards its goal
weaving through flesh, blood, and bone
strong its power, stronger its purpose
for in the most primal intent it was sown
and every wish comes with its cost
Days, or Years, or Decades, or Hours
time has no anchor here, it drifts
I am carried with its restless motion
turning and twisting as it all shifts
but I knew before I bargained that
they are clever when they give gifts
and I valued gingerbread over gold
M. Daimler, copyright 2016
Introduction
Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Fairies have long fascinated and frightened people and a complex set of traditions has risen around them that reflects this. In a Celtic context these beliefs and practices are often called the ‘Fairy Faith’ and represent the sum total of what humans have learned about fairies over countless generations. Despite its name the Fairy Faith is not actually a specific religion itself, although it is most strongly associated with Christianity, and anyone of any belief system can follow the Fairy Faith.
This book is not a text on the modern idea of what fairies are, and really there’s little need for such a book. There are already quite a few on the market that are aimed at a pagan audience and written from that perspective. What this book is meant to be is a text for pagans focusing on the
older understanding of fairies while still seeing them as a part of our very modern world. It focuses largely on the Celtic fairies and to some degree closely related cultures with similar fairy beliefs, but fairies can be found around the world and in every culture as far as I know. It would be impossible, though, to discuss every fairy from every culture in any depth in a single book, so instead this book will aim at offering a deeper view with a specific focus.
As we begin it is probably best to be clear that if you are expecting friendly little flower fairies or ephemeral nature spirits this book is not going to give you what you are looking for. The American cultural view of fairies since the Victorian era seems to be very strongly influenced by a subconscious reflection of idealized human culture. Prior to that time we see a widespread, real belief in the Good People as a force to be respected and feared, propitiated and protected against. But starting around the Victorian period we see an increasing cultural diminishment of the fey into cute winged children and nature sprites, essentially harmless and entirely pleasant. They become the province of children and a thoroughly domesticated garden. This, I think, can rightly be viewed as a reflection of the wider culture of the time, which was one of the middle class, of repression and sanitization, one that in many ways sought to rewrite unpleasant stories into pleasant ones to create an illusion of a better world.
And today’s pop culture fairies also reflect aspects of our culture, shifting into spritely little eco-warriors who show up to impotently bemoan the modern human destruction of the environment, as if we haven’t been merrily clear-cutting entire countries and driving species to extinction for millennia. The modern crisis may be a more extreme threat to our own survival, but humans have had an enormous impact on the world around us for as long as we’ve existed in significant numbers. We may well be courting our own destruction and unlike the Gentry we don’t have an Otherworld to return to if we ruin this one, but arguably They have never cared about the things we do to the world around us as long as we leave Their places alone. While there would seem to be no reason for Themselves to suddenly and inexplicably turn to warning us about saving our environment, it nicely reflects our own contemporary socio-environmental concerns. There is a certain logic as well in the Victorian garden sprite/nature spirit being assumed to be somehow concerned with the state of our environment in toto as more people seem to forget that the fey are ultimately beings only partially of this world. And also, more people forget that we and our survival are actually inconsequential to most things that aren’t us.
What this book will give you is an understanding of fairies from the perspective of traditional culture and folklore, and fairies as they are to the people in the cultures that still believe in them. The idea here is to remove the filters layered over modern understanding because of these views and provide instead the perspective of the cultures that the beliefs come from. So to begin I want to look at a couple of basic things including the use of euphemisms, how to identify fairy activity around you, and how to properly respect fairy places in our world.
Euphemisms
I realize at this point I’ve already used the word ‘fairy’ numerous times, but it’s actually considered unwise to say that word aloud, lest it attract their attention in a negative way. Many people feel that they don’t like being called fairies and if you do so it could anger them. To provide some perspective there was even a running joke on a recent sacred sites tour of Ireland I did that no one should say ‘the other ‘f’ word’ and I know people who avoid the word entirely. Instead of saying fairy there is a longstanding tradition of using euphemisms, with the idea that calling them a name that is by its nature positive will remind them of their own potential goodness. Or, in other words, you call them something nice hoping they will act nice to you if they happen to hear you saying it. There are many of these names, but all are designed to avoid offending them. A selection from Irish and Welsh folklore include:
• Daoine Maithe (Good People)
• Daoine Sith (People of Peace)
• Daoine Uaisle (Noble People)
• Aos Sidhe/Aos Sí or Daoine Sidhe/Daoine Sí (People of the Fairy Hills)
• Telwyth Teg (Fair Family)
• Mother’s Blessing
• Gentry
• Fair Folk
• Other Crowd
• Good Neighbors
• Themselves
This is not a new concept, in fact we have evidence of the use of euphemisms in folklore dating back several hundred years. There is a 16th century description of Welsh fairy belief that tells us that the Telwyth Teg were greatly revered and that people who believed in them would not ‘name them without honor’ (Wilby, 2005, p.23). The Lowland Scots use of the term ‘Seely wicht’ (blessed creature) goes back at least 400 years. You can see looking at the list of suggestions that most are descriptive and most intrinsically include the idea of the fairies as good. This wasn’t necessarily because people believed they were inherently good or kind, but to remind them of their potential to be so.
The word fairy itself has a long and convoluted history and an uncertain etymology. Ultimately the word fae first appears around the 12th century in French and Latin texts referring to a supernatural woman, an enchantress; two centuries later we see the use of the word fairie in Middle English denoting both the land such beings come from and as an adjective to describe things and beings whose nature is supernatural (Williams, 1991). It’s uncertain at what point the word came to be used for individual beings. In older periods other words were used in the general sense that we use fairy today, to indicate a non-specific Otherworldy being, and these included elf and goblin, with elf having a more benign application and goblin a more malevolent one. There is some supposition that the word fairy may be a shortened form of Fair Folk (Wedin, 1998). In the older belief it was thought to be bad luck to call the Daoine Sí by that name (or any name using ‘sí’, previously spelled sídhe), but interestingly this prohibition seems to be shifting to the term fairies, which of course was originally used as a way to avoid offending them. In modern practice some people will use terms including the word sí while many other people have a strong prohibition against referring to them by any form of sí or using the word fairy, sticking instead entirely to euphemisms (O hOgain, 2006).
Is it Fairies?
One of the first things to look at when you have unusual or inexplicable activity around you is whether it might be fairies. They are of course only one option of several, including ghosts, but fairies tend to have some specific signs unique to them that you can look for. Keep in mind that some signs of supernatural presence are similar between different types of spirits, for example a feeling of being watched or certain types of smells with no obvious sources. Others, though, are more specific to fairy activity and when these are present can be an indicator that it is indeed fairies, which is helpful in deciding how to move forward and deal with the situation. You don’t necessarily need to be sensitive or able to directly see these beings; for people who cannot see spirits or otherwise sense them there are practical ‘real world’ things to look for.
As always the first thing you want to do is look for the most obvious and likely explanation to rule out the mundane causes. Applying Occam’s Razor is the best way to start; to paraphrase: ‘The simplest explanation is usually the right one.’ If you hear laughter or music, is there a possible real world source nearby? If electronics are glitching, is there something objectively wrong with them? Start with those obvious sorts of explanations. However, to go from there to an Arthur Conan Doyle quote (apropos enough since he was quite the believer in fairies himself): ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
So, what follows is my personal suggestions for what to look for when checking for fairy presence.
Unexplained, laughter, voices, or music – one indication that the fey are around is hearing laughter or voices that seem to have no discernible source. If you hear musi
c with no source it will be music unlike anything heard on Earth. You can sometimes hear voices speaking when ghosts are present, but with the fey it’s usually the sound of conversations, often in an indecipherable language. In some cases this may also include the sounds of hounds or horses passing by.
Objects disappearing – the fey are fond of stealing items; unlike ghosts who just move them, the fey outright take them, sometimes for a short amount of time, sometimes for months or years. Car keys are the most common item taken, but jewelry is close second. The object will usually disappear from plain view then reappear at some point in a different place.
Movement in your peripheral vision – to people who don’t have second sight or spirit sight, fairies may appear as a flash of movement in your peripheral vision. Of course the fey can also choose to show themselves if they want to, even to someone who normally couldn’t see them.
Elf-locks – waking up with matted hair, with no logical reason for it to be this way; this can also happen to animals. This is more common if you’ve annoyed or offended them, but nonetheless is a sign of their presence unique to them. You do want to be certain there isn’t a logical reason for it because hair does mat on its own. However, if you don’t usually have a problem with this or you know there’s no logical reason for it, but you wake up with a significant tangle or mat of hair, then it could be fairies.
The presence of a ‘fairy ring’ – a ring of mushrooms or darker green grass – has long been believed to indicate the presence of fairies. I’d note that entering an active fairy ring is considered dangerous, as it can radically alter our sense of time and a night dancing with the fey can translate to anywhere between seven and a hundred years passing in our world. Usually though when we see a fairy ring growing in our yard or the woods, it only means They have been there, not that they are actually there dancing at that moment.
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