The Alfar

 

Responding to this question from Mia:

“I know you deal specifically with the Irish fae but do you ever have dealings with the Alfar? Is there a connection between them? What observations do you have concerning the Alfar?”

 

So, I’m going to break this down one question at a time, which I think will be easier.

Firstly, do I have dealings with the álfar? Yes, I do and have since the mid-2000s. When I first started exploring heathenry I was quickly drawn to the Norse álfar, or elves, who reminded me strongly of the Irish sidhe, although they aren’t identical. In some folklore its believed that there are three distinct groups of álfar: the Dökkálfar, the Ljósálfar, and the Svartálfar. The Dökkálfar or ‘dusky elves’ are associated with the mound-dead and mountains, while the Ljósálfar or ‘light elves’ are associated with the Vanic god Freyr and the realm of Ljósálfheim, and the Svartalfar, or ‘dark elves’ [sometimes conflated with dwarves], are renowned craftsmen.    

I initially aimed to connect to the Ljósálfar but have found that instead my main association is with the Dökkálfar. I found this out in the usual way of these things, by asking of I should honour Freyr out of respect to them and having them laugh and correct me, by explaining that “The álfar in their high halls may honour Freyr as lord but here we look to Hulda.”. This would make them, technically, Huldufólk a term which was used synonymously with álfar in Iceland or perhaps used as a euphemism. These would be considered Dökkálfar, I think, or something closer to the mound elves than anything else.

Secondly, is there a connection between them? Honestly if you want to deep dive on this I suggest the book ‘Elves, Wights, and Trolls’ by Kveldulf Gundarsson which gets into the minutia of the differences and similarities between the Irish sidhe and Norse álfar. For myself I find them to be similar but not exactly the same, with the Irish aos sidhe being more strict and less forgiving than their Nordic counterparts. There has been some efforts to trace the direct connections between the folklore of Ireland and Iceland, carried by the Irish women who were forced to help settle Iceland (after being kidnapped in raids and brought there) and I think that there are some clear connections there. It may seem strange to suggest that there was Irish influence, either via belief or actual spirit beings, in Iceland but people tend to forget – or ignore – that the Norse weren’t indigenous to Iceland but rather colonized it, bringing their beliefs and spirits with them. In that context it’s not so strange to think that the Irish brought there did the same thing, creating a blending of the cultures and their spirits.

Finally, what are my observations concerning the álfar? I can of course only relay my own personal experiences here and I make no claim they are universal or shared with anyone. I would also emphasize that my opinions and perceptions of these beings are inevitably influenced by my own connection or lack thereof to them, just as they would be to various groups of humans I might write about. In other words this is how I understand them based on my interactions with them and how they are or aren’t connected to me and the aos sidhe I belong to. While I know there are others who describe different things here, I have found that Otherworldly beings have their own politics, alliances, and enmities between each other which can and do effect how a person might engage with them. For example when I was in Iceland at one place and stumbled across a group of álfar celebrating I was welcomed to join and found several of my Irish sidhe there as well, but later when I was at the renowned home of Grýla and her sons, I had such an intense feeling of being unwelcome I didn’t dare enter the area, although the people I was with had no issues doing so. Part of why I discourage people from committing deeply to any particular Other beings is that you take on their alliances and their enemies when you do so.

I find the álfar – the Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar at least – to be generally cheerful and pleasant, although no less dangerous when motivated to it than any other spirit being. The Ljósálfar are proud and seem to particularly like beautiful things, while the Dökkálfar are more rugged and pragmatic. The Light Elves lived in a place that was very bright, almost overwhelmingly so, and light in an airy, ephemeral way; the people there were friendly enough but also cutting, as if verbal sparring were a sport. The Mound Folk’s place felt like a medieval feasting hall, welcoming and warm, and the beings there (mostly men) were friendly in a ‘might challenge you to a good natured contest’ kind of way. Both test outsiders before accepting them, and both repay gifts for gifts and curses for curses.

 

I have in the past joked that rather than Asatru [faith in the Aesir] I would more aptly label myself Alfatru [faith in the elves] and I think that still holds true. I conduct an álfablót, or offering ritual to the elves, twice a year and consider at least one group my allies. My experiences with these beings in Iceland was a mixed bag, as I would expect, with some openly welcoming and others standoffish.

When the Otherworld is too Present

 Responding to this social media question:

"What would you consider your most surprising moment or have you ever had a random experience of spontaneous gnosis? Like ever just doing an everyday mundane task that just put you in the mindset to download" - JP

So, this seems like a simple question but for me its pretty complicated, not because I have trouble thinking of examples but because there are too many. I have always been someone who trances very, very easily. Too easily. Where a lot of people I talk to mention needing to learn effective ways to trance I had the opposite problem - I needed to learn how NOT to trance, especially when doing repetitive or routine activities, which can be very trance inducing (not just for me). In fact many people wanting to learn to do trance work are encouraged to pick up hobbies that involve repetitive action, like spinning wool, because it can help induce an altered state. I exist in a perpetual partial altered state, basically, and had to learn how to ground out of it to function. 

A lot of what I repeat here in this blog comes from what JP refers to as 'downloads' in his question and most of that comes from spontaneous trancework. I might be walking around my neighbourhood, or driving*, something like that where my mind is wandering and its like things suddenly take a step sideways and just like that I'll be tapped into something Other. I have even had this happen in mid conversation, in person or online, when I'm open enough, which I try not to do. 

Because of this most of my trancework is actually more properly anti-trancework, focused on staying present and not wandering off in spirit. I wish I could say after all this time I have better control of it but its still a work in progress. I have developed a method of 'grounding' using starlight that works better for me than the traditional into the earth approaches and I've learned that things which engage the physical sense fully can also help if I make sure I'm paying attention to those senses. But I'm almost always partially There even with those things. Its not a state of being that I recommend. 

The plus side is that I am very good at oracle work, channeling, and as I share in this blog connecting to and relaying things from the Other. One foot here one foot There, all the time, makes me a very good conduit. 

As to the other part of the question, what was my most surprising moment, I'm not entirely sure. Possibly the time in September of 2019 then again in November of 2019 while I was driving I was suddenly shown the area around me completely devoid of humans, and warned about death coming**. At the time I didn't really understand what was being said and didn't worry too much about it as my Folk can sometimes talk of possibilities and distant futures. In January of 2020 again while driving the message was repeated and I was told that 'illness will take many'; at that point the news was just starting to talk about covid in China and it made me more concerned than it had 4 or 2 months prior, but still seemed like something I wouldn't directly need to worry about. Obviously I was wrong about that. When they were insistent on showing this to me in January I finally responded with "if a huge plague wipes out the humans here this person (me) is basically screwed" and they stopped talking about it.

meme by me, art by Arthur Rackham (public domain); to be fair though I wasn't ever 'normal'

*please do not try to trance while driving or doing anything else where an altered state can be dangerous. 

**I am aware that this claim now will sound manufactured, but I discussed it with a friend when these messages happened in 2019 and 2020 so can verify I'm not making this up after the fact

Modern Myths - Why the Good Folk Retreated from Mortal Earth

 Part 3 in my series on modern myths is looking at how the Other came to be in our reality, as it has been relayed to me. 

Let me emphasize that this is MY OWN gnosis, and should be taken as such. It is repeated in a story format as that is generally how I receive it. 

"Long ago there was much crossover from the Otherworld to the human world, and some had such interest in the earthly realm that they chose to make permanent homes there, creating settlements and establishing communities. The Other, children of the Queen of Apples, flourished within both worlds, using their skills and knowledge and magic to shape the reality around them. 
   When the humans of earth encountered the Other initially they lived in harmony, each wary of the other but respectful. The Other had magic and Power that humans lacked but humans had boundless creativity and an ability to innovate; each harnessed their own gifts to their advantage and each learned from the Other. 
   But this harmony was not to last. Just as the Other had found a place in the earthly realm so to had the basdán, the Children of the Transfixed One, beings of decay and unmaking. And while the Other were willing to live with humanity and even exchange with them the basdán understood only death and destruction. And humans rarely differentiated between the two types of being, seeing only that which was foreign to their reality and that which had Power. The basdán spread suffering where they went and stirred up turmoil, sowing misery like wheat into fresh turned soil. 
   This led to humans seeing all that was Other as dangerous and deadly to them, and they fought back in their own defence, attacking the Other and the basdán equally. The harmony between the groups was unwoven and replaced with enmity.
   The Other had magic and Power but humans had creativity and innovation and more than that, they had far superior numbers. The Other reproduced rarely and with difficulty, but human populations quickly grew; population to population it was over before it began, and the Other knew that it was futile to try to fight. Earth was not their world, no matter how much some had grown to love it, and every one of Them killed was a deep loss for their entire community, a voice in the eternal song that was taken forever, because while they were immortal in the Otherworld, a spirit that could shed its shape and regain it, this was not so in the earthly realm, which is why they called it the mortal world - mortality stole away all who died there, unmaking them and absorbing their spirit.
   To avoid these conflicts and risks the Other withdrew their communities back to their own world, leaving bridges and gateways through which they could travel back and forth. Earth became not a home but a foreign land that could be travelled and explored and interacted with with less risk to the most vulnerable among them. when they were in the mortal world they wove spells around themselves to hide from human eyes and they wove glamours around themselves to pass as human when the need arose. And so a new balance was found, for a time. A balance born of subterfuge rather than cooperation. 
    This new uneasy peace lasted for a time, with the Other still interacting with humans, but in a way that they controlled. Sometimes they were helpful sometimes dangerous and stories of Them became legends and folktales among humans. Still alliances were forged and relationships and even deeper bonds; sometimes a human would be brought into the Otherworld to find a new home and sometimes - less often - one of the Other would choose to live a mortal life. Children were born who belonged to both worlds, and while conflicts did occur, there was a balance.
   Then things changed again, as humans harnessed the power of the basdán, just as they had learned to use a small bit of the Power of the Other, and began a focused effort to drive them all out, to cut them off from the mortal world. They had called the Other Gods once and spirits and fairies but now they called them demons, and fear replaced respect."

 

The Nature of Gnosis & the Mothers

Sorry for the lack of posts in a while its been quite busy.

Today I wanted to talk about something that maybe we don't talk about as much, and a lot of material put out into the world doesn't discuss - what happens when we get spiritual messages or insights we don't understand. I'll be lumping those concepts under the term gnosis for this discussion. 

This may just be me, but when I read other people's gnosis material it always seems to be presented as an amazing thing that the person immediately grasped. World changing information or poignant insight or deep cosmology, laid out for the person in ways that make the meaning self evident, or carefully explained. 
  Maybe the Othercrowd I deal with just don't work that way? In which case I could almost envy those who have everything presented in such clear ways. But I think that I can't be the only one who sometimes - or often - is dealing with obscurity and opaqueness. I feel that I am given puzzles to solve as often as I'm given clear answers, and usually the clear answers only come when I have repeatedly failed to get the idea otherwise*. There's a degree of impatience on Their part as I slog my way through metaphysical concepts that quite frankly break my brain. 
  I have several times been given things in Irish, which I am not fluent in, and had to struggle to translate. This is particularly difficult when its longer messages or in one case a song that I have to remember then try to write down afterwards. I've also been given messages - like being warned about the pandemic - that only made sense in hindsight in part because my own perspective was so limited and my assumptions about the concept limited me further. 

  I find that gnosis is very difficult. Its a constant process of taking what's given and then working - hard - to understand it. Very rarely do I get things that are clear and straightforward and easy. But on the other side of that coin it is worth the effort to suss things out. Every time I fit a new piece to that puzzle the picture it makes becomes clearer and I get a bit closer to feeling like I actually understand, in some small way, things that are otherwise beyond my comprehension. It can be enormously frustrating to always struggle to get each little bit, but things do come clear in the end (usually). 
   If you feel that way too then my advice is don't give up. Other people may make it seem easy and fluid but it isn't for everyone. It isn't for me. Its difficult, but its worth it. 

So in the spirit of the above I want to share a message from a recent meditation (note the colors are literal, not allusions to human skin colors):
"The Red Mother is the blood of life
The pulse and struggle and joy
The Black Mother is the fertile earth
The source of birth and rebirth
The White Mother is bone & death
The one who takes and returns
The Green Mother weaves all together
Into a single inseparable wholeness
Presence & possibility & impermanence"

No I don't entirely understand what it means.
No it isn't allusions to named goddesses.
No it's not about archetypes.
I was meditating on who the Other might or would worship and got that.
I asked in a bold follow up question if the Red Mother was the Queen of Apples, or another name for Her, and was very bluntly told I don't understand anything.
So that's fun.

I know that this information is important, but I don't yet know exactly how or why. I'll keep puzzling it out until I eventually get it, but there is a level of frustration. I want to understand it, it pulls at me, but I just don't yet. In a way its like looking at a beautiful work of art that makes you cry and not understanding why it evokes that emotion. 

No matter how easy some carefully curated and presented gnosis might seem to be, the truth in my opinion is that gnosis is messy. Its complicated and convoluted and hard to understand sometimes and that's alright. Spiritual insights and messages are personal and they speak in a language of symbols and metaphor and layers.

*I only found out the name of my fairy Queen because I pieced together context clues, arrived at a very wrong conclusion, boldly suggested it, and she was so annoyed at how wrong I was that she told me the correct answer. 

Wherein the Danger Lies

Modern fairies (by any names) are viewed in vastly different ways by different people and groups of people. To some, fairies are intrinsically dangerous and must always be avoided. To others, fairies are intrinsically good and only ever do helpful things. My own approach is very much a middle road - I don't believe that fairies are entirely any one thing or that their motives can easily be understood in most situations. They are, in short, their own people with culture and etiquette and agency and agendas. They may help or they may harm based on their own reasoning in a situation and that rarely lines up with human concepts.

I am a person who is rather deeply involved with the Shining Ones and yet I'm also someone who regularly warns other people not to jump in to interacting with these beings. Why? Because in my own experience too many people love the idea of fairies without grasping the reality of fairies. They see the beauty and the magic -the enchantment - of these beings but don't see them as actual independent life forms. And in many cases they envision themselves like the main character of a novel, clearly playing a central and vital role that insulates them from harm or even real consequences.
And none of that is good.
We can't, as people who claim to believe in these beings and seek to connect to them, treat them this way. You either believe they are real or you don't. And if you do believe they are real then you need to accept that they exist outside humanity, however overlapping they may be at times, and that they deserve to be respected as much as any living thing does. You also have to accept that they aren't just another version of humans, but a distinct thing of their own (yes even the ones who were human once).

Certainly there are a wide range of types of beings that fall under the general label of 'fairy' in English and certainly some of those beings are friendlier and more forgiving than others, some are even along the lines of the post-Victorian ideas of fairies as tiny, helpful, disembodied, et cetera. But that's only some. And while I do know people who only interact with those safer beings and have only had positive experiences I also know others who have expected the tiny helpful fairies and gotten bitten instead (in some cases literally).

They exist outside of humanity and follow different rules and we need to acknowledge that in seeking to understand them.

I have experienced enormous blessings from the Good Folk and have also been harmed by them. The first is usually coming from a specific group I'm aligned with and owe fealty to, while the second is usually (not always) coming from outside that group. Because even though I have a close connection to one group of the Gentry it doesn't mean I have carte blanche with every Otherworldly being. In fact my allegiance to one group puts me at odds with others who are against that group, because just like humans the Good Folk have their own friends and rivals, allies and enemies - and as a human when you step into that you bear the consequences of involvement and you are, always, inherently, the weakest link for them and the most expendable.
For one fairly tame example, when I was in Iceland I generally had good experiences and interactions with the local spirit beings. But when we went to Dimmuborgir, the home of Grýla and the Yule Lads, it was quickly made clear that I was not welcome there. I respected that and didn't push, because I understood that it was an issue of wider connections and animosity between the Other. Things like that happen sometimes and this is when we most need to remember that we aren't the main character in a novel, because consequences of offending some beings are very, very tangible. 

This is a story I heard once.
A man in Ireland, about 100 years ago, was walking home when he met with a group of the Daoine Maithe. They told him they were going to play a game against a rival group of Gentry and needed a referee. The game could only be played with a human present and with a human as the impartial arbiter of the rules. He agreed and went along with them to the field the game was to be played at.
The group he'd met first won, fairly, but the rival group swore they'd have their revenge on the human man for his part in their loss. Meanwhile the first group promised him luck and fortune, and took him back home celebrating.
Three years went by with the man living a good life.
And then one night when the fairies' hurling match was far from the man's mind and he was travelling the road a fairy man of the rival group passed him and gave him the fairy stroke. He fell in the road and never rose in his right mind again.
Humans forget. The Othercrowd do not. And being involved with them is both a blessing and a target on your back in these situations. 

And since the theme of this blog tends to be me sharing messages from my Other People, I suppose I 'll wrap up with this* from my main guide/cara sí: "Are we dangerous? Of course we are. Anything is if provoked to it; even mice will bite to defend themselves, thorns will draw blood, and bees will sting. Are they dangerous? Do you fear them, or do you understand that it is your action which earns the bite or prick or sting? Actions earn responses and it is the action that begins it that should be examined.
Asking if we are dangerous is the wrong question. What should be asked is why would we be dangerous? Because the real answer lies there."




*it is a fairly brief response because she seemed to find the question ridiculous, or perhaps just really obvious.

Modern Myth - How the Otherworld Came To Be

 Part 2 in my series on modern myths is looking at how the Other came to be in our reality, as it has been relayed to me. 

Let me emphasize that this is MY OWN gnosis, and should be taken as such

View from Bri Leith in Ardagh, 2018, pic by me

"After reality was made, and the song and dance of the stars was in motion, and after That Which Is All birthed Life and Decay, the sacred and the básdan, many other forms of life came to be, both grand and subtle. Worlds were born, and with them various layers were added to reality, so that the human world came to be and adjacent to it the Otherworld - or perhaps that was the other way around. Each anchored the other, and each resonated with the other, so that they were separate but joined, like the moon circling the earth.

Life flourished in the various worlds and realities and dimensions and this life was diverse and wide-ranging. But each world was divided form the other, separated by space or perception or energy or reality. Some beings which existed in more fluid realms could move between these worlds like a bird that could walk or fly or swim at its own will, but most beings were bound to the world or reality they existed within, particularly if they had a physical, tangible form. The worlds existed and the life within them flourished and grew.

In the Otherworld those beings who had been Second in creation spun tales and molded their world and created new beings who were fashioned from primal reality and starlight and song, guided by Life without Decay's hand. They were immortal and if a physical form was lost it could be recreated or the consciousness could return unchanged in a new form. They in turn created other new beings and discovered the joys of physical bodies and birthed new generations, living in the Otherworld and learning how to read the flows of energy and life, how to shape those flows, how to make their own will manifest. But eventually they grew bored and restless.

The básdan, those created by the power of Decay also had a realm, a place that was inverse to Life, wherein all was perpetually unmade. An Unworld. Their magics were also subtle and overt, unweaving the strands of fate and time, pulling apart that which was so that they could push the fractured pieces into new forms that suited them. 

The earthly world existed between these two and included both Life and Decay, both birth of the physical and true death, wherein a consciousness that lost physical form lost cohesion. Some in the Otherworld who were bored and restless found ways to make bridges between the two worlds, as some of those who were in the Unworld found ways to pull apart the energy which separated the worlds to travel to the earthly world. Each began influencing and shaping the earthly world, and each in turn was influenced and shaped by it, all different voices in the universal chorus. 

Bridges once built can be travelled by those coming or going, and pathways between worlds ran in both directions."

Time

It is fairly well known that time moves differently between the human world and the Otherworld, although its less clear how exactly that works. Katherine Briggs suggest that the fire festivals act as a kind of anchor between the worlds, and also suggests that while humans cannot navigate the flowing tides of time the Good Folk can and regularly do. I've seen a lot of talk across the years by humans trying to sort out how this might work and trying to understand the concepts. I thought here I'd write a bit about what my Other friends have told me on the subject.
I admit its a lot to wrap your head around, and in some ways is contrary to how humans perceive things, anchored as we are in our perspectives.

I also want to add quickly that I have been previously told that while humans think in two dimensions - either/or, but/and, now/then - the Good Folk think in 5 dimensions which can roughly be described as three physical dimensions, existence, and time. Thinking in time isn't, as I understand it, as simple as thinking about the past or future but is more like constantly perceiving past/present/future and one's place within the flow. Its more encompassing than the human understanding of the concept. I'll be totally honest when this was told to me I didn't fully understand it and I still don't, but its probably worth sharing before we go further.

Hawthorn in fall, pic by author

So, having discussed a bit about the way time works differently for the Good Folk and also about how they may perceive it, and reality, I wanted to share something that was told to me in a dream several years ago. This relates to the idea of time but also to the way that the Good Folk themselves (or Themselves) view humans based on this, and the way that effects relationships they might have, of any sort, with a human. 

I was talking to my Other friend and it got into discussing them relating to humans and time and perspective. And she put it this way:
 "Imagine that for humans a year passes in an hour, while for us it is merely an hour. You may accomplish a lot in an hour if you focus on it but an hour can also slip by virtually unnoticed if your attention is elsewhere. Now imagine that you tell someone you will do a thing for them and perhaps you do right away but perhaps you dally and when you realize *hours* have passed its actually been years for them in the mortal world.
Imagine that you grow exceptionally fond of someone only to watch their life pass in what, to you, feels like 3 or 4 days. No matter how you may try to cherish each hour, still they pass quickly. Of course time flows as it does but for us a year truly does seem to pass so quickly, no matter how anchored we may seek to be in the human world. You can choose to connect to someone who only lives 3 days, or 3 months, or 3 years, but it does not change how fleetingly they pass."

So, basically, what she was saying is that humans might perceive the Other as mercurial or inconsistent when in fact they are simply operating on a different time scale and may or may not act in what humans consider a timely manner (pun intended). And that this different time scale also effects how they may or may not connect to individual humans, because generally to them humans are as fleeting as spring flowers are to us.

This isn't to say they don't follow certain tides of the human year, which they do, but the impression I got is that to them these are more like a daily routine than the yearly cycle we perceive. Its a very different perspective. And of course these are all just loose analogies to convey the wider point, not literal comparisons. 

The 'Great War': Unmaking vs Making

 I honestly thought I had written about this before because its a subject I've discussed privately for several years with friends but after reading several recent blogs I realized I'd never put this out publicly. So here we go. 

So for context you might start by reading 'The Great War Pain Hope and Turning the Tides and The Otherworldly Tides of the Great War to get caught up on the wider subject. The brief summary is that the human world, specifically but not exclusively the so-called western world, has been in the midst of upheaval for the last half dozen and more years and that this upheaval is not only visible in the human world but has also been felt or experienced in the Otherworld by people sensitive to it, and that there are Otherworldly forces at work in the midst of the human conflicts, as well as Otherworldly conflicts playing out. 

This has been a topic of discussion across several different esoteric communities since at least 2015 and publicly since 2018/2019. Some call it The Storm or Tower Time. The above linked blogs refer to it as the Great War. I don't know what exactly I'd choose to call it as I find every convenient term lacks nuance. 

My friend Seo Helrune and I have been discussing the wider theme and specifics around what's going on from the Otherworldly angle across the years and the ways that it has and is tying into human world conflicts and issues (including the pandemic). From the more Otherly perspective I would say we're seeing a conflict between forces of unmaking and making which is playing out across worlds and across a variety of fronts (so to speak). This is a lot to try to unpack and as always with this blog what I'm about to say is my own gnosis and experiences largely focused on the US, so take that as you will. I'll try to unroll it all chronologically as best I can:

Around 2015 several of us noticed that the Otherworld was becoming more persistently present and active in the human world* and started discussing why that might be. Certain trends started to crop up: of the Other recruiting people, especially witches; of the Other directly harming people; of the Other being experienced more widely by people usually unaware of it. As more time wore away these trends became more obvious and more intense. We started to notice that the usual tides of the Otherworld against the human world - the long standing pattern of increased and decreased presence - had stopped flowing and instead we were perceiving a constant slow build up; the tide would crest and then not recede as it usually had, instead creating a new constant which would then rise again. 

In 2019 this had reached a point where the Tower Time/Storm discussions were more public and where I started writing about the return of the Other and the re-enchantment of the world, in the old raw sense of enchantment - a dangerous, alluring spell that could snare people. This return wasn't without pushback, as I noted in my blog 'The Return of the Otherfolk and the Puritan Egregore' because the Other hadn't chosen to leave the human world, they had been forced out most notably by Christian dominionism. The Other pushing to return came up against the egregore of the Puritans and hardcore Christian beliefs in the US, a loosely embodied force that was opposed to anything not of itself. This situation was further complicated - again notably seen starting in 2019 - by the presence of an opposing non-human force which was the sum total of the beings who were diametrically opposed to the Othercrowd et al and which sought only chaos and death. My own Folk call these beings the 'basdán' which is a bit hard to parse in English, but effectively those who seek to unmake all things, who are without fate. Not death because death is part of nature but something deeply against the cycle of life. 

It was a conflict between life and unlife, between wholeness and unhaelness, between making and unmaking. 

And it turned into open warfare among the Other, who were actively fighting against this force and also actively fighting to regain a place in the human world. I won't get into the deeper specifics here but to say that in part it involved literal battles in the Otherworld and more subtle battles in the human world. 
I was warned about the pandemic in late 2019, although I have to admit I didn't fully understand the warning or grasp what was to come. In January 2020 I was flat out told there would be a pandemic, although again I didn't grasp what that was going to mean or how it would play out. I am not saying that the Other created the pandemic but I do think they have used it to forward their own agenda over the last several years. 

What is that agenda? To take back their place in the human world and all that was taken from them. 

But this goes beyond the Other as I said, and over the last three years things have continued to sharpen. The Other is still fighting, the puritan egregore is not only still fighting but succeeding, and the Basdán, the unhael, are continuing to gnaw away at the edges of everything. Its war on three fronts in that way and the human world is stuck in the middle as both the field of battle and the prize. 

For my own part my Other have strongly emphasized the power of solar symbols and things like gold, amber, red stones, for protection. They have repeatedly encouraged heavy duty cleansing of a spiritual nature and to stay on guard against unseen spirit dangers. They encourage a disengagement from all things Christian** and a focus on embracing the things I've previously written about here - breath and life and joy where it can be found. My human-world friends, in the articles linked above, have also encouraged things like joy and hope as weapons against what is happening and what is coming. 

We are in an energetic pivot point but we aren't helpless within it. 
We must choose life. 

*again specifically referencing western cultures here. I can't speak to other places although I suspect that this isn't limited to just so-called 'western civilizations'. 

** my lot have never been fans of that religion, to be fair

Familiar Spirits

 I know when most people hear the term 'familiar spirit' they immediately think of either an early modern demon in animal form or a witch's beloved pet. For me though its neither of those - I think of fairy familiars and of a being who has been with me since I was a child. 

First a bit of background. Fairy familiars are a concept we find in early modern witchcraft; they are Fairy beings who are connected to a witch and who act as a go-between for the witch and the Good Folk. (I discuss this in depth here). The relationship between a witch and fairy familiar is very different from what we might envision for other types of familiars - the witch is the one who is in service, for one thing, and the relationship between the two is often very intimate or personal, either as lovers or as family members. 

In Ireland we see an overlapping concept, that of the Leannán sidhe - literally fairy lover. This idea goes back at least a thousand years in Irish myth and folklore around one of the sidhe known to be the lover of a human; usually thought to protect & sometimes offer knowledge to their human lover, they could be of either gender. The term was also used to translate the Biblical 'familiar spirit' because it was understood to be a similar concept. For example in Bedell's 1642 'Leabhuir na Seintiomna', Isaiah 3 & Samuel 8, uses the term leannáin síghthe for familiar spirits.

There are multiple ways for a person to acquire a familiar, although with fairy familiars they are usually given to a person by a fairy monarch or come to the person to establish a connection between them and the Good Folk. While they fall into the general range of familiar spirits they are a specific category within that and have their own unique aspects and qualities.

I think what this all looks like in practical terms will be different for each person. I can talk about historical accounts and I can talk about my own experiences - which I will below - but I don't think there's any one template for how this goes. I'm not even sure that the different schools of thought on it or people who have these connections agree on why or how they exist, never mind the details of it all. So while I will offer a bit on my own experiences here I do want people to be clear that this is entirely my own experience 

I have mentioned in various places that I have always had the Othercrowd around me, even before I really understood what they were. I have distinct memories as a young child - perhaps 5 years old - of a woman with dark red hair coming into my bedroom at night to comfort me when I was scared; only later did I realize she was a woman of the sidhe. She has continued to be a presence for me and is one of my main connections among the Other to this day. She has told me that we are 'family' and she often acts as a guide or mentor for me now. I did nothing to invoke or call her but she seems to have her own reasons for wanting this connection.

When I was 12 I started practicing witchcraft and began to open up to and learn about magical practices. Several years later, when I was around 14, I met my fairy familiar, although due to some extreme foolishness on my part at the time I offended him in such a way that I did not see him again until I was 24. Honestly I'm lucky he came back at all, usually in similar situations the Otherworldly being goes never to be seen again. I'll often talk about the care needed around the Othercrowd because their reactions can be extreme, and this is one of the things I think of, but in this case I was very lucky that I was given a second chance. Since he returned he has become another foundational presence in my life, helping to shape my spirituality and acting as a familiar to me - a go-between for me and the Fairy Queen I serve and the Good Folk more generally - and in the older role these beings take in Irish culture. As with her I didn't call or invoke him but I believe he initially came at a time when I was first opening up to magical work, and then returned at a point where I had started to deepen my spirituality and reconnect particularly to the aos sidhe.
Both of these beings are vital to my spiritual practice but also to me personally. They have taught me many things which I incorporate into my witchcraft and more than that have been an anchor for me throughout my life. 

For me having a fairy familiar or a fairy guide, if I might call her that, is a key aspect of my practice but also of who I am as a person. 

Words and Deeds

 This is yet another case of my saying something offhanded in a visionary experience and getting a lecture for it. Which is always fun. So I thought I'd pass along the lecture, pretty much as I got it. 
Enjoy.

In the course of a conversation I happened to say, "People's words and deeds don't always match up. That's why I trust actions more than words."

 My friend stopped, her expression growing stern, and said, "That is so for humans because human words have no weight to them, no strength. Humans speak stories that are whimsy and folly as much as Truth. But it is not so for us. Our words are stories as well, as all words are, but they are stories that are True. We know that what is spoken has power, has force to shape reality, and so we are careful to speak that which we want to form. We aren't careless with our words and never so with our promises. 

Some humans call us deceptive and we are, because we know how to shape words that suit us and mean what we choose, but we never outright lie no matter how we might twist our words. A human can always trust what we say to be true, the challenge for them is to find the meaning that we intend with the words. Do we give a name that is false? No for names are like clothing, taken on and off as need dictates, and chosen to suit occasions.  Do we mislead with our words? Certainly but only because the person hearing them sees what they want to see in what is said, rather than its true intent. It is not, in truth, actually we who mislead but people who mislead themselves by allowing their desire to cloud their reason. 

We always keep our actions aligned with our words and our words aligned with our intentions and Truth. To act against one's word or to speak against one's truth is a grave matter and something that must be immediately dealt with if the person's honor is to be maintained."

She stopped for a moment, still frowning, obviously thinking about how to phrase what she wanted to say. 

"Truth and its expressions - order*, harmony, action**, speech - are essential to maintaining sacredness and remaining in alignment with Life."

*I believe the intent here was something more like orderliness
** right action, action in line with intention

"We Will Re-Make You"

 8 years ago this month I had a visionary experience wherein I heard the voice of the main person I'm connected to among the Other chanting. The gist of the chant had to do with the idea of me being  re-made, re-shaped and at the time I didn't understood what it meant or why it was being done. This was about three years after I had made a major commitment to my Othercrowd and two years before my initiatory experience with them in Ireland.

Hindsight being what it is, some things have become more clear since then and I wanted to write this today to share with readers here some of the ways that my life and my physical self have changed. I am not suggesting anyone else do this or follow this, but want to show that this work is powerful stuff and really does impact a person. You can take it as a bit of a warning of you want about how deeply the deep work with the Good Folk can really get. 

So, I've written before about some of the dietary stuff that's come up (you can read the long version here Reshaped Living) but the short version is that I've been guided (read: corralled) into a diet that focuses on fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy, nuts & seeds, and water. It was made clear to me that they consider refined sugar to be poison* and prefer any and all foods that are fresh and still full of life energy. The fresher the better. 
I was also required to stop consuming caffeine. The coffee was a real struggle. The chocolate was worse. Those are probably my two main vices in life and I admit that they are not easy things for me to give up, even with a forceful Otherworldly assist. The explanation here, as I understand it, is that caffeine interferes with my ability to fully connect to them or otherwise blocks them in some way. 

On a similar note it was made clear that I could not smoke. Not that I ever smoked a lot but I did enjoy clove cigarettes on occasion, more so when I was stressed, and after marijuana was legalized in my state it had been suggested that I should smoke some for help with migraines. However Themselves don't allow it, again because its too grounding and blocks them out to some degree. 

(I should note that I have never been one to drink alcohol so that hasn't been an issue but I don't know where they'd stand on it) 

I have always had a sensitivity to iron but it has become a much more significant issue and moved into what I would classify as an allergy. And yes that is a real thing - you can read about it here - and its something that's noted in my medical chart and which I've dealt with since I was in my teens. It is possible that this is simply the result of my own immune system changing and becoming less tolerant of iron but it feels connected to the wider work I do. (I know, I know, correlation isn't causation). Its a huge pain in the butt, to be honest. 

I have a few personal prohibitions which were acquired after my initiation. Two of them I don't think apply here but the third does so I'll mention it: I can't cut my hair. Within a year of being told this my formerly straight hair began curling so that now, more than four years on, my hair is in loose spiral curls. That has been quite an adjustment as I really had no idea how to handle curly hair.

Some of these may seem incidental and some may seem extreme but I think its important to be clear that all of these things were instigated, I believe, by them and pivotally were enforced by them. If and when I try to deviate - and I do - it always ends badly for me one way or another. Chocolate turns to the taste and texture of chalk in my mouth. Cream curdles repeatedly in my coffee. Migraines become a blunt force weapon against my bad behaviour. 

And I must note that my consent was not needed at each step of this but only once at the very beginning. When I agreed to commit myself to them in 2011 everything that subsequently happened was because of that and my further consent for any of it wasn't required. And that is something that people very much need to be aware of.

This isn't an easy path. It has its blessings of course and its reasons to be done, but it isn't a thing that leaves a person unmarked or unchanged. The Good Folk have a heavy hand when it rests on us and a willingness to use it. 

*just a funny side note to this, I recently had run across something sugary in a cabinet and was debating eating it rather than wasting it by throwing it away and my Other people were not pleased. My main female guide asked me if I found rat poison would I eat that rather than waste it. Suffice to say it was thrown away. 

A Modern Myth - Creation

 This is going to be part of a new series I'll be working on featuring my own take on sacred stories. I'm starting, appropriately enough, with the idea of creation.

full moon on the autumn equinox over Eyjafjörður, Iceland, 2018

"No one who speaks knows how reality came to exist. Some say that it always was, is, and will be; a constant presence in which all other things find a place. But it is said among the oldest and wisest that That-Which-Was-And-Is birthed the stars, and the stars birthed the planets and all other cosmic beings. The stars also sang the First Song, the primal song, and danced the First Dance which set the pattern of all things. We understand that all things come from the stars and that they empower and fuel the cycles existence relies on to continue. 

From the First Song and First Dance came the greatest power, That Which Is All, the sentient spirit of existence, who is the song, and the dance, and all of manifest reality and the power that moves behind it. And from Her* came the two sides of all things, growth and decay, her children. They added their voices to the First Song so that a harmony and melody was achieved in the chorus and through this new song all sentient beings were created, filling the nascent worlds with depth and contrast. Each layer of new beings created and destroyed and shaped the reality around them, adding to the song with their own unique music. 

And so it has continued since, voices rising and falling as they weave into the song across time. And we in our small ways follow the guidance of the stars and sing and dance the great pattern to strengthen our connection to them and their power within us."

*I'm choosing to use she/her pronouns here because that's how the story came to me but I believe this Power is truly beyond the concept of gender.

 

Religion

 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. 

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. 

Touch is Sacred

 I was asked by a friend of mine who is a massage therapist what the Good Folk's opinion was on massage and whether or not they had such a thing. It was a great question so I decided to ask my friend among the Other and to write down the answer here. As you might expect the reply gets...interesting.

The initial response was: "Touch is sacred"
Because to me this immediately makes me think of all the examples when touch is painful or negative I looked for clarification which was of course met with annoyance. 
Her reply: "Violence isn't touch, violence is violence and it takes many forms. Yes violence can warp touch, can warp any sacred thing, into a tool for violence. But that is not what you are asking about. Touch is sacred. Touch is deliberate connection and interaction, it is choosing to engage physically with that which is around us and with other beings. Just as love is union between separate beings, touch is the bridge of that union."
Me: We touch a lot of things in our daily life though and a lot of things touch us. Is that all sacred?
Her: Living is a sacred act, most humans simply choose not to acknowledge that. Walking is sacred. Preparing and eating food is sacred. Sleeping is sacred. In all of this we choose to touch and in touching we choose to connect to that which is around us. Our feet touch the ground, our hands touch the food we prepare and eat, our body touches the place we sleep. We touch each other. All of these are sacred acts and all involve creating connections with our reality and with the world around us. 
Me: What is sacred then? What does it mean?
Her, sighing: "It means to be in harmony with existence, to understand and embrace our place within the greater weaving of life. Every breath is a prayer to the Power that is life. To create that is holy, to perpetuate it is holy, and to end it - in harmony with the weaving - is holy. Pleasure is sacred because it celebrates that harmony. Touch is sacred because it acknowledges the holiness in all things and honours it. All things exist in this balance, either working with the weaving or unweaving it, either existing in harmony or disrupting it, either sacred or basdan*. A thing can not be sacred or be made sacred it simply is or is not. That which is in harmony and filled with the weaving is sacred. It is a sate of being. This is what sacred is, to us at least. As I understand it humans have strange views of things."
Me: "Touch is sacred then, so do [the Good Folk] have a concept of things like massage and body work?"
Her, now humming thoughtfully. "Yes, but I suspect not as humans do. I'm unsure about these concepts in the human world. But massage for health, for mental well being, for pleasure**, these are all things we do. Such focused touching is good for the physical body and for the mental body, and we do this of course among ourselves and sometimes for others outside ourselves - the same way humans do [meaning animals, I assume] because of the many benefits of it. And lovers, well I would think that would be obvious. Touch is sacred and massage, focused medicinal touch, is not only physical but energetic. It needs extra care both by the one receiving it and the one giving it."
Me: "Because of the energy involved?"
Her: "Yes, because it creates deeper connection than casual touch. It is a form of union in its own way that needs to be respected and understood as sacred. But we enjoy it very much and see it as important."
Me: "Are there specific people who do this? As a career?"
Her: "As a life's purpose you mean? There are some healers who focus on this path yes. Many who are more casual in it. I would guess all have some experience or knowledge in one form or another."

*so she used an older Irish word for this or at least a combination of older Irish (the actual word doesn't exist as far as I know). I'm not sure the English translation carries the full meaning so I kept the original word she used here. It basically bas - death, deadly and dán - fate or skill. The meaning I gathered was something like deadened or 'empty of fate' or 'fate-death' as in death of fate. Its kind of hard to convey to be honest but I think its Their idea of the opposite of what is sacred. 

** so I gathered here that what she was referring to was what we might call therapeutic massage, massage for mental health purposes, and obviously massage between sexual partners. 

An Other Approach to Holy Days

I've spoken before about the way that my connection to the Good Folk has influenced my approach to holy days, specifically by changing my focus from solar/lunar scheduling to a calendar based on the yearly cycle of the Pleiades. This in itself was a seismic change and has altered my entire view of what holy days are. Coming from a more generally neopagan viewpoint of 'its all about the cycle of the natural world/agrarian life' to one that sees holidays a dance of co-celebration with the Holy Powers on a cyclic journey through time and reality which waxes and wanes in connection to alignment with the stars. 

That all said however there are other ways that my understanding has changed when it comes to every holiday and celebrating them, particularly how the Othercrowd approach this topic. While there is a cycle of different reasons to celebrate, and ergo foci, for each individual celebration there is also a fairly similar format and approach to every holy day that is far more constant than the human neopagan view. I am not advocating that humans adopt this approach necessarily but I wanted to share what I've learned in case it resonates with anyone else. So, things I've learned about how the Other approach holy days:

• 'Day' is a loose term by which they generally seem to mean something closer to 'period of time'. This may be several days or several weeks. This is not however a predictable fixed period of time and it tends to wax and wane based on many variables.
• A holy day must have a feast. That feast must be shared. Food and sharing of food is a pivotal aspect of any holiday and one of the crucial things that marks the celebration. This doesn't mean breaking your budget to have excessive extravagance but it means doing the best you can to make the meal special. I'd compare it to the US ideas around food on Thanksgiving for example.
• Holy days mean celebration, celebration means joy, and joy means sex (for the adults). Not necessarily or even primarily procreative sex, and not sex as duty or sex as symbolic act/sympathetic magic but sex for pleasure. They don't seem at all interested in this the way that some neopagans have equated certain spring holidays to 'celebrating fertility in spring in union with the earth planting cycle' and it isn't the base fetishization of it that we see in some places, its sex as a way to celebrate the happiness of the holy day (let me however mention here that the entire concept of sex is different to them, as I've previously discussed here)
• Their push to re-enchant the human world, or to place themselves more strongly into it, means a re-wilding of the energy which in turns means a very particular intensity around these times. The more you connect to this the more I believe you will feel that energy. 
• Many of the general rules and expectations of behaviour are softened or ignored at these times, both in good ways that allow more leniency and in bad ways that open more avenues up for things to go sideways. 
• These times are seen as truly sacred in a way that I'm not sure humans can fully comprehend. They are points when energy is harnessed by joint effort to strengthen community bonds and achieve group goals. They are essential. They create a transcendence of spirit that binds the Other together. 
• Celebrations are full of food, music, dance, sex, wild magic, and ecstatic experience

Or, basically, no one parties like the Other Folk.

This isn't universal to all the Other of course, just like focusing on the Pleiades isn't, and I'm sure that different groups and communities have their own ways and ideas here. But this is what I've learned from mine

On Wholeness

 Something that I hadn't even really given much thought to was the way that the human habit of categorizing everything often leads to us being very rigid about whether a thing is or is not something.  We just don't allow for much flexibility or blending of concepts or of identities. Maybe its a western culture thing, maybe its a US thing, I'm not sure but once it was brought to my attention it seemed so obvious. Even things that by their nature can't be neatly divided into distinct categories, like ancestry or religion or feelings, we nonetheless try to shoehorn into distinct boxes. Maybe there's some kind of comfort in it, as if we can understand a thing better of we can clearly define and delineate it. 
But things just don't work that way.

inside Loughcrew

What got me thinking about this was a dream.
I was talking to my friend among the Daoine Maithe and she was...let's just say annoyed. Annoyed at the way I was trying to understand something as either one thing or another. 
"Why not both?" she said, frowning, "Why can't you see that a person's nature isn't a serving of food to be divided up and portioned out? You can look at this apple and see that it is an apple, and red, and ripe, and hard, and know that it is a plant and you understand it can be all of those things at the same time, that they are all aspects of its  nature, but you look at other things, at people, and want them to be a single thing, to be this or that. But nothing is only a single thing. We are all a dizzying combination of things and those things change, expand and contract and reshape. You want a person to be human or of the sidhe, to be alive or dead, to be entirely one thing that you consider its nature but that is not Truth. A person cannot be divided into portions, measured as this much one thing and that much another; all things are whole within themselves. All things are True to themselves."

She was talking, in part, about the idea of belonging which is what had started that lecture. The idea that I had which was undeniably influenced by fiction and by cultural narratives, that someone can be partially part of something, like a culture. She rejected that entirely (pun intended) and tried to explain that people are always wholly whatever they are - wholly belonging or wholly not. Part of a community or outside it. To use an example Lugh wasn't half-Fomorian and half Tuatha De by her reckoning but wholly Fomorian and wholly Tuatha De; excepting he chose the Tuatha De and so aligned himself with that. Bres was his mirror, wholly Fomorian and wholly Tuatha De but ultimately choosing the Fomorians. In the same way she scoffed at the idea from modern fiction of half elves - you cannot be half an elf she said, nor half a human, because how could any living thing function that way? You can only and always be whole in yourself, the completion of all that you are. And sometimes that means being two things simultaneously, being an elf and a human, and finding a balance within yourself with those two things, to continue the metaphor. 

The wilderness doesn't just stop where civilization begins. The forest doesn't end where the meadow starts. The offspring of a horse and a donkey isn't half of each parent - it is the combination of them, the blending of them into a new whole which is both. In the same way we each as individuals are a combination of many things, of all of the things that have made us and are making us. And we are whole.
 Life is a messy, overlapping, shifting experience and so is who and what we are. 

Gifts and Balance

 The topic of fairy gifts - both those we give to them and the ones they give to us is something that is often talked about but usually either in abstract terms (what to do) or interpretive terms (what does this mean). Here I'd like to talk a bit about my impression of the importance and seriousness of gifts among the Other that I deal with. 

white snail shell, found at Clara House, 2019

That the Good Folk give gifts is certain and something we find mentioned across folklore and anecdotal accounts. In older accounts these are always things that have a practical value and can include tangible objects like money or herbs and intangible things like knowledge and skill. These gifts are not what we in modern Western culture tend to think of as a 'gift' because we come from a perspective that a gift is or should be freely given and have no 'strings attached' as it were. What we find in the examples we have however is that the strings are a part and parcel of the gift. Thomas of Erceldoune is given clothing and the gift of true-speaking but it is a payment for services rendered, and arguably to bind him to return to Elfland. Betsy Dunlop is given knowledge and skill to become a cunningwoman but is bound to serve the Fairy Queen. And some say that musicians who are given skill by the Good People lose their physical sight for it. Even fairy lovers follow this pattern, giving the gift of themselves in exchange for the human partner taking on geasa, or prohibitions.

Gifts are a serious business and how serious is directly in proportion to the importance of the gift. Little things like finding items as a sign or answer to a question have a small strings and may be in return for things already given by the human. Bigger things like healing or luck have bigger strings, and by bigger I mean both potentially heftier as well as possibly more long term. 

As my friend among Themselves puts it: "All things have a cost and no gift is truly free. An exchange should be a true exchange with both parties giving something and gaining something in proportion. The physical union of two people is such an exchange, the caring between souls is such an exchange, and giving gifts is such. When a gift is given one is also received and if it is not then something must be compelled to maintain balance. Many times when humans perceive us stealing or taking from them it is not that we are doing so in truth but that we are correcting imbalance by taking what we were rightfully owed because it was not properly given. Reciprocity is a concept to humans but it is intrinsic to us, part of our nature. Of course when we engage with humans or other beings outside the structure of gift giving there are different rules, one would not be bound to reciprocity in battle or the market or with ones food as such. But to engage with another through the medium of exchange, through gifts, is a fine dance of giving and receiving. It binds spirits together in specific patterns and creates relationships and obligations. One must never take such things lightly but respect the force they carry."

I did wonder if giving a gift forced or required engagement and her response was divided based on who was giving. She seemed to feel that if a human gave an unwanted gift, then there was often a layer of rudeness involved where taking it didn't require recompense but was in itself a way to return balance by viewing the unwanted gift as an apology for the rudeness. In other words you can't compel the Good Folk to owe you something by giving them something they didn't want to begin with because even if they accept it you've already changed the parameters so that what you gave them isn't a gift but an apology. On the other hand she did imply that humans taking unasked for or unexpected gifts did indeed bind them to this exchange and that if the human didn't offer a return then the Good Folk could choose what they wanted. 

Its a complicated subject but I hope this sheds a bit of light on things, at least from one perspective. 

Fiction, Fairies, and Culture

 I've been having an ongoing conversation with my friend Seo Helrune about the interplay between fiction and the Good Folk, specifically the way that human stories seem to shape and influence Them. This is something that we can trace across history, as these beings seem to slowly adapt to human expectations and imagery - for example the way that the Good Folk have never had wings, gained them in fiction and art, and then eventually began to appear with them in anecdotal accounts. The same way that the Seelie and Unseelie court system is uniquely Scottish but has slowly been gaining popularity in fiction and now in widespread anecdotal accounts and stories. The way we see them with pointed ears now. 

What humans believe about them seems to affect them - or just as possibly they play to our expectations. Either way the way our fiction and stories describe them eventually becomes what we get from them, at least to some degree. We've seen it in the way Shakespeare became belief and we've seen it with Tinkerbell becoming the template of fairies, and we see it now in people talking about Wyld Fae and the Unseelie as good guys in upg experiences. I don't personally believe we can entirely shift their nature away from what they are, at their core, and I know there are layers of older belief and also of experiences that line up with those beliefs. But there does seem to be a distinct and traceable correlation between human fiction and anecdotal accounts a generation or two later. 

I went and asked my Folk about this, and the response I got was rather, shall we say brisk: "We are malleable as humans are malleable, shaped by the stories that influence culture."

I hadn't thought about it before but of course she was right - humans are influenced by stories and human culture is shaped by it, although perhaps more subtly than what we may be seeing with the Good Folk. Perhaps because they are closer to the source of what we might call imbas, or awen, or imagination. I don't know.  

And the thing is, while we don't often stop and think about it, fiction does influence humans, sometimes profoundly. This is discussed in greater depth than I could hope to do in the articles 'How Stories Have Shaped the World', 'How Fiction Impacts Fact', and 'Human Culture and Science Fiction'. It can also be seen in the ways that Westernized stories and fiction have demonstrably effected non-Western cultures. Stories are carriers of cultures and of belief; when they are creating new beliefs those beliefs can become widespread, such as we see for example with Barrie's Tinkerbell who became the template of popculture fairies. 

So then where does that leave us? I think that when it comes to stories of the Good Folk we need to remember that its never just fiction even when its supposed to be. It has power, and we need to be sure we are using that power carefully and consciously. 
I suppose we can say the same things about our own fiction though, and I think we should be just as conscious of the stories we tell about ourselves with the understanding that they shape us. 

I think we are also seeing an increased tension over the directions fiction is taking the Good Folk on different fronts as They strive to control the direction and the shaping and other forces, including humans without a vested interest in the Other, push in different directions. There is a stream of writing that is placing them back into places of power and respect, that emphasizes their Otherness - and there is another stream that is doing the opposite and shaping them further into the post-Victorian nature spirit/guide view - and yet a third stream that is shaping them into the fulfillment of a human fetish, the perfect bad fae boy (or girl) with a good heart just waiting for the right human to save them from themselves.
And we will have to wait and see where everything ends up.