William Butler Yeats was a strong believer in the existence of faeries and the spirit realm, penning the words:

Come away, O, little child,
To the waters and the Wild,
With a faerie hand in hand;
For the world's more full of weeping,
Than he can understand.

What do YOU believe about Faeries? Do they exist? Are we thrown off a bit by the storybook connotation that immediately springs into our minds when we hear the word "faerie" or "fairy?"

Can you tell us something about Faeries that some of us might not know? I'd like to hear what you have to say.

I'll have to check my library next time I'm at home...

Roy C. Booth -- Wordsmith wrote:
I'll have to check my library next time I'm at home...

You make that sound as if you re on the road more than home...

Wellll, sort of. This Saturday I'll be at Ren Fest (hopefully the whole day) and then at a movie premiere in Minneapolis. Usually I shuttle back between Hibbing and Bemidji, I have stores/businesses in both, but he house (and library) is in Hibbing where my house is.

Right now I'm in Bemidji.

And then the wife might get a job in Glencoe, and...

Roy C. Booth -- Wordsmith wrote:
...This Saturday I'll be at Ren Fest...

Stop by and see us! We'll be doing a show, promoting Tam O'Hare at the Children's Realm Stage at 11, 1 and 4.

Already noted and planned for!

Okay, various faerie errata from the top:

Feldspar can be used to see faeries, either through a large enough stone or if crafted into a lens. Feldspar is a green stone known for its hardness due its being made out of of aluminum silicates with calcium, potassium, and sodium in crystalline form. Often associated with fertility/love (British Isles) and the prevention of headaches, nosebleeds, and sundstroke (ancient Egyptians).

(Give Tam a specially crafted lens for his spyglass, and... voila!)

White stones (naturally) found by sacred wells in Celtic regions were used for prayer mounds -- creating and arranging one in such a way would attarct faeries who would show their appreciation by singing or playing soft music.

Wearing red on Hallows Eve will frighten faeries (and spirits) away.

Let me know if you need any more.

Great show, btw!

if you find a round stone with a hole in it that has been made naturally, you can see faeries.also, if you're the seventh son of a seventh son, or if you have red hair. the book "Spiderwick's guide to the fantastical world around you" has tons of information, based on eyewitness accounts and the author's own observations.^^

Roy C. Booth -- Wordsmith wrote:
Okay, various faerie errata from the top:

Feldspar can be used to see faeries, either through a large enough stone or if crafted into a lens. Feldspar is a green stone known for its hardness due its being made out of of aluminum silicates with calcium, potassium, and sodium in crystalline form. Often associated with fertility/love (British Isles) and the prevention of headaches, nosebleeds, and sundstroke (ancient Egyptians).

(Give Tam a specially crafted lens for his spyglass, and... voila!)

White stones (naturally) found by sacred wells in Celtic regions were used for prayer mounds -- creating and arranging one in such a way would attarct faeries who would show their appreciation by singing or playing soft music.

Wearing red on Hallows Eve will frighten faeries (and spirits) away.

Let me know if you need any more.

Great show, btw!

This is great stuff, Roy!!
I have gleaned a lot of this sort of material over the years, but haven't incorporated any of it into Tam's stories, yet. You have sparked a "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter" moment.

Thanks, Marlow.

Great seeing you at the show.

Thanks.

And now even more wonders from my library:

If you can find it "Faeries" by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (New York: Souvenir Press, 1978) has a few gems in it as well.

Plus:

Thorn bushes house fairy folk.

Fearies cannot stand messes of any kind, kind of like vampires -- there are (uncommon) tales of ingenius children escaping malevolent faeries/goblins by throwing/spilling grain on the ground whilst their pursuers had to stop and pick up every kernel before resuming their chase.

In England leaving a farthing or similar coin at the edge of a field allowed one not become pixie-lost. Similar variations exist in Celtic lore as well (silver, a bowl of milk, honey, et al) for safe passage through dense forests.

Ivy, rue, straw, and fern attract faeries.

Elder leaves provide safety from the same.

Fearies are most often seen (active) at midnight, dusk, and noon.

On the eve of Midsummer all faeries gain human speech for that night if they do not so already.

Micrasta, a heart-shaped fossil, repesents abundance in various British Isles cultures, and is also known as "faeire loaf."

Tir Nan Og, the Land Under the Waves, and others (such as the Norse Trollboetten, the land of trolls that stretched from Gandvik ("wand-bay" -- the North Sea) to the Arctic/North Pole) are faerie islands that are only visible to those who need to or are ready to find (harmony with nature). Again, to circumvent this, feldspar (or arcance recipes that provided wondrous eye drop) was used.

If you fall asleep on a faerie mound/ring, you will awaken in 100 years a la Rip Van Winkle.

A sprig of grass from such a mound/ring when burned as an incense, depending upon the source, brought relaxation or sleep. Combined with woundrot it brought silent death.

To find a fearie mound/ring one must walk around it nine times during a full moon to discover its entrance.

A circular collection of mushrooms can be a (very magical) faerie ring. 'Shrooms from such a ring bestow psychic powers IF properly picked (during a full moon, Midsummer's Eve, et al) and/or permission to do so has been granted by the fey residing there.

A straight line of grass found in a meadow, wood, or glade that is a different shade of green (like you see over septic tanks) is called a "faerie path." Meditate under tree by one and you will gain insight and a sense of direction.

Ragwort is used by the fey to improve movement (speed, agility, the invocation of faerie mounts (physical and ethereal), et al).

Now, back to editing my 730 pages+ on Norse mythology/folklore...

a random weapon: elf shot.
faerie's arrows are tipped with this, and it will burrow towards the heart if it hits a living thing. also, the shaft dissappears and only the head remains.

Roy C. Booth -- Wordsmith wrote:

And now even more wonders from my library...

This is wonderful stuff, Roy. As I mentioned above, some of this I have heard before, but not in any detail. I would like to do a little more research.

William Butler Yeats, for one, believed in the existence of faeries, and I know many others who do, as well. Storybooks have distracted from the very real spirit presence of these creatures, rendering them the stuff of *a-hem* fairy tales.

The woods on my ranch had a so-called faerie ring in a small clearing - so said a good friend of mine. I will have to go look into this again.

Thanks again, Roy. If you have more, keep sending it our way.

Practical beliefs and protection

When considered as beings that a person might actually encounter, fairies were noted for their mischief and malice. Some pranks ascribed to them, such as tangling the hair of sleepers into "Elf-locks", stealing small items or leading a traveler astray, are generally harmless. But far more dangerous behaviors were also attributed to fairies. Any form of sudden death might stem from a fairy kidnapping, with the apparent corpse being a wooden stand-in with the appearance of the kidnapped person. Consumption (tuberculosis) was sometimes blamed on the fairies forcing young men and women to dance at revels every night, causing them to waste away from lack of rest. Fairies riding domestic animals, such as cows, could cause paralysis or mysterious illnesses.

As a consequence, practical considerations of fairies have normally been advice on averting them. In terms of protective charms, cold iron is the most familiar, but other things are regarded as detrimental to the fairies: wearing clothing inside out, running water, bells (especially church bells), St. John's Wort, and four-leaf clovers, among others. Some lore is contradictory, such as Rowan trees in some tales been sacred to the fairies, and in other tales being protection against them. In Newfoundland folklore, the most popular type of fairy protection is bread, varying from stale bread to hard tack or a slice of fresh home-made bread. The belief that bread has some sort of special power is an ancient one. Bread is associated with the home and the hearth, as well as with industry and the taming of nature, and as such, seems to be disliked by some types of fairies. On the other hand, in much of the Celtic folklore, baked goods are a traditional offering to the folk, as are cream and butter!
“The prototype of food, and therefore a symbol of life, bread was one of the commonest protections against fairies. Before going out into a fairy-haunted place, it was customary to put a piece of dry bread in one’s pocket.”

Bells also have an ambiguous role; while they protect against fairies, the fairies riding on horseback -- such as the fairy queen -- often have bells on their harness. This may be a distinguishing trait between the Seelie Court from the Unseelie Court, such that fairies use them to protect themselves from more wicked members of their race. Another ambiguous piece of folklore revolves about poultry: a cock's crow drove away fairies, but other tales recount fairies keeping poultry.
In County Wexford, Ireland, in 1882, it was reported that “if an infant is carried out after dark a piece of bread is wrapped in its bib or dress, and this protects it from any witchcraft or evil.”

While many fairies will confuse travelers on the path, the will o' the wisp can be avoided by not following it. Certain locations, known to be haunts of fairies, are to be avoided; C. S. Lewis reported hearing of a cottage more feared for its reported fairies than its reported ghost. In particular, digging in fairy hills was unwise. Paths that the fairies travel are also wise to avoid. Home-owners have knocked corners from houses because the corner blocked the fairy path, and cottages have been built with the front and back doors in line, so that the owners could, in need, leave them both open and let the fairies troop through all night. Locations such as fairy forts were left undisturbed; even cutting brush on fairy forts was reputed to be the death of those who performed the act. Fairy trees, such as thorn trees, were dangerous to chop down; one such tree was left alone in Scotland, though it prevented a road being widened for seventy years. Good house-keeping could keep brownies from spiteful actions. Sometimes if they don't think the house is clean enough, they pinch people in their sleep so they have red bumps from the pinches when they wake up. Such water hags as Peg Powler and Jenny Greenteeth, prone to drowning people, could be avoided by avoiding the bodies of water they inhabit. It was believed that fairies could be made visible by bending a grass leaf into a circle and "by looking through nature one could see into the world of nature".

Other actions were believed to offend fairies. Brownies were known to be driven off by being given clothing, though some folktales recounted that they were offended by inferior quality of the garments given, and others merely stated it, some even recounting that the brownie was delighted with the gift and left with it. Other brownies left households or farms because they heard a complaint, or a compliment. People who saw the fairies were advised not to look closely, because they resented infringements on their privacy. The need to not offend them could lead to problems: one farmer found that fairies threshed his corn, but the threshing continued after all his corn was gone, and he concluded that they were stealing from his neighbors, leaving him the choice between offending them, dangerous in itself, and profiting by the theft.

Millers were thought by the Scots to be "no canny" due to their ability to control the forces of nature, such as fire in the kiln, water in the burn, and for being able to set machinery a-whirring. Superstitious communities sometimes believed that the miller must be in league with the fairies. In Scotland fairies were often mischievous and to be feared. No one dared to set foot in the mill or kiln at night as it was known that the fairies brought their corn to be milled after dark. So long as the locals believed this then the miller could sleep secure in the knowledge that his stores were not being robbed. John Fraser, the miller of Whitehill claimed to have hidden and watched the fairies trying unsuccessfully to work the mill. He said he decided to come out of hiding and help them, upon which one of the fairy women gave him a gowpen (double handful of meal) and told him to put it in his empty girnal (store), saying that the store would remain full for a long time, no matter how much he took out

I have a problem with the elf shot entry above, for that version of the phenomenon first appears in the Romantic period of literature, about the same time that faeries were becoming transformed into, well, ahem, Tinkerbell.

Elf shot, or, more properly, alf shot, was blamed for a host of calamities, primarily disease and sickness, and, in some cases that you find where Celtic and Norse cultures overlapped, curiously enough, madness.

Thorn bushes (see above) were never uprooted for fear that they would appear in one's bed, like from the scene from a very famous movie (I'm dating myself here)involvng a horse's head and all of the ramifications that went along with that message, too.

Rings of foxgloves were also said to be faerie rings.

Brownies: traditionally, before they, too, became Disneyized, stood roughly 20 inches tall, and appeared as shaggy, wrinkly, dark-brown skinned men (hence their name). They would adopt homes and help out with chores, and in Scotland they were prone to become special assistants to brewers. Small offerings were often made to them during the process of brewing ritual wine, as chronicled first when Dalriada was still a nation.

Gnomes: linked directly to the earth, the term gnome literally means "earth dweller" in Greek. They were in charge of tending to plants and flowers, often taking on some of the attributes of said flora.

Undines: water elementals that always appear to be female, linked to the mermaid (or merri-maid) legend, possibly further linked to the ancient sea goddess, Myri. They are quie beautiful, the friends of fishing villages, and are often associated with the west.

Sylphs: associated with the air, invisible, intangible, and possess gossamer wings. They live on the tops of mountains and on clouds. They are the most commonly portrayed prototypical faerie/fairy. Some folklore has them acting as guardian angles, some has them responsible for gathering clouds and making snowflakes. They are associated with the east.

Salamanders: often associated with the south, and are the actual causes of St. Elmo's Fire AND the will-o'-the-wisp, more properly known as "ignis fatuus, " a phosphorescent light over swampy ground. Also known as "foolish fire" or "friar's lantern."
Salamanders are joyous, always leaping about fire spirits who can be mae to mainfest themselves inthe smoke of a speically prepared incense. They directly influence anything with a fiery temperment. The crackling of a fire is their song.

Leprechauns: "one-shoe-maker" is the term that eventaully evolved into their name, since they were regarded as tricky, tenacioulsy independent , and roguish soltary creatures who loved to cobble ONE shoe, never in pairs (!?!)
They like to hide beneath dock leaves, lust for gold, and are quite magically delicious when roasted over an open fire (sorry, I made up that last part, couldn't resist...)

And that's it for this round.

FaerieMaiden wrote:
a random weapon: elf shot.
faerie's arrows are tipped with this, and it will burrow towards the heart if it hits a living thing. also, the shaft dissappears and only the head remains.

Was Elf Shot an herb, used like a poison on the tips of the arrows?

A protection/cure against elf shot consists of a tea/salve made of Sweet Cicely (myrrlis odante -- said to be a gift from the alfar from Alfheim in Norse tradition) mixed with Fennel (fuenrculum vulgare).