Theosophy and the Cottingley Fairies: the reshaping of fairy belief in the early 20th century

 This article was written for and published in 'The Cottingley Fairy Photographs: New Approaches to Fairies, Fakes, and Folklore'. After the book's publication it was released on academia.edu and shared for patrons only on my Patreon. I am now making it public on both my patreon and my blog. I encourage people who find this subject interesting to read the book which contains a variety of articles looking at the Cottingley hoax from different angles.

This text is my unedited original; the published versions contains some minor differences.

Theosophy and the Cottingley Fairies: the reshaping of fairy belief in the early 20th century

By Morgan Daimler

 

Introduction

The understanding of fairies in England that would have existed, particularly among children, in the early 20th century was shaped by a confluence of cultural factors which pervaded the late 19th and early 20th century and which reshaped the popular idea of fairies away from potentially malevolent, often human-sized beings and into twee butterfly winged sprites. This transformation was mainly influenced by Theosophy, Victorian popular ideas about fairies, and the early Edwardian romanticism of both childhood and the fairies which came to represent it. This reshaped belief, particularly popular among children, influenced not only the Cottingley photos but also their reception and the wider narrative around them which played into the expectations of the time.

 

Folkloric Fairies

The fairies that populate both folk belief and older literature are beings that can be helpful or dangerous, that enchant and terrify, that are intrinsically bound to humanity yet equally intrinsically foreign to humanity. They exist in different environments, across cultures, with a variety of personalities and habits, and in a wide range of forms[1]. The term itself, although falling out of favour, was for a long period used as a catchall word, an English term that was applied to both other languages in translation as well as used in a generic sense; more specific words are favoured today. The fairies of England are also beings who each generation claims as a relic of the past and yet persist in belief so that across 400 years they have always lingered into the new generation[2]. They are perpetually leaving and yet never gone, beings that persist in folk belief and in literature, and which show a remarkable adaptability in their persistence. Fairies in folklore are the fodder of other media, and have always been so, yet they have rarely faced greater changes than have been seen since the end of the Victorian era which re-envisioned them and changed them from terrors in the night which might be used to ensure children’s good behaviour into a child’s imaginary friend. Instead of warding the nursery with iron to keep them out, parents instead invited the fairies in as entertainment, filling bookshelves and picture frames with cavorting winged children. This tension between the folkloric fairies and those that would come to overtake popular culture is aptly illustrated in Kipling’s 1906 ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ where the eponymous Puck both avows that the fairies have all left England while also proclaiming, in the present tense, “Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don’t want to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head set of imposters? Butterfly wings indeed!”[3].

 

Theosophical Fairies

Theosophy was a powerful influence on the way that popular culture in the early 20th century would understand fairies, moving away from the wider, cultural folkloric views and into a popular culture understanding that permeated the world of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths during the period in which the Cottingley photographs were taken and published and has persisted through today. A spiritual movement that blended different contemporary occult ideas, Theosophy was begun in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky who freely borrowed ideas from various religions and spiritualities and merged them into her own personal theories. One aspect of this included fairies, who Blavatsky redefined to fit her wider ideas about the nature of reality.

The fairies of theosophy drew, to some small degree, from ideas laid out in the 15th century by an alchemist named Paracelsus who described elemental spirit which included a variety of beings usually considered fairies or falling under the wider umbrella of the concept[4],[5]. Fairies as actually understood in Theosophy though relied very little on precedent and instead leaned heavily into Blavatsky’s own theories of these beings, interchangeably referred to as nature spirits and elementals, which she described as less evolved souls seeking to eventually gain human incarnation and which were incapable of either true physical form or of higher intelligence[6]. This formed the basis of the wider Theosophical understanding of fairies, under any specific name, as both spirits of nature and as elemental forces which embody a particular natural element like earth or water, because all specific types of fairy beings are seen as cultural interpretations of a universal concept[7]. While Paracelsus’s elementals were or could be humanoid and capable of interacting with humans, even of reproducing with humans, Theosophy’s fairies or elementals were shaped by human perception, were intangible, and simplistic. They were, effectively, the embodiment of an aspect of nature which is seeking to evolve into human consciousness and form. They were also largely limited to their element, belonging to one of three elemental kingdoms that are seeking to evolve first into mineral then on into further more elaborate states until humanity is achieved[8].

This new spirituality was built on the bones of those that had come before, but unlike many other religions or occult traditions Theosophy attempted to anchor the fantastic within the rational. Theosophy envisioned itself as a merging of science and religion which sought to explain the supernatural within a wholly natural framework, to approach religion through science and science through religion[9]. This approach reflected wider ideas of the time, where folk belief was explained as a misunderstanding of natural phenomena rather than as genuine belief in something intangible. Changelings were rationalized away as children born with down syndrome, the fairy stroke that paralysed became the cerebral haemorrhage, and the fairies of Theosophy were explained as creatures of light and vibration which existed just beyond human perception.

Theosophy was popular with various prominent figures connected to the promotion of fairy beliefs of the time, most notably William Butler Yeats and George William Russell, both of whom promoted Irish fairy folklore to a wider audience, as well as WY Evans Wentz who sought explanations for who and what fairies were[10]. This reflected a contemporary union of occult spirituality and fairy belief that reflected a wider cynicism and yearning for simpler times coupled with a desire to believe[11]. Theosophist ideas moved fairies away from tangible reality and into the realm of imagination and mental perception, and the theories around elemental beings anchored them within the natural world, placing them within the realm of science. Those who followed Blavatsky in leading Theosophical thought further refined and delineated her ideas of these beings, describing both good and bad elemental spirits, and tying them firmly to fairies by using that term, as well as more specific ones such as kelpie or dryad, interchangeably with elementals[12]. Theosophy’s obsession with elementals impacted the wider cultural concept of fairies by changing them from the dangerous possessors of the forest into the protectors of the forest[13].

 

Victorian fairies

Victorian fairies in England were the result of various factors, including the previous literary adaptation of fairies coming out of earlier periods which miniaturized them, 19th century attempts to categorize fairies with science, and the effect of fiction and art which both infantilized fairies and placed them firmly within a romanticized notion of nature. This period is one of the most pivotal points in how popular culture would come to view fairies, with a surge in interest in romanticized folklore, nature, and entertainment. The fairies of folk belief became subjects of twee retellings and fairies more generally were rewritten and redefined away from dangerous and powerful beings and into the fodder of children's stories and art.

The earliest appearance of a tiny fairy can be found in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, completed in 1597, in which he describes a fairy queen named Mab as ‘'In shape no bigger than an agate stone; On the forefinger of an alderman'[14]. Shakespeare also describes the connection between fairies and insects in this work where his miniscule Mab rides in a wagon built from insect parts including spiders’ legs and grasshoppers’ wings. In 1627 this imagery was furthered in Michael Drayton’s poem ‘Nymphidia’ which describes the fairies of the English fairy court as tiny beings who can fit in flowers, use parts of insects and bats to build with, and contests against bees. This reflected cultural fascination with the miniature and an ongoing disempowering of folkloric fairies in literature, best described by Diane Purkiss: ‘The Elizabethans and even more so the Jacobeans loved the miniature. In their hands, fairies shrank to tininess.’ and ‘Reducing the other to miniature scale reduces it to manageability too, making it laughable.’[15]. This miniaturization was combined with a Romanticism of nature filtered through the esoteric view of fairies as elemental spirits, as described by the 15th century alchemist Paracelsus, to produce the earth and air fairies which would gain popularity in literature and art. This in turn formed the groundwork of the later Victorian understanding of fairies as small nature spirits.

The Victorian fairy stories not only emphasized the smallness of these beings but also their overall powerlessness, limiting their abilities to the garden and plants or trees more generally. This theme of powerlessness or limited ability to affect humans, as with the wider theme of miniaturization, can also be traced back into earlier periods of English literature. Pope’s 1712 ‘Rape of the Lock’ includes small, relatively powerless fairies and William’s Blake subsequent 18th and 19th century works also describe small fairies. Moving into the Victorian era these diminished, safer fairies were taken out of adult literature and framed for an audience of children, reducing fairies not only into the realm of insects but also moralizing them into goodness and infantilizing them so that they became both innocent and childlike. As Carole Silver explains it: ‘As the elfin peoples became staples of children's literature, the perception grew that they themselves were childish....Some of the tales promoted a false set of conventions, one that made the fairies tiny and harmless - moral guides for children or charming little pets - and a tradition of sentimentalization and idealization developed.’[16]

JM Barrie’s 1904 play ‘Peter and Wendy’ and subsequent 1911 novel ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ presents fairies that are in-line with these ideas: small, childlike, and with limited powers; Tinker Bell can aid Peter Pan in some ways but when she seeks to harm Wendy can only do so with the unwitting help of the Lost Boys. On stage in the play Tinker Bell was depicted as an indistinct ball of light who communicated through the sound of bells, existing largely through Peter Pan's perception and translation[17]. While slightly postdating the Cottingley fairy photos, Cicely Mary Barkers’s flower fairies nicely typify the culmination of these influences, with a range of art that depicted fairies as childlike figures clothed in the flowers or plants they were associated with. The tiny, glowing, nature-bound fairy may well be understood as the conglomeration of all of these influences into the 20th century. As Katherine Briggs aptly summarizes this overall rewriting of fairies as tiny and winged, ‘When [fairies] were given butterfly and dragonfly wings they were reduced to almost the status of insects, and in the sheltered days of the early twentieth century every care was taken to render them unalarming.’[18]

 

 Post-Victorian Fairies

As the Edwardian era advanced from the Victorian and English culture wrestled with the trauma of the first world war fairies came to embody all that was innocent, symbolic of an idealized existence full of dance, art, and joy[19]. These fairies were depicted, as in the Cottingley photos or Cicely Mary Barker’s artwork, as tiny, pre-pubescent children with butterfly-like wings who might cause some small mischief but mostly passed their time cavorting in nature and celebrating life. This understanding, if not the imagery, combined both the Theosophical ideas of fairies as less evolved spirits with childlike morals and minds, as well as the Victorian ideas about fairies as the purview of children. The connection to nature and wild places had also become firm within the wider imagination echoing the romanticism for an idyllic past that pervaded a now industrialized culture.

Fairies of this new, modern type, can be found across an array of anecdotal accounts including those of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths as well in both Marjorie Johnson’s mid-20th century ‘Seeing Fairies’ and The Fairy Investigation Soceity’s 21st century ‘Fairy Census’, demonstrating the indelible mark that these influences have had in sharp contrast to the view of fairies as human-sized and dangerous beings. The Cottingley fairy photographs and attached story played into various interests of the post World War 1 period and embraced a desire for a return to innocence and to an idealized English culture and offered an escape from the modern world and into whimsy[20]. Fairies during this period were creatures trapped between science and spirituality, between scepticism and belief, in a way that captured wider cultural themes of the time. Fairies were also beings who had been overtaken by their own, revamped, reputation so that their place in children’s stories and more widely as the purview of children meant that adults who believed in fairies were immediately seen as childish and unrealistic, with the esteemed folklorist Katherine Briggs noting that the Cottingley photographs were advocated for by ‘cranks and [those] into Theosophy’[21].

 

The Cottingley Hoax

The Cottingley fairy photos and the narrative that went with them emerged several years after the end of the Victorian era, in a milieu of mainstream fairy belief that had been established and popularized during that time. The tall, dangerous fairies of Celtic folklore had been largely changed into twee garden sprites that cavorted with children and spread whimsy, and it was these fairies who were captured in Elie Wright and Frances Griffiths’ stories and images in 1917. The first fairy that 10-year-old Frances Griffiths claimed to see was a tiny man clad in green hiding among willow leaves, and before the photographs were taken the two girls both swore to their parents that they had seen fairies in the beck, but both were dismissed by the adults who saw the fairies as a story to avoid punishment over repeated misbehaviour [22].

In 1920 Both of the girls’ mothers developed an interest in Theosophy and attended a lecture, ‘Fairy Life’ after which Mrs Wright told the speaker, Edward Garnder, about the girls’ photographs; this information was later passed on to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who became fascinated by the photos, believing them to be genuine[23]. Conan Doyle had a strong interest in both Theosophy and Spiritualism, believing that he had seen his mother’s apparition after she died, and was so confident in the veracity of the girls’ photographs that in the article he wrote for the Strand Magazine he intentionally left out the doubt raised by one of the experts who had examined the photos, only sharing that the expert did believe the photos were single exposures but not that they couldn’t say the photos weren’t faked[24]. The careful way that the photos were presented to the public intentionally led readers to a conclusion that supported belief, through the lens of the Theosophical and contemporary understanding of fairies.

The fairy images that were used to create the illusion in the photos came from illustrations in the 1914 Princess Mary’s Gift Book featuring both small wingless fairies as well as winged fairies; the wings notably edited by the girls from the original small dragonfly and folded insect wings into larger more dramatic butterfly wings. The images were typical of Edwardian popular fairies but would have been unrecognizable as fairies in older folklore[25] showing how these beliefs and beings had evolved into a new iteration that was unrecognizable in an older context.

Gardner and Conan Doyle both leaned into Wright and Griffiths youth, exaggerating it so that the reader would assume the two were younger than they actually were to play into ideas that children were connected to fairies because of their innocence[26]. Many questioned the veracity of the photos but many also believed in their truth because they fit into most of the contemporary preconceptions of who and what fairies were, and because the images were captured by children, a demographic believed to be closer to the nature of fairies and more likely to encounter them. That same factor also worked against the photographs as critics, including members of the Fairy Investigation Society, pointed out that the imagery fit with the aesthetic of Edwardian children’s books, from the fairies’ outfits to hairstyles, and that they were in stark contrast to depictions of fairies in Celtic and Norse folklore[27].

The controversy which surrounded the Cottingley photographs captured not only the continuing debate between believers and non-believers in the supernatural[28] but illustrated the ongoing attempt to scientifically classify and study fairies which had fascinated Victorian folklorists[29]. Wright and Griffiths photographs were touted as irrefutable evidence of fairy existence, while simultaneously supporting the contemporary popular ideas of who and what fairies were. Theosophy played a role in both shaping those views in the decades leading up to the events and in promoting the photos.

 

Conclusion

The Cottingley fairies became a legend in their own right and have persisted even after Wright and Griffiths admitted that the photos had been faked, perhaps because even now the story and images play into the imagination and the popular ideas of fairies which still remains a hundred years later. So strong has this influence been since the late 19th century that the image of the small winged child as fairy is now a cultural standard, found in art, fiction, and modern media including television and movies. Theosophy has left a permanent and perhaps indelible mark on fairy belief which combined with the Victorian era’s reshaping of fairies into the purview of children to create the twee winged beings of Wright and Griffiths’ photographs as well as innumerable others found across fiction and into modern anecdotal accounts of fairies.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Bihet, Francesca, Late-Victorian Folklore: Constructing the Science of Fairies, Revenant Journal 2021. Accessed February 20th 2024 from https://www.revenantjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/009-Late-Victorian-Folklore.pdf

Blavatsky, Helena, 1893, Elementals. Accessed on February 25th 2024 https://www.theosophy.world/resource/elementals-hp-blavatsky

Briggs, Katherine, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature. Routledge, New York New York, 1967

Johnson, Marjorie. Seeing Fairies. Anomalist Books: San Antonio Texas, 2014

Kipling, Rudyard. Puck of Pook’s Hill. MacMillan; London. 1906

Kruse, J., (2019) "Ray of Light" Tinkerbell and Luminous Fairies', Accessed on February 23, 2024 https://britishfairies.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/ray-of-light-tinkerbell-and-luminous-fairies/

Paracelsus (nd) Tractatus IV Accessed on February 24, 2024  https://theomagica.com/blog/paracelsus-wisdom-on-the-ecosystem-of-spirits

Pazdziora, J. Patrick. ‘Cynical Mysticism’. Literature and Theology, vol 31 no 3, September 2017, pp 285-304 Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48558022

Purkiss, Diane. At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other Troublesome Things. New York, New York; New York University Press, 2000

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. 1980. Accessed February 22, 2024 from http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html

Silver, Carole. ‘On the Origins of Fairies: Victorians, Romantics, and Folk Belief’. Browning Institute Studies, Vol. 14, The Victorian Threshold (1986), pp. 141-156 https://www.jstor.org/stable/25057792

Silver, Carole. Strange & Secret Peoples: Fairies and the Victorian Consciousness, 1999

Smith, Paul. ‘The Cottingley Fairies: The End of a Legend’. In The Good People: New Fairylore Essays edited by Peter Narvaez. 371 – 405. Lexington, Kentucky, The University Press of Kentucky, 1991

Theosophy World, 2024. ‘Fairies’ Accessed February 24, 2024 https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/fairies

Woodyard, Chris. ‘The Many Roads to Fairyland’, Ohio State University: Fairies and the Fantastic Conference, 2019

Young, Simon, (2023) Cottingley Fairy Interviews. Accessed on February 20, 2024 https://www.academia.edu/112469730/Cottingley_Interviews

 

 

[1] Katherine Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, 14

[2] Ibid, 3

[3] Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook’s Hill, 11

[4] Paracelsus (nd) Tractatus IV Accessed on February 24, 2024  https://theomagica.com/blog/paracelsus-wisdom-on-the-ecosystem-of-spirits

[5] Theosophy World, 2024. ‘Fairies’ Accessed February 24, 2024 https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/fairies

[6] Helena Blavatsky, ‘Elementals’, 1893. Accessed February 25, 2024 https://www.theosophy.world/resource/elementals-hp-blavatsky

[7] Theosophy World, ‘Fairies’

[8] ibid

[9] Purkiss, Diane. At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other Troublesome Things. 2000. 285

[10] Silver, Carole. Strange & Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. 40

[11] Pazdziora, J. Patrick. ‘Cynical Mysticism’. Literature and Theology, 287

[12] Silver, 39

[13]  Chris Woodyard, ‘The Many Roads to Fairyland’, Ohio State University: Fairies and the Fantastic Conference, 2019

[14] William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

[15] Purkiss, 181 & 182

[16] Silver, 187

[17] John Kruse, 2019

[18] Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, 249

[19] Purkiss, 287-288

[20] Pazdziora, 285-286

[21] Bihet, Francesca, Late-Victorian Folklore: Constructing the Science of Fairies, Revenant Journal 2021. 113-114

[22] Smith, Paul. ‘The Cottingley Fairies: The End of a Legend’. In The Good People: New Fairylore Essays edited by Peter Narvaez, 374

[23] Purkiss, 286

[24] ibid, 287

[25] Bihet, 113

[26] Ibid, 288

[27] Bihet, 112-113

[28] Smith, Paul. ‘The Cottingley Fairies: The End of a Legend’. In The Good People: New Fairylore Essays edited by Peter Narvaez, 372

[29] Silver, Carole. ‘On the Origins of Fairies: Victorians, Romantics, and Folk Belief’. Browning Institute Studies, Vol. 14, The Victorian Threshold, 142 - 143

7 Signs of a Good Fairy Book

 Several years ago I wrote about 7 Signs of  a Bad Fairy Source so I thought today I'd take a look at the opposite and talk about things to look for in good books on the subject. With, of course, the understanding that 'bad' and 'good' are subjective and that this is my opinion on what can constitute a good source of information.

Young's 'The Boggart' is an excellent source for boggart beliefs

1. Clear References - if the book is non-fiction and is presenting information gathered from outside the author's personal experiences then sources should be clearly cited and referenced so that you can track them down for yourself. Seeing citations is usually an indication of a more trustworthy book - although I do also encourage people to go to those sources directly for themselves as well. 
2. Clear Focus - a good fairy source should be upfront and open about its intentions and focus. If its relaying wider folklore the reader should know that and if its sharing personal experiences the reader should know that too. 
3. Differentiates non-fiction and fiction - Despite a rather widespread misunderstanding of the two topics folklore isn't fiction and vice versa. It is possible for things to begin in fiction and migrate into belief, but still the two subjects should be understood as different. Folklore represents the beliefs and practices of people or groups, whereas fiction is entertainment. While the two can get a bit muddy and overlap there is nonetheless a distinction that must be noted, especially where modern urban fantasy is concerned. If a book is discussing fiction alongside folk belief then the two should be clearly defined. 
4. Personal Experiences Are Presented As Such - personal experiences are a vital part of modern fairy belief and shouldn't be discounted. That said a good fairy source will be very clear when something is personal experience, and offer wider grounding for that experience. 
5. Context Is Provided - Fairy belief is something that almost always requires context, so a good source will offer that. This may include discussing when and where a story occured, or it may be about explaining any issues with the source that shared the story. For example if Yeats is used as a source it would be ideal to contextualize his material by explaining his relationship to Irish culture (he was Anglo-Irish and grew up for period is England), language (he didn't speak Irish), wider career (he was primarily a poet and author of fiction), and occult interests (he was influenced by Theosophy and the Golden Dawn). All of these factors effect the fairy stories he shared and hos much they can or should be trusted.  
6. Solid Bibliography -  when I get a new book the first thing I do is look at the bibliography to get an idea of both the sources being drawn on and the wider quality of the text. A book without a bibliography is rarely a good sign, unless it purely personal experiences being shared, but a book with a strong bibliography which touches on a range of sources related to the subject is usually a good sign.  
7. Terms - any terms used, especially those coming from outside the source's language should be explained and used correctly. A good way to vet a source in English for example is to look for any non-English terms used, how the source if defining them, and then cross check that against an established trustworthy source or dictionary. Solid sources will be in line with wider understandings of a word, while less trustworthy sources will redefine things without concern for the source language. For example if you find bean sidhe (banshee) in a text and its defined as anything except fairy woman or Otherworldly woman, than that source shouldn't be trusted, but if you have a source that does line up with those definitions that's a good sign. 

These are only guidelines, but they are what I personally use when looking at books on fairies and related subjects and I have found them very helpful. Obviously each bullet point doesn't apply equally to every book, as something written as a record of a person's own experiences wouldn't necessarily need citations or a bibliography and something looking at older folk belief wouldn't necessarily get into the nitty gritty of personal experiences, but in general I believe this is a solid list. I hope that this short list may also help other people to distinguish what might be a good book from a bad one. 

Mystic South 2024

 

cool door in the hotel

This past weekend I attended the Mystic South conference for the second time (the first time was in 2017). Mystic South is a large esoteric/pagan/witchcraft/occult conference that takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, USA each summer and features a wide range of workshops, some rituals, and a dance - the Phoenix Ball - as well as a market area. It offers a great chance for people to socialize, learn, and have fun and while many of the attendees were local there were also many like myself that had come from a greater distance.
I'm just going to share some recaps of the event with some pictures. This is hardly a comprehensive description and for a more rounded picture I'd suggest checking out John Beckett's '11 Things About Mystic South 2024' and Thumper Forge's 'Things You Hear At Mystic South, 2024 Edition' (you can try to guess which 'thing' I said). 

Travel 
 So, in the case of myself and my inestimable travel buddy Mel getting to Mystic South was an adventure in itself, which involved an hour drive to the airport, multi-hour flight, and then a very intense shuttle ride through Atlanta's rush hour traffic. It was all just part of the adventure but it was, admittedly, a stressful way to start. Going home, as it would turn out, was even more eventful but we did make it back safely. Eventually. 

Keeping Busy  
   So, I was a headliner at the event and gave two presentations as well as sitting on a panel discussion with Wendy Mata Houseman and Sen Elias. While I was there myself and Mel were guests on the That Witch Life podcast with Courtney Weber and Kanani. I also was part of a meet'n'greet for Moon Books.
    Presentations - My first presentation was on European Fairies in the US, a topic inspired by my forthcoming book Celtic Fairies in North America, but with a slightly more focused approach. Its a great subject to dig into because there's a lot of material there and as usual I ended up running out of time before I could get to all of it. Despite that there were some good questions in the Q&A and people seemed happy with it overall. My second presentation focused on witches and fairies, looking at evidence of early modern witches in Ireland and Scotland and the intersection of fairy beliefs, especially the idea of fairies teaching witches, then segued into modern material, slightly, then a discussion of the fairy as familiar spirit. As with my first presentation time went by quickly and honestly even with a couple hours there wouldn't be enough time to get into all the layers of this topic, but we definitely covered the highlights. There were a lot of great questions afterwards and we ended up running slightly past our allotted time slot. Overall I felt like everything here went pretty well though.
  Panel - I was excited to get to be on a panel with Wendy Mata Houseman and Sen Elias, who are both amazing people and extremely knowledgeable on folk magic. The panel questions focused on various aspects of folk magic practices and I loved seeing how similar our approaches were despite our varied backgrounds; it makes me believe that folk magic has a cross-cultural aspect underlying the unique qualities of every version. Although I was on the panel I think I got a great deal out of listening to my co-panelists and I kind of wish I could have been in the audience instead - it was a great discussion. 
  Podcast - this was my third time guesting on That Witch Life, but the first time live and the first time I was sitting down and chatting with Courtney and Kanani in person (the third host, Hilary, wasn't at Mystic South). It was a good time, and we managed to talk about a few on topic things in between discussions of random fae-ness and what a fairy would wear during a late night hotel fire alarm (no really). I think it will be an interesting episode when it comes out. 
   Meet'n'greet - Moon Books arranged to have an author meet'n'greet at Mystic South with a half dozen people who write for Moon. This was the first time I've ever done something like that and my first time meeting other people who write for my publisher, and I don't think I was too awkward about it. I met some really nice people, signed some books, and had some great discussions. 

my badge before I added some extra ribbons

Attending Things...Or Not 
    Mystic South, like some other large events uses an app called Sched to allow attendees to see the full schedule, choose what they want to go to, and have a clear idea of what they're doing when. I had signed up for a lot of fascinating looking presentations and activities and had been looking forward to attending them, but unfortunately I only made it to 2: Frater Aaron's 'The Ecstatic Craft Hidden Within Grimm's Fairy Tales' and Michael Smith's 'Through the Hidden Door'. Ecstatic Craft was a PAPERS presentation, which is intended to have a more academic tone. I believe the paper will be publicly available later. It was an interesting survey of different initiatory themes found throughout Grimm's fairy tales. 'Through the Hidden Door' was a discussion of modern fairy belief and the teacher's personal gnosis, and included a guided meditation. It was quite insightful to get to hear about another person's approach to a topic that is so pivotal to both my academic study and personal life. 

Rubber ducks. Everywhere

Duck Raiding
  A small sidenote to the wider weekend - the people behind the conference were hiding rubber ducks and smaller resin (?) ducks all around and we were encouraged to take them. I may have already been taking them before that. Anyway, once we found out its kind of a game that goes on during the conference all bets were off, because Mel and I are both extremely competitive people. Ultimately I ended up with the higher rubber duck count but Mel beat me on the resin ducks, so I guess we both won. 

Conversations
   I said I had planned to go to many things while I was at Mystic South and didn't make it to hardly any. This is because the main theme for me at this conference was conversations. I lost count of how many great discussions I had, both with friends and with new people. I even helped a wayward kitten find a new home, which is honestly one of the highlights of the whole week for me. 
   A lot of these types of conferences advertise themselves as community building and this one definitely was. I was able to meet friends in person I've only known on social media and to make some new friends along the way too. Meals stretched to hours as we sat and talked, and I came away with some intriguing new ideas to explore as well as a deeper sense of connection. To be completely honest it was exhausting but not in a bad way, rather it was exhausting in a way that felt like an accomplishment. I wish I had gotten to more presentations, but I also feel like I still learned a lot and more importantly like I gained a lot. I am not generally a very social person - I am the classic introvert trope - but I wouldn't trade any of those myriad discussions for extra downtime or my usual hiding in my quiet hotel room. It pushed my limits, I pushed my limits, but if anything I wish I'd had more time to hang out with people and chat. 

my hotel room....which I didn't see very much of

The Market Area
   Every pagan conference I've gone to has always had a market area and Mystic South is no exception. What makes it different is that it effectively had a full on books store in a room past the rest of the market area, which was also hosting author book signings. Luckily for me my budget wasn't prepared for book shopping because I could never have fit everything in my luggage to get home. As it was though I was able to see a range of titles that will go on the to-buy-later list, and to have a nice chat with a couple people during book signings, most notably Joshua Cutchin, whose work on the overlap between fairylore, UFO/aliens, and bigfoot has long fascinated me. 
   The rest of the market area held a diverse array of options, from jewelry to knitted objects, from D&D dice to artwork. I loved seeing so many handmade goods and so many artists - honestly in the AI era its inspiring to know that real artists are still around and being appreciated. Before successfully escaping I did find gifts for my kids and a couple things for myself too.

the display of my books in the Sojourner area of the marketplace

Pagan Prom
    One thing that Mel and I both remembered from Mystic South in 2017 was the dance party they'd had. It was super fun and we both were excited to go again to what we have jokingly nicknamed pagan prom. Although the DJs playlist was a little out of my comfort zone it was still a great time and I will always remember doing the Time Warp with a couple dozen other witches and pagans who were all just embracing the moment. 

all dressed up for pagan prom, er, Phoenix Ball

Overall Mystic South was a great experience. There were, as to be expected, some bumps in the road - like the Starbucks being inexplicably closed after we'd hiked out there in search of morning coffee - but it was a really good time. 

Fairy Facts: Bean Sidhe

 For this installment of fairy facts I wanted to discuss a popular but often misunderstood being, the Bean sidhe. I will note at the start that there is an ongoing debate about whether or not the Bean sidhe is a fairy or a separate type of being, but I am including her here because of the long standing translation of bean sidhe as fairy woman and her wider association with the Otherworld. I recommend Patricia Lysaght's book 'Banshee: The Irish death messenger' if you really want to deep dive into who and what the mná sidhe (banshees) are. 

Name: Bean Sidhe (Irish), Ban-sìth (Scottish). Anglicized as Banshee, the term literally means 'Otherworldly woman'. In Ireland the bean sidhe may also be known regionally as the Bean Chaointe or Badb.

Description: Descriptions of these beings vary across stories. By some accounts they appear as old women with grey hair, while others describe younger women, sometimes blonde, whose eyes are red from weeping. In a few accounts of a Bean sidhe who is known by name as one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, like Clíodhna, they may be described as enchantingly beautiful. They may wear white, grey, or green, sometimes with red shoes. 
In folklore they can take the shape of owls or of hooded crows.

Found: Ireland, Scotland, and related communities. Also becoming more common across popular culture. 

Folklore: Although fairly localized to Ireland and parts of Scotland there is a wide array of Bean Sidhe folklore. This can roughly be broken up into three types: Death omens, Supernatural dangers, Fairy women. Each type has specific folklore surrounding it, although they are both part of one cohesive concept. 

Death Omens. The Bean sidhe as death omen is perhaps her most well known role. It is said that all of the older Irish families have a bean sidhe who follows their family line, usually connected through ancestry, and who appears to wail before a death in that family. There are a range of stories of people in families hearing the bean sidhe before a death as well as those who are unrelated hearing a bean sidhe only to later find out that a local person died. The wailing or cry of the bean sidhe is extremely eerie, not comparable to any normal sounds, and is said to be a kind of keen or caoine, a mourning cry or song.

Supernatural Dangers. The cry or wail of the bean sidhe doesn't cause death or harm to those who hear it, but the bean sidhe herself can be dangerous in other ways. There are various stories of a person who finds a comb on the ground, sometimes of the roadway, takes it home, only to have an irate bean sidhe show up after dark demanding the return of her property. She circles the house, clawing and yelling to be given back her comb - eventually the person relents and passes the comb through a window, but clasped in iron fire tongs. After pulling the tongs back in they are found to be horribly twisted, hinting at the harm that the bean sidhe would have done to the hand that passed them out. There are stories on Duchas.ie as well of people who were chased by the bean sidhe, escaped, only to fall ill and die within a short period of time. 

Fairy Women. The stories around the bean sidhe also include tales that don't fit easily into either previous concept and are usually simply descriptions of a person seeing a bean sidhe who is neither crying nor threatening them. For example, Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries recounts a story of a man who saw a bean sidhe by Lough Gur sitting on a rock and combing her hair. These types of tales often figure into the other two categories - in the above the bean sidhe is described combing her hair and the comb is a key part of many stories of the bean sidhe as a danger. 

The folklore around the bean sidhe is complex. Some are said to be women of the Tuatha Dé Danann, including Áine, Clíodhna, and Aoibheall, who watch over family lines they are bound to. Some are less renowned women of the Otherworld who do the same thing for a similar reason. There are also an array of stories of human women who became mná sidhe: women who died in childbirth, women who committed a horrific offense or who died by violence themselves, or women who were professional keeners in life but failed to do their jobs well. In some the first cases the woman was only bound to act as a bean sidhe until the time that her natural life span would have ended; in the latter it is a less fixed period where she must 'earn' her place in the afterlife. 

Where It Gets Muddy: A lot of the wider understandings of the bean sidhe have been shaped by popculture in the last 50 years or so, and much of that is wrong or badly skewed. White Wolf's Changeling games for example make the bean sidhe incorporeal beings who attack to drain the life force from their victims. The Banshee from the TV show Charmed are witches who become monsters through great sorrow and kill with their wail. Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge series made bean sidhe into 'bane sidhe', explained as 'death of elves', a wraithlike creature who fed on life forces and killed with its cry. In most of these confusions the different concepts of the folkloric bean sidhe are taken and blended then added to for plot purposes creating something close to but very different from the folklore.

What They Aren't: Despite growing claims to the contrary there are no male bean sidhe, nor could there be simply by the nature of the term. A male would be a fear sidhe, an Otherworldly man. If it identifies as male its not a bean sidhe. 
Bean sidhe also don't attack or cause harm with their voice, Marvel comic characters and popculture to the contrary. 
Its probably also worth noting that while the bean sidhe can be an omen of death they are not general death omens and are always associated with specific families they follow. Unlike, say, Mothman, they do not appear before disasters or warn of major coming events; they are strictly indicators of an impending death within a family they follow. 

Fairy Facts: Redcaps

 For this instalment of fairy facts we're looking at one of the more infamous Otherworldly beings, the Redcap or Red Cap. 

Name: Redcaps or Red Caps

Description: a short, older man with long thin arms ending in eagle-like talons, wearing faded clothes, iron tipped boots, and the requisite red cap. The cap may be the color of dried blood or coated in fresh, dripping blood. 

Found: Redcaps are found in the folklore of the border areas between Scotland and England.

Folklore: The Redcap is a malicious spirit which haunts ruins, particularly of castles. Katherine Briggs and William Henderson both considered them a type of goblin while the poet William Scott Irving depicted a Redcap as a ghost or haunting spirit. In either case the Redcap lurks in ruins and attacks travellers at night by throwing large stones at them with the intent of killing them to gain fresh blood to die its cap with. Sir Walter Scott claimed that across southern Scotland every castle ruin had a Redcap in residence. Henderson suggests that in East Lancashire there may have been folk belief connecting a human witch to Redcaps, evidenced by a public house named 'Mother Redcap'' although this idea is tenuous at best it is not wholly out of line with wider Scottish folklore which overlapped various Otherworldly spirits with human witches. 

  Across the bulk of folklore these beings are seen as vicious and dangerous, immune to the usual fairy-warding methods involving iron but quick to flee when they hear Biblical passages read or see a cross. Upon hearing or seeing such Christian devices the Redcap will either run or vanish in a burst of flame, apparently unable to bear proximity to Christian holy items or words. 

  One especially well-known Redcap was the fairy familiar or familiar spirit of Lord Willliam de Soulis, rumoured to be a sorcerer, Warden of the West Marches an area including Galloway and Dumfries. Folklore claims that de Soulis made a pact with a Redcap for protection against weapons which aided him in his tyrannical rule of the area. History records that de Soulis was eventually arrested for conspiring against Robert the Bruce and died in prison, but wider folk belief has it that he was dragged to the Ninestang Rig in Roxburghshire and boiled to death in oil - a death that neatly got around the promise for protection against weapons that the Redcap had made him. 

  There is one account of a less overtly dangerous Redcap in Perthshire, who would occasionally be spotted in Grantully Castle. It was thought to be lucky to see him. 

   Redcaps are sometimes conflated with other types of castle spirits like Powries and Dunters. 

Where It Gets Muddy: There are many, many types of fairies and Otherworldly beings who wear red caps or hats but aren't the same beings as the malicious Redcap. This can and has caused confusion between the various folk beliefs and possibly contributed to modern fiction and gaming depicting Redcaps as benevolent to any degree. It should be understood that the Redcap is a particular phenomena of the Scottish borders and that beings of a similar name or sartorial proclivity found elsewhere are completely unrelated. 

What They Aren't: friendly, helpful, or on the 'good' end of the spectrum, despite appearing that way in some fiction and having the option to be played that way in role playing games. 

  There's a horror movie 'Unwelcome' that came out in 2023 featuring Redcaps but, while the movie is fun and clever, it largely leaves actual folklore behind in favour of creative fiction. Oddly enough one of the closest things the movie includes to actual Redcap folklore is the idea of the 'Mother Redcap'.

Book Review: Sacred Bones, Magic Bones

 Today I'd like to offer another book review, this one for Ness Bosch's 'Sacred Bones, Magic Bones'. As someone who has worked with bones for a long time the topic of this book immediately got my attention and I was curious to see what the author's take on the subject was. 

First, this book is not a simple look at bones in a spiritual context. Instead it weaves together several interrelated concepts, including animism and ancestor veneration. These are not treated as separate topics but rather as interconnected, as things that are part of each other. One cannot work spiritually with bones without acknowledging the spirits within them, nor the way they connect us to those who have gone before us. They give us structure both literally and figuratively. 

Sacred Bones, Magic Bones is divided into two parts. Part 1 includes 5 chapters which explore the history and beliefs around the subject. Part 2 includes 3 chapters which take a look at active practices. The second part builds on the first and offers readers a way to put the beliefs of part 1 into action in various ways. The two parts work well together and give the reader a feel that the whole book is building on itself. 

Part 1 begins by exploring bones from a physical perspective which I really appreciated. I find that many times pagan books ignore the practical aspects of a subject to focus on the spiritual, as if the two can't co-exist. This book instead begins with the practical, the physical components and function of bones, and uses that as a foundation to move into the esoteric. Once we understand how bones are what they are and do what they do we can begin to understand how they can be more than just a physical thing. Bones are discussed in the context of history, as a way to understand humans through preserved skeletons, bones, and burials; archaeology segues into anthropology and we learn about beliefs relating to bones across cultures, including the way that various animal bones have been used in folk practices. Next is a discussion of Gods connected to bones and the way that bones are connected to the sacred. Finally we wrap up with a section on modern bone traditions, showing that these beliefs and practices are still alive today. All of this lays the groundwork to establish the deep history of bones in a spiritual context.

Part 2 moves into the experiential and the poetic. These final three chapters explore active practices, stories, prayers, and magic around bones and worked with them. It is the house built on the foundation of part 1, inviting the reader to move in and make themselves at home. The book has included stories from the author's life throughout but part 2 seems to speak in the language of stories, making the impersonal personal. It feels more intimate than part 1, as if the reader has gotten to know the author as the book has progressed, and having gotten to know the story of bones is now getting to know the stories told by them.

Sacred Bones, Magic Bones is a deep dive into a subject that doesn't often get much attention. Bones can be a point of contention with those who don't believe in this type of spirit work or who have strong opinions on the ethics of sourcing materials, and in the same way in modern witchcraft those who work with bones may be mocked for embracing a dark stereotype. This book dispels those images and replaces them with a deep, reverential look at the place bones can hold within a person's spirituality.  

Fairy Facts: Selkies

 In this installment of fairy facts we're looking at a popular one - selkies.

Name: Selkie, Silkie, Selchie, Rón
The name literally means 'seal' and may appear in English as selkie-folk or seal-folk to differentiate from the animal

Description: Selkies appear as seals in the water, like any wild seal except for their eyes which are said to be particularly human-like. They may go on land and remove their seal skin to take on or reveal a human form. In human form they are often described as having dark hair and dark seal-like eyes. 

Found: Selkies, under variations of the name, are found in folklore across Ireland, Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland islands, as well as Iceland.

Folklore: Selkie folklore is vast and complex as well as regionally varied, however some wider concepts can be found across the bulk of stories. Perhaps the most well-known is the idea of the selkie wife: A fisherman sees a selkie dancing on the shore and sneaks over to take her sealskin; without it she is trapped on land and marries him. They have several children together and live as a married couple until one of the children eventually finds the sealskin and tells their mother. Once the sealskin is returned the selkie immediately goes back to the ocean - sometimes with her children other times leaving them behind. In contrast there are two main stories of male selkies. In one the selkie takes a human lover and leaves her with a child which she is forced to raise alone; the selkie returns years later to claim the child. In the other a heartbroken human woman cries into the sea and a selkie lover appears and takes her with him into his realm.
The half-human children of these unions are said to share their selkie parent's dark hair and eyes and to be born with webbed hands or feet. It has been suggested that selkie stories may originate with attempts to explain such birth defects or genetic disorders in some families, while other scholars also suggest it may be an explanation for early encounters with Inuit peoples.
In most folklore selkies can change their form at will, while in some they are limited to only coming on land one day a year. They are described as living in family groups and some selkie wives had a husband and children among the selkie folk before being taken by a human. They are also said to both cause storms at sea and to sometimes save sailors from drowning in storms.

Where It Gets Muddy: Selkies are becoming increasingly popular across modern fiction in stories which often radically rewrite the older folklore for plot purposes. This has resulted in a growing confusion not only about what selkies are but also about the rules which govern them, particularly around the magic of their sealskin. In some cases attempts to rewrite selkie wife stories to move them away from the abducted or forced bride trope have gone so far the opposite direction that they've just created the same thing under a different rule. For example the story where the selkie drops their coat in a human cafe and a human picks it up and returns it to them causing the selkie to instantly fall in love with them and claim they are now married. 

It is best to take these newer stories with the understanding that they are fiction.

What They Aren't: Contrary to some popular art, selkies aren't described like classical mermaids, with a human top half and seal bottom half. As described above they appear as seals in the water or as fully human on land. This confusion may come from the fact that in some folklore they are called 'mermaids' interchangeably with being called selkies or else are called a mermaid but described as a selkie. It is likely that in Ireland, Iceland, and the UK mermaid at points was being used as a non-specific term and that it may have served as the best English language translation for the terms in the original languages. 

Recommended: For a modern media approach to selkie stories I highly suggest people watch 'The Secret of Roan Inish' a movie about selkies set in Ireland which includes a lot of relevant folklore. The 1994 movie is based on an older book 'The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry' set in Scotland.