I'm asked sometimes about what religion, if any, the Good Folk have. From a folklore and historic perspective we don't really know although we have hints. Small references to fairies coming from or worshipping stars. Oblique references to fairy rituals around birth, marriage, and death. Hints of the wider system of Power to which they belong. But there's no easy public answer I can give, with citations, that answers that question.
What I want to do here is offer my own personal understanding of the subject, with the clear caveat that this is my understanding of it.
So, what religion do the Good Folk follow?
I suspect that as with any other beings there is variety and ultimately no one simple answer. That said, my own experience has been that They celebrate a cycle of holy days based on stars; my own specific group time these holy days by the Pleiades, although I'm aware of other groups who use different stars. I won't get too much into that here because I've written about it extensively elsewhere, but as I understand it the idea is that the stars are seen as especially holy and important, keepers of time and of order, which reflect the vital dance of the universe itself. There is no name for this religion it simply is the way of living in right order, of deep connection with reality manifest through this world.
That should, I hope, lead to the question: what about in their world? In an Saol Eile? I do not think the stars are the same there, or even that there are stars or a sun and moon as we have here. There is a sense of cycles and of holiness in acknowledging certain times - but these times aren't as rigidly fixed as we have here. They ebb and flow around a fixed point like the tide but like the tide the timing isn't a perfect clock but an organic process. It is Samhain when it feels like Samhain, when the energy is right for it. Sometimes that lines up with the celebrations in our world more precisely and other times less so.
Beyond seasonal celebrations there are of course other kinds. Again what follows is my own observations so please take this as such. Pregnancy is treated almost reverently but also surrounded by prohibitions meant to protect the mother, including not speaking overly much of the situation. Birth itself is treated as a kind of trial or test, again wreathed in prohibitions to protect mother and child. When the child reaches three months old there is a ceremony to present it to the community, and the first birthday is treated with great joy and a large party. These two events - three months and one year - seem to act as times to present and incorporate the baby into the existing community. Marriage is a more solemn affair, not without its celebration, but treated as a serious, permanent union between souls. It is a vow making ceremony without the drama or romance of the human ceremony but with a more profound and intense feeling to it. Death is solemnized with a ritual remembrance of the person and their return and renewal into the Source.
Which perhaps naturally leads into the final subject I will touch on here - who do They worship? (We are deep diving into gnosis here, so buckle up).
Many humans see the Good Folk, especially the monarchy, as Gods and treat them as such and that's not exactly misplaced, but I have found that they also have higher Powers they acknowledge. Specifically a group of three, although not co-equal three. Rather there is one who is That Which Is All and there are two who are her children and her two sides, the Lady of Apples* who is Life and the Lord of Arrows who is Death. This is a vast oversimplification of course but the simplest way to explain them. The Lady of Apples is the active life force, the power that creates and grows and inspires. The Lord of Arrows is her opposite, the force of death and decay which balances and keeps life in check. That Which Is All is, literally, All, the sum total of both her children as well as the balance between them. If they are two forces that co-exist eternally on a field then she is the field. Or, put another way, the tree is the source of all things, the apple is the fruit of life and the arrow the product of death, both of which are sourced from the tree.
All of the Otherfolk as far as I am aware, even the ones we'd label as 'unseelie' worship the Lady of Apples. The Lord of Arrows is antithetical to living things, and those that worship or connect to him are as well. although what they consider worship may not align with the human concept, its more a deep reverence and connection, as well as acknowledgement.
If we imagine existence as layered then these three exist beyond the Otherworld and beyond the beings within it, and a further step from humanity than what we call Gods.
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| altar to the Lady of Apples |
*the Queen of Apples acknowledged in Fairy Witchcraft may be understood as a connection to or vessel of this higher Power. A filter if you will or what we might label a priestess within that context in the same way a human can be a priestess to a goddess, although she is acknowledged in Fairy Witchcraft as a goddess herself.
