tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11115422933553226682024-03-18T10:26:52.506-04:00Living Liminally Reflections on the Déithe and an-déithe, living Paganism in a modern world, and devotion to the Daoine MaitheUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger249125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-19433284263800450882024-03-18T10:26:00.000-04:002024-03-18T10:26:20.847-04:00Fairy Facts: Slua Sidhe For this installment of fairy facts we're going to take a look at the Slua Sidhe, beings found in folklore as well as incorporated into modern Role Playing Games (RPGs). Åsgårdsreien by Peter Nicolai ArboName: Slua Sidhe (Irish) or Sluagh Sìthe (Scottish)In Irish the name translates to the Fairy Host or Army. In Gaidhlig the terms means Fairy People, Fairy HostIn Scotland the term may Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-84915176016097352462024-03-08T12:05:00.001-05:002024-03-08T12:05:15.321-05:00Book Review: A Fairy Path Today I wanted to do a book review on a book that recently came out that I particularly liked: A Fairy Path by Daniela Simina. I really liked the author's previous book Where Fairies Meet which is a comparison of Irish and Romanian folk belief around fairies so I was excited to see this one come out as well.One of the best things about Simina's work is that it fills a gap in the English Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-48756511991515011892024-03-05T08:58:00.000-05:002024-03-05T08:58:28.105-05:00Fairy Facts: Changelings For our next installment of fairy facts I thought we'd tackle one of the most widely misunderstood subjects: changelings. To be fair a changeling isn't a type of fairy, per se,; we have stories of a wide array of specific types of beings that leave changelings from the aos sidhe to trolls. They are called changelings instead of by a specific term because they are something that has been Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-7359399773816727082024-03-03T09:13:00.000-05:002024-03-03T09:13:32.632-05:00Fairy Facts: Cait Sìth A recent discussion on social media has motivated me to start a small series which I am going to call 'fairy facts' which will offer a brief overview of specific types of beings often labelled as fairies or within the wider purview of the subject. This will not be an in-depth full article - I have already written a book, A New Dictionary of Fairies, that deep dives into various fairies and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-54955747643264258642024-02-21T15:42:00.005-05:002024-02-21T15:42:44.758-05:00The Cailleach This material is expanded from the Cailleach entry in my book 'Gods and Goddesses of Ireland'.The Cailleach's Stone, Cork, picture by me 2018“Ebb-tide has come to me as to the sea;old age makes me yellow;though I may grieve thereat,it approaches its food joyfully….I am Buí, the Cailleach of Beare;I used to wear a smock that was ever-renewed…”<!--[if !supportLists]-->-  Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-83030588769636631032024-02-04T11:39:00.000-05:002024-02-04T11:39:38.528-05:00Three Book Reviews: Folklore 101, Fairytale 101, Sex Education 101Today I wanted to do a combined review of three books by the same author, dr Jeana Jorgensen, because while the topics vary the wider purpose of each book is the same, to offer a solid basic introduction to a complicated topic. This goal is admirable and one I share myself, because I think that its important to have material that can bridge the gap between layperson and academic, and can offer a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-89521687080909760922023-12-06T08:57:00.000-05:002023-12-06T08:57:06.100-05:00My Published Work to Date 2023 This year's updated list of all my published work. 2023 may best be described as the year of the magazine articles, but I did squeeze some other things in as well.
Bibliography
Articles
“Healing
Ritual for the Ocean Waters”, Circle Magazine issue 109 summer 2011
“A
Gaelic View of Samhain”, Celtic Guide, vol. 1 issue 10 Oct. 2012
“CelebratingUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-31022208667149069322023-12-04T10:35:00.000-05:002023-12-04T10:35:58.160-05:00Christmas Traditions, Paganism, and Some History Every year I see social media absolutely flooded with terrible misinformation about the 'pagan' origins of several Christmas traditions. I wrote about this in 2015, covering some of the main claims at the time but that was 8 years ago and its worth revisiting this one. There is a driving determination to claim that Christians stole absolutely everything from pagans which I think we need to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-55905715475076913012023-11-20T11:25:00.001-05:002023-11-20T11:25:18.020-05:00Review: Celtic Goddesses, Witches, and Queens Oracle I have always had a weakness for tarot and oracle decks because I love to see the different artistic interpretations applied to each card. But, as anyone who is interested in them knows, the market has become really glutted with decks over the last few years, to a degree that its hard to maintain any excitement for them (at least for me). There are a few exceptions to that though and this Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-13486720200297329332023-11-03T05:32:00.000-04:002023-11-03T05:32:28.271-04:00Book review: Bogowie Doing things a little different today, a book review of a subject I actually don't know much about. I thought it would be fun to dig into a subject that's new to me so today we're going to be talking about T. D. Kokoszka's book 'Bogowie: A Study of Eastern Europe's Ancient Gods'. This one is out through my publisher Moon Books.Bogowie is a fascinating dive into Slavic paganism from an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-22439704326889997912023-10-13T15:29:00.000-04:002023-10-13T15:29:34.930-04:00Fairy Folklore in CoralineIn 2021 I had started a series of posts examining fairy folklore found in popular movies and shows. I've been on a bit of a hiatus from that but wanted to return to it with a look at Neil Gaiman's Coraline (the movie, not the book). Obviously I am not trying to argue here that the author's intention was to frame the story this way, although it may well have been, but what I want to do here is to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-65714381919605729652023-07-23T10:52:00.001-04:002023-07-23T10:52:03.163-04:007 Things About Irish Mythology Today I thought it would be good to cover some points about Irish mythology that are important for people interested in the subject to know. These include common confusions as well as helpful tips and I hope people will find it all interesting. Of course for some readers this won't be new information but for others it may be the first time they're seeing these ideas, so I'm trying to cover Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-3432883203720139622023-05-23T09:40:00.002-04:002023-05-23T09:40:44.070-04:00Freya's Cats The subject of Freya's cats came up recently on social media, so I wanted to share this excerpt from my forthcoming book Pagan Portals Freya. I hope this may clarify some points, as this summarizes the information we have from the older sources and may help people differentiate between new ideas and stories and the older beliefs. Cats –
Freya is said to travel in a chariot pulled by Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-28339528022138100072023-05-05T11:21:00.006-04:002023-05-05T11:22:58.751-04:00All of My Fairy Writing I've been asked several times about what I've written on fairies by people looking into my writing on the subject. I finally decided it would just be easier to write a quick bit here about it. I'm including articles, presentations, and books. I am not including the range of my blog material on Living Liminally or on Patheos Agora: Irish-American Witchcraft or Witches&Pagans On the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-35723876892461469962023-05-01T11:45:00.000-04:002023-05-01T11:45:13.571-04:00Bad Meme: Beltane Edition Several years ago I had done a few posts seeking to clarify confusion around popular things on social media relating to specific pagan holidays including Yule, Samhain, and 'Ostara'. I've never done one for Bealtaine mostly because I haven't seen a huge amount of misinformation about it being shared around. That is starting to change, at least a bit, so today I thought I'd tackle a couple Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-69479161605819584802023-04-05T09:16:00.000-04:002023-04-05T09:16:33.960-04:00Ask Me Anything - fiction Its been a while since I did an Ask Me Anything style blog and also a while since I wrote about my fiction so I thought that would be fun to do today. I've collected some questions from social media and am answering them here for everyone. Feel free to add additional questions in the comments if you'd like. Nicole: What’s your favorite fictional book that you have written?My Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-35364140375346603852023-03-27T12:06:00.000-04:002023-03-27T12:06:04.653-04:00Sacred Tattooing I have always seen tattooing as a sacred process, a way to permanently embed images and symbols into the flesh that have a transcendent meaning. All of my tattoos contain this level of meaning and are first and foremost for me spiritual and secondarily art work. Even the process of being tattooed has spiritual implications for me, and I have often approached the experience as an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-68563293099251694212023-03-12T12:24:00.001-04:002023-03-12T12:24:29.321-04:00Theosophy's Impact on the Pagan View of Fairies Note: In this piece I'm going to be making some generalizations which may not apply to all neopagans but which do hold true for a majority that I have looked into. A main influence on the neopagan view of fairies, which is rarely acknowledged, is theosophy and more particularly the writings of Helena Blavatsky. Blavatsky herself is a controversial figure, accused of rampant plagiarism Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-39984594151041166392022-12-28T10:44:00.000-05:002022-12-28T10:44:04.444-05:002022 Recap This year has been a challenging one for me but I kept moving forward, and I wanted to offer a quick recap here for everyone.I had four articles published in magazines this year:
“Imagining Fairyland”, Pagan Dawn, Imbolc issue, 2022 no 222
“The White Elephant in the Room: Racism and Diversity in Fairy Belief”, Witches & Pagans Magazine, issue 39, 2022
“Fairy Queens and Witches”, Pagan Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-8563794662067858562022-12-06T06:39:00.032-05:002023-01-03T09:53:21.025-05:00What Do Fairies Look Like?
When you imagine what a fairy looks like, what do you picture?
For most people the mental image is strongly shaped by pop-culture and artwork, and these in turn are largely products of an idealized cultural aesthetic, influenced by those outside actual belief. Although Tolkien-style elves may be an accurate representation of one type of Fairy being, the idea that all fairies are tall, litheUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-57617920767324452442022-10-19T10:56:00.002-04:002023-01-03T09:53:26.616-05:00Pre-Christian Celtic Fairylore? I recently shared a comic by Zach Weinersmith which featured a 'traditional Celtic folklore fairy' who, at one point, mentioned stealing a human soul for the fairies' tithe to Hell. I shared it because the comic is funny but unsurprisingly - because social media is what it is - received some pushback from people over the idea of the tithe to Hell which they felt was problematically Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-22856939721873862152022-10-05T20:54:00.001-04:002022-10-05T20:54:58.255-04:00Top 10 Horror Movies Since we're into October I thought it would be fun to do a list of my top 10 favourite horror movies - feel free to add your own in the comments. Outside of a few close friends most people probably don't know that I'm a big fan of the horror genre. I've watched horror since I was about 12, saw Halloween for the first time, and fell in love with the entire concept. Probably less Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-75871484042454956632022-09-22T07:29:00.003-04:002022-09-22T07:29:44.440-04:00Following the Pleaides As some people are aware for the last four years I have been researching the Pleiades from a spiritual perspective and working to create a system of rituals connected to it. As we approach the four year anniversary of the experience in Iceland which led me onto this path I wanted to recap how things have gone so far. image of Pleiades by NASA, public domainI've talked about the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-49357802673826428922022-09-05T10:51:00.002-04:002023-01-03T09:53:31.649-05:00Tolkien, Stereotypes, and Diversity I've written here before about representation and racism in fairy media and later expanded that into a full length article which was published in Witches & Pagans magazine under the title 'The (White) Elephant in the Room: Race & Identity in Fairy Lore'. In both of these pieces I emphasized the diverse descriptions of fairies, elves, and other Otherworldly beings that we find Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1111542293355322668.post-28605339091525391932022-08-17T12:20:00.003-04:002023-01-03T09:53:34.390-05:00Folklore in Legend The 1985 movie Legend is often classified as a dark fantasy but it contains many themes from older folklore. So today lets look at some of the folklore we find in the film and how it is incorporated into the story. 1551 woodcutting of a unicorn https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_unicorn._Woodcut_after_C._Gessner._Wellcome_V0021193.jpgSpoilers ahead:For those unfamiliar the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1