THE FAERIE FOLK

We all know about the faerie folk, don't we? Those tiny beings with gossamer wings who flit from blossom to blossom, gentle by nature but sometimes mildly mischievous, and ...

But wait! That's not it at all. From the time of Shakespeare right up until the present, people have thought of the faerie folk in these charming, if somewhat frivolous terms. There was a time, however, when the notion of faerie - both the realm and its inhabitants - was quite different. Let's backtrack a little bit.

In the Middle Ages, the faeries were regarded as powerful and sometimes dangerous beings. They were a force to be reckoned with. Many popular folk songs from the British Isles preserve this concept of the faerie folk. For example, in the ballad called Tam Lin, the heroine, named Janet, has a lover named Tam Lin who is from the faerie realm. Tam Lin is the size and shape of an ordinary man, but he is clearly a creature of the Otherworld: he rises from out of the earth itself to meet Janet, and in the song he is called an "elven gray," for faeries and elves were in fact the same beings. When Tam Lin rides with the faerie folk, they race through the world like a furious host. Simple people stay inside and lock their doors to avoid crossing the path of faeries. (The faeries are, in fact, the riders of the Wild Hunt.) When Janet pulls Tam Lin from his horse to reclaim him for the human world, she faces the wrath of an angry faerie queen, who is certainly no gossamer pygmy sitting on a daisy. In fact, the queen threatens to turn Janet into a tree.

Let us take the example of Thomas the Rhymer, a medieval Scottish bard who is commemorated in folk song. Even though the word "bard" means "poet," let us remember that a Celtic bard was more like a magician or Druid than a modern poet, for words and songs were the stuff of magic and of power. Thomas was sleeping under a tree when the faerie queen and her wild host rode into his dream. Maybe she liked his poetry, for she took him up behind her on her horse and rode off with him to the Realm of Faerie, from which he never returned.

If we wish to solve the mystery of the faerie folk and their identity, then we may wish to ask the question: Just exactly where did the faerie queen take Thomas the Rhymer when she carried him away?

The word "fairy" or "faerie" refers not only to a people or race of beings, but to the realm in which they live. Throughout Celtic myth and legend, heros and mystical adventurers of all kinds are always traveling to "the Land of Faerie," from whence they may return soon, or after hundreds of years, or sometimes not at all.

Rather than rely solely on legend, let us take the example of an individual who, during her trial for witchcraft, was accused of traveling to the faerie realm in actuality. Isobel Gowdie, a Scottish witch, testified that she left her body and flew through the air over the landscape. She entered into a barrow mound or old stone age tomb, many of which dot the countryside of the British Isles. Once she was inside it was daytime, whereas her flight through the air was accomplished at night. The barrow mound was inhabited by the faerie folk, who were ruled by a king and queen and who spent their time eating, drinking, and generally having a grand old time.

When we enter the Realm of Faerie, we enter into the Otherworld. As all good legends and "fairy" tales tell us, the Otherworld is a land of feasting, merriment, dancing, and joy. The faerie folk welcome us there, and even offer us food and drink. Of course, if we partake of "faerie food," we will never be able to return to our own world. Then again, some people would consider it a fair trade.

Let us remember that Isobel Gowdie, much like a character in a story, entered the Realm of Faerie by entering an ancient Stone Age tomb. Now, who lives in tombs? The dead, of course. And who lives in the Otherworld? The spirits of our departed ancestors, of course.

So are the Faeries, in fact, the mystic realm beyond earthly consciousness that stands so close to us, yet so far away? In all probability, that is what they are. Even anthropologists and folklore scholars, who can be notoriously resistant to the obvious, have accepted that this is the case. So is it any wonder that the faeries and elves were called "the good folk" or the "good people?" Even though they can sometimes be mischievous, destructive, or down-right scary, we must never "speak ill of the dead."

In Ireland, the faerie folk who live in the barrow mounds are said to be the remnants of the Tuatha de Danaan, the old pre-Christian goddesses and gods who inhabited the Celtic realms in ancient times, and who have been progressively "fading" or becoming more ethereal ever since the advent of Christianity. We are not accustomed to thinking of Gods and ancestors in the same terms, but in Pagan times, the distinctions between the two were often blurred. When we die, an immortal component of our own being is united with the Goddess or God whom we took as our own guiding spirit during life, and whose deeds or attributes served as the role model for our own. In other words, we become united with the Gods themselves.

Yet it may also be said - in fact, it usually is said - that faeries are nature spirits of a sort. A faerie may inhabit a tree or a rock or a flower or a lake. So what is a faerie? A departed spirit or deity, or the living energy within a part of nature?

The answer is both.

Like many traditional cultures, our pre-Christian ancestors believed that we have more than one "soul." we have a "traveling soul" which, after death, will journey into the Otherworld, joining our other foremothers and forefathers, dwelling with them, feasting with them, and presumably riding with them as well. We also have a soul that remains part of this world, fading gradually into the earth around us, becoming one with the trees, the butterflies, and the rainbows, becoming one with nature. When we speak of our ancestors as the faerie folk, we may speak equally of the ancestral soul in the Otherworld or of the ancestral soul in nature. All is one. Pagan philosophy travels in a circle, not in a straight line.

It is important that we should continue to honor the faerie folk in our daily lives, not through "primitive" notions about "ancestor worship" (and in fact these notions exist only in he minds of anthropologists and not in the minds of traditional cultures), but because we honor the eternal circle of life and existence, and because we honor the richness of life that was experienced by all those who came before us.

Over the centuries, as respect for the faerie folk declined among the people, they ceased to appear awesome and shining in the popular imagination. As belief declined, so did the faeries themselves, until at last they were regarded as little winged creatures rather than powerful and shining beings. Shakespeare speaks of the fairy Queen Mab as if she were a tiny butterfly, fragile enough to be blown away by a summer's breeze. Mab is merely an echo of the great Celtic goddess Queen Maeve, who was a warrior woman. She was a prodigious lover, a generous friend, and a powerful enemy.

How, then, should we best honor the faeries or "good people?" An ancient custom, and one that survived into medieval times, was that of "feeding the dead." On nights when the faerie folk were believed to ride abroad in the world, villagers left food and drink in the main room of the house so that the faeries might pause for refreshment. Many of the customs surrounding the Days of the Dead are based upon this same idea.

If you choose, you may offer food and drink to the faerie folk in nature as well as at home. If you are aware of a rock, tree, or spring that has a certain magic to it, and which seems to be inhabited by a bright, shining, "elvish" energy, you may have found a spot where the faerie folk congregate. Simply bringing a chalice of pure water and some bread to leave in the vicinity will delight the "good people."

Kenneth Johnson
Llewellyn's Witches' Calendar 2000