Bad 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 of things I've seen recently that need some clarification. 

  People are free to believe what they will from the memes and such that go around, of course, but I think its important to be clear on what the sources are, especially when they are being presented in deceptive or inaccurate ways. Or put another way you believe whatever you want to but be honest about the origins. 

fireplace, Gleann Garbh, Ireland 1 May 2018

There's a couple memes going around claiming that folklore or legend says on Beltane the queen of fairies rides around on a white horse and if you sit quietly under a tree you may see her. If you look away she'll pass by, if you look at her she may take you into Fairy for 7 years. This meme usually includes an appropriately mystic looking image.

Alright. So. The quote with the memes is an excerpt from a much longer article, circa 2000, written by Christina Aubin, titled 'Beltane'* which was originally posted on the now defunct witchvox site. This portion seems to be a mashup of some actual folklore, the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, and pure wish fulfillment. Let's take this a piece at a time then:
Folklore: Yes the fairies are out and about on and around Bealtaine. Yes this time of year you may see a fairy Rade or otherwise encounter Themselves.
The fairy queen (generic) is often but not always said to ride a white horse, when she rides out, which occurs at many different times of year (the most common associated with the white horse is probably Samhain).
The Ballad: in one specific ballad, Thomas the Rhymer, the human protagonist is lying under a tree when the fairy queen comes by and compels him into her service for 7 years. There's no date or time of year specified. Thomas seems to have been specifically chosen, is returned after 7 years and then taken again when he is much older, led by a deer who he believed was sent by the fairy queen (according to folklore).
Wish Fulfillment: there's no Irish or Scottish folklore suggesting that sitting under a tree on Bealtaine will let you see fairies. There's also no support to the idea that looking away will make them ignore you or that looking at them will grant the possibility of being taken by them for 7 years. You cannot influence the fairy queen into this.
Folklore (again): whether or not you see the Good Neighbors coming has zero direct affect on what they might do to you, in fact passing invisibly to human sight is a hallmark of fairies in folklore. It is true that its advised to pretend you don't see them if you stumble on a group engaged in an activity but that's because in many accounts if they know you see them they react violently. Which brings us to point 2, making it clear you are looking at them ends really badly as often as not.
They take humans they choose to take and while yes a percentage return after 7 years or are taught valuable things, many become base servants (think no pay, cleaning stables, drudgery), breeding stock (exactly what it sounds like), or entertainment (fun for them not you). There's a reason that we have massive amounts of material about protecting against fairies and escaping from them or rescuing people from them, because in many stories the human is taken against their will and their fate may not be pleasant.
   Yes you can safely engage with fairies. But. But caution is always advised. Would you hang out in a park and trust any random human who wandered by and started giving you orders? Fairies are not universally benevolent any more than humans are. And very few of us could qualify as a modern day Thomas the Rhymer.

   Another portion of Aubin's article is also sometimes included which suggests that in Irish folk tradition leftover food on May Eve would be given to the Good Folk as an offering or buried for them.

  Firstly it is an Irish folk belief that you don't give away any fire, salt, or food on Bealtaine lest the luck of your house be stolen. See Dáithí ÓhÓgáin's 'Irish Superstitions', Seán Ó Súilleabháin's 'Nósanna agus Piseago na nGael', or Danaher's 'The Year in Ireland' for discussion of this folk belief if you are interested. It was a custom in some places to bleed the cattle, or mix human blood and milk to give to the Daoine Maithe on May Day morning, but this was done outside the home, usually at a sidhe, and was seen as a way to divert or avert the Good Folk's potential maliciousness. you are, basically, bribing them.
   Secondly you don't give the Daoine Uaisle leftovers. Its not done, because the belief is that they deserve and want the best you have to give not the dregs. The top of a still of alcohol is theirs, as is the best of the harvested crops and milk (see MacNeill's 'Festival of Lughnasa'). So while food offerings of various kinds are traditional, giving leftovers from your own meal or food wouldn't be.

   Another thing I've seen repeatedly this year is a prayer attributed to the Carmina Gadelica which is a set of collected folk charms and prayers gathered around 1900 by Alexander Carmichael in Scotland. The version making the rounds is a blessing prayer for Beltane which asks for blessing on the speakers life, family, livestock and crops, invoking the Horned God and triple Goddess, as well as referencing 'gods'. The problem here is that although its attributed to the Carmina Gadelica, it isn't exactly from that source- it's a paganized version by Mike Nichols from 1993 which modifies the text to remove Christian material and insert neopagan material. The original text from the Carmina Gadelica refers to the Christian trinity, apostle Paul, and Christ. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cg1/cg1078.htm

   As a good rule of thumb anything credited to the Carmina Gadelica or Carmichael which calls on neopagan deities like the Horned God or Maiden, Mother, Crone, is a modern adaptation of the Christian original. There are some references in the Carmina Gadelica to fairies of various types and which may be read as pagan if you squint at them, but the collected material is clearly Christian in tone as it was recorded.

   It's important to be very clear on the actual source, as otherwise it gives the impression that the original CG was pagan which it decidedly is not. 

Finally not a new meme idea but rather a very old one that's being repeated by various sources today in some memes is that Bealtaine (Old Irish Belltaine) is named for the middle eastern god** Ba'al or a theoretical Indo-Eurpoean god named Bel. 

   The Ba'al connection has been widely disregarded today as coming from 18th and 19th century attempts to tie Celtic culture to the middle east/Mediterranean; this same period created wholecloth the so-called god 'Saman' as deity of Samhain. Or as McKillop says it in his Dictionary of Celtic Mythology: "The 19th-century attempt to link Belenus, under the spelling Bel, with the Phoenician Ba'al is now rejected".

    The connection to the theoretical god Bel is speculation based on both the Sanas Cormaic entry which supposes Bel was from the name of an otherwise unknown deity and the connection to the Gaulish Belenos and Welsh Beli Mawr. There are no definitive agreements among scholars as to this theory and whether or not Bel was an Irish deity, nor whether Bealtaine derives from a celebration to that deity. It is possible, but should be understood as a theory not an established fact.

   The etymology of Bealtaine is uncertain but it's generally thought to come from bel teine (opening fire) or bil teine (lucky fire) with lucky fire supported as a folk etymology in Cormac's Glossary (suggesting this may have been the way it was understood historically). It is usually translated as the first of May or May Day, and the name of the month of May in Irish is based on it. 

*I will note that the article has multiple factual errors or inherent assumptions beyond this particular section.

** there's some debate about whether or not Ba'al was a specific deity of a general term that could be applied to deities or used as a title. The word means 'lord'.

Ask 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 answer: That's actually a tough question because my fiction is my fun writing so I tend to be really fond of it. If I had to pick only one though I'd probably say Convergence (book 9 in Between the Worlds) because it let me explore some really interesting things, like writing a story where there isn't a 'villIain' per se even though there are antagonists and a world saving crisis.  

Alexandra: Who is your favorite character to write dialogue for, from your new high fantasy series, and why?

My answer: My favourite character to write dialogue for in Into Shadow is definitely Calla. She's snarky and smart and insightful and that's a fun combination when it comes to writing conversations between characters. 

Alexandra: When are we getting more Ciaran short stories?

My answer: Ciaran is such a fan favourite! He is also a really interesting character for me to write because he's much more enigmatic than most of the others in Between the Worlds. My current plan is to come out with either a book or anthology of stories from when Allie first came to Ashwood, to fill in a lot of her backstory with her human family, and Ciaran will feature heavily in that because he was Allie's first friend there and remained her friend across the years. 
I'm also toying with the idea of another wider anthology in the series which could include a variety of character's stories, kind of like in Wandering. 

Ben: What is your relationship to the characters you love? What about the ones you hate? What is your process in creating these characters?

My answer: To be honest I don't feel like a create them so much as that I get to know them as I'm writing. I'll have an idea for a story and as I start the characters unfold with the idea, so that writing them feels less like my inventing these people and more like me meeting someone new. And I think the more you write a character the more you get to know them, so characters I've written multiple books about I feel very attached to. There are definitely some that I love and some that I like a lot less but I think they are all interesting and nuanced in their own ways and I always try to show that even in unlikeable characters. To me a character doesn't feel real unless they seem to have personality and motivations to do what they do, and I like exploring that even with the antagonists. 

Teididh: Hello. My take on your fiction: I often wonder if you feel that you walk a tightrope of sorts, when it comes to weaving your storey around what I respectfully assume are some very private, secretive experiences and knowledge of the Otherworld. Perhaps not unusual for authors to send-a-message within their work, but what I consider to be your exquisite skill set in such matters tempts me to wonder how you maneuver within these parameters, given my assumption that you potentially deal with consequences that most authors need not worry about.

My answer: It can be a balancing act for sure. I'm writing fiction which means there are things that have to be certain ways or happen certain ways for the plot, but I'm also blending in folklore which I have a lot of respect for; I don't want to contribute to misunderstandings about these beings. And there are certain things that I can't or won't write about or which I feel I'm prohibited form discussing.

I will say that the elves in Between the Worlds do incorporate a lot of my own gnosis around these beings and probably reflect a fairly accurate picture of how I understand them and their culture (at least one group of elves anyway). So you could certainly read the books and winnow out ideas and concepts I may not have explicitly discussed elsewhere about my thoughts on elven culture, personalities, attitudes, etc.,

Cat: I remember one if the most interesting things I read of an author in regard to his writing was Bernhard Stäber about a torture scene he had to write. It was a fascinating insight into where writing stories might lead you. My question then would be, have you ever found yourself in this situation - writing about something you would rather not, taking a character you are fond of down a dark road neither of you wanted to take?

My answer: I definitely have yes. There's a rather infamous character death in Murder Between the Worlds that I didn't plan to write or want to write, but I hit a point in the story where I just knew that was the logical progression as different factors were coming together. I realize I'm the one writing the story and I'm the one who has control over what happens but I feel like to stay true to the plot I need to follow through with what the characters would do in situations, even if what they'd do is hard to write, because it feels more real that way. 

Dave: What way to buy your fiction maximizes your royalties and profits from the sale? How frequently does that change?

My answer: This really just depends on whether its my trad published work, like my nonfiction or Into Shadow, or if its my self published material, like Between the Worlds. For trad published it doesn't matter as much where its being bought as long as its bought new, because that's all royalties paid through my publisher. For my self published books however - unfortunately - amazon is the best option for me because I publish through KDP. I do also have a selection of books on Lulu.com but a few years ago they changed their process for uploading files and that's caused me issues in getting new material up on that site. For my self published material physical copies are also a better option, for me, than ebooks but honestly I'm just happy when people get the books in any form and enjoy them. 

Sacred 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 offering to the gods and spirits. There is, so far, no concrete evidence of the Irish* using tattooing but there is evidence of tattooing in similar cultures, including the Picts and Britons which made me want to explore the concept of tattooing in the ancient world, specifically in Europe.

The earliest know tattoo work found was on the so-called Ice Man, a preserved body found in the area between Italy and Austria. This body was dated to 3000 BCE, making it over 5000 years old(Lineberry, 2007). The body displayed tattooed patterns on the lower back, knee, and ankle which led researchers to conclude the tattoos were mostly therapeutic in nature, being placed on areas with signs of degeneration (Lineberry, 2007). From this it would seem that the earliest tattoos could have been used in a medicinal fashion, although exactly how can only be guessed at.

Additionally tattooing was believed to have been used among the Scythians and Picts. Several preserved Scythian bodies have been found dating as far back as 2400 BCE and both the male and female bore tattoos, in some cases very elaborate, depicting animals and mythic images (Lineberry, 2007). In his writings Herodotus remarked that among the Scythians "tattoos were a mark of nobility, and not to have them was testimony of low birth.”. This could indicate that by the time Herodotus was writing - around 450 BCE - tattooing had become a sign of social standing. The stylized images seen in the Scythian tattoos are the same as those seen in other Scythain artwork, indicating that the tattoos reflected larger social concepts and symbolism (Kromarik, 2003). In the case of the Picts less is known with certainty because no preserved bodies have been found. Writings from secondary sources indicate that Pictish tattoos, like the Scythian, were a symbol of status and that they included images of animals (Lineberry, 2007). Herodian, writing around 200 CE says that the Celts 'draw figures of animals or symbols on their skin by pressing hot iron onto their limbs, causing great pain, and over this they rub the sap of a plant'. (Green, 2012). While this account is questionable because the writer never traveled to any of the Celtic lands and was likely repeating another person's experience there are other Roman sources that mention the use of iron implements to create permanent marks, which means it was either a widespread belief by the Romans or may have been the actual practice. As late as 600 CE a Christian bishop noted the practice of tattooing among the Picts, mentioning a process similar to that cited by Herodian, except pricking was used in place of hot iron (Green, 2012).

Drawing of ancient Britons, Netherlands, 1574
from wikimedia commons

There are Roman references to the practice of either body painting or tattooing in ancient Britain, although its uncertain which was being described. Caesar in his Gallic wars used a term which can be read as either paint or tattoo, and the stories of this practice gave them the name Pretani which can also mean either painted or tattooed (Cox, 2016). Later commentators using Caesar's writing as a source described the Britons as a people who tattooed themselves as children and who saw tattooing as a test of endurance and patience. While it is fair to be skeptical of Roman material, which was heavily biased, later 12th century writer William of Malmesbury would also comment on the Britons fondness for tattooing which he claimed was adopted by the Normans (Cox, 2016). 

Other historic cultures that used tattoos included the Egyptians, Nubians, some areas of the Americas, Austronesians, and Persians. Tattooing would spread to the Greeks and Romans, initially as a way to mark a person as being dedicated to a temple or as a slave (Lineberry, 2007). Most Roman commentators however pointed to tattooing is a barbaric practice done by outsiders, indicating that while it may have been done in those places it didn't convey social status, but rather the opposite. The advent of Christianity slowly discouraged tattooing which was seen as defiling the body, causing the practice to decline in Europe across the centuries.

The true meaning behind ancient tattoos in many of these cultures will never be known, but we do know that tattooing was a common practice among some pre-Christian European cultures, and widely found around the globe. The evidence also supports the theory that these tattoos, particularly among the Picts and Scythians, were more than mere decoration. Whether the pre-Christian Irish tattooed or not we may never know, although there is always the possibility of new evidence coming to light.

 I am comfortable with my own view of the sacredness of tattooing and will undoubtedly continue to add spiritually meaningful tattoos to my own body.



* tattooing appears to be a recent import to Ireland and thus far no evidence has been found in written material or archeology to support the presence of tattooing there in the pre-Christian period. 

References:
Lineberry, C., (2007). Tattoos. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/tattoo.html
Kromarik, K., (2003). History of Tattooing. Retrieved from https://www.msu.edu/~krcmari1/individual/history.html
Green, T., (2012). Ancient Celtic Tattooing. Retrived from http://www.tattoosymbol.com/celtic/ancient_celtic.html

Cox, D., (2016) The Name Britian Comes From Our Ancient Love of Tattoos, retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161110-the-name-for-britain-comes-from-our-ancient-love-of-tattoos

Shapiro, A., (2014) The American Origins of the Not-So-Traditional Celtic Knot Tattoo, retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/11/25/366584255/the-american-origins-of-the-not-so-traditional-celtic-knot tattoo#:~:text=There's%20actually%20no%20evidence%20of,Ireland%20in%20the%20last%20century 

Carr, G., (2005) Woad, Tattooing, and Identity in Later Iron Age and Early roman Britain retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0092.2005.00236.x

Theosophy'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 by her contemporaries and criticized today for her theories on race expressed in 'The Secret Doctrine'; that said her influence on neopaganism and western witchcraft traditions is profound if often ignored. In particular Blavatsky reimagined who and what fairies were and forwarded that in her writing; her ideas were picked up by occultists of her time, including WB Yeats, and seeped into esoteric thought on the subject. So, let us explore that. 

art by Arthur Rackham

Folklore
First we must quickly establish the understanding of fairies in folklore. What we find across the breadth of western European material are beings who can be intangible or physical at will, who are intrinsically connected to humanity in ways that are both helpful and predatory, and who exist both in and outside of the human world. These are beings in some cases who were formerly human and who steal living humans without compunction and beings who were once Gods. They must be warded against and also propitiated to stay on good terms and avoid harm.

Paracelsus
We must digress here for a space to discuss Paracelsus, because his views are foundational for later ideas, but are often misunderstood.
A common defense of the idea of fairies as elementals that I often see is the claim that it was actually the 15th/16th century Paracelsus who originated this idea and that it is therefore genuine. However its slightly more complicated than that, and the modern understanding that we have has been refined and influenced by other ideas, including those of theosophy.
The view Paracelsus was advocating wasn't based in the four (or five) element system or in a strict division of fairies into four groups. Rather he was discussing the nature of all things as relating to different elements - he mentions 7 - based on what they seem most connected to in his opinion. It is worth noting as well that initially he assigns sylphs to the earth, along with four other types of beings, 'sylvani' to air, and associates nymphs - not undine - with water:
"So it is to be known also further that the spirits are many, and they are each one differently than the other. For there are spiritus coelestes, spiritus infernales, spiritus humani, spiritus ignis, spiritus aëris, spiritus aquae, spiritus terrae, etc.. And the spiritus coelestes [spirits of heaven] are the angels and the best spirits, the spiritus infernales [spirits of Hell] are the devils, the spiritus humani [human spirits] are the dead human spirits, the spiritus ignis [spirits of fire] are the salamanders, the spiritus of the air are the sylvani, the spiritus aquatici [spirits of water] are the nymphs, the spiritus terrae [spirits of earth] are called the sylphs, pygmies, Schrötlein, Büzlein, and mountain men." - Paracelsus, Tractatus IV
Later in writing Ex Libro de Nymphis, Sylvanis, Pygmaeis, Salamandris, et Caetebus Spiritus [the book of nymphs, sylvanis, pygmies, salamanders, and other spirits] he would expand these groups and did include undine with water and gnomes with earth. However he didn't limit these beings to single elements, instead listing three elements that each needed, one that they existed in and two others that they were nourished by (Willard, 2020). His elementals then were more complex and nuanced than the modern versions, and were also part of a complex system through which they might reproduce with a human to create a spirit with a soul or with other elemental beings to create monsters which included by his reckoning dwarves, giants, and mermaids. He also understood these beings as having a middle nature between the physical and non-physical, and being inherently good beings who were open to evil influences but sought God and longed for souls (Willard, 2020). Paracelsus also, rather ironically to us perhaps, did not use the names he chose for these beings by choice but rather because he felt they were recognizable (despite appearing to be the source for sylph and gnome) and instead, as Willard discusses more eloquently than I can here, preferred to call them people and emphasize their likeness to humans*.

Theosophy 
In Blavatsky's view however we see none of the folkloric fairy and only a shadow of Paracelsus' ideas. We find fairies - interchangeably called elementals and nature spirits - described as lesser beings who seek to evolve upwards into human souls and who are incapable of physical form or of higher intelligence:
"They are the Soul of the elements, the capricious forces in Nature, acting under one immutable Law, inherent in these Centres of Force, with undeveloped consciousness and bodies of plastic mold, which can be shaped according to the conscious or unconscious will of the human being who puts himself in rapport with them. . . . These beings have never been, but will in myriads of ages hence, be evolved into men. They belong to the three lower kingdoms....Elementals, as said already, have no form, and in trying to describe what they are, it is better to say that they are ‘centers of force’ having instinctive desires, but no consciousness, as we understand it. Hence their acts may be good or bad indifferently." (Blavatsky, 1893).
In modern theosophy all fairies, under any name, are lumped into the general categories of elemental or nature spirit (Theosophy World, 2023).  It is broadly understood that all named types of folkloric beings are actually cultural interpretations of specific categories of elementals/nature spirits. These beings are also more strictly limited to their single element and categorized into one of three kingdoms which all seek to evolve into mineral, seen as a transition point into higher evolution which leads eventually to human incarnation (Theosophy World, 2023).  While Paracelsus described these various spirits as very humanoid and capable of interacting with and even reproducing with humans, Theosophy sees them as entirely intangible, shaped or given appearance by human assumptions or projections, and as less intelligent and more primitive than humans. They are, from this view, nature embodied in spirit and exist in a world where humans are the ultimate goal of spiritual evolution, a state which all 'lesser' spirits seek to achieve by working their way up a hierarchy of incarnation, from the elemental state into form then into humanity. 
Another key aspect which is paraphrased by the Theosophy World website is that fairies/elementals are "neither individualized like human beings nor even yet entered on the way to such individualization, as animals and plants have been" or in other words elementals in this view are a collective consciousness, an expression of a natural force, rather than a unique or individual being. This is an aspect of the lower evolution of these spirits compared to humans, that they exist in a primitive state and are not conscious or self aware in a way that humans understand. This is also reflected in the idea that these beings lack any form of their own and are only given form by the humans they interact with. They are understood to be immoral or amoral in that they lack the cognitive ability to make moral judgements and instead act by 'natural law' (Theosophy World, 2023). This is of course sharply in contrast to Paracelsus' idea of elementals as inherently good but capable of being mislead into evil, as it positions them as incapable of any moral understanding or judgment. 

The Effect
So what are the key points that neopaganism/witchcraft have taken from Blavatsky that are at odds with folklore?

1. fairies as incorporeal - a common idea seen in modern views that is rooted in Blavatsky but not found elsewhere is that fairies are incapable of being tangible or corporeal.
2. fairies are beneath humans - Blavatsky placed fairies as less evolved souls and simple primitive spirits. While there are corners of neopaganism who view fairies as evolved guides there are also many who see fairies as animalistic and easily controlled by humans or existing in a hierarchy beneath humans. 
3. fairies as nature spirits - while this is concurrent with Victorian imagery it was also a point that Blavatsky specifically wrote about, tying fairies intrinsically to the human natural world and particularly plants and minerals. In this view fairies are limited to and defined by the human natural world.
4. fairies as elementals - widely popular now and seen even outside neopaganism is the Blavatsky idea of fairies as elemental spirits. This view generally removes the nuanced belief about fairies and reduces them to simple expressions of the qualities of an element. While claiming to be based on Paracelsus, often more strongly informed by Blavatsky. 
5. fairies require human input to express forms - I have seen this in multiple contexts now, the idea that fairies are formless unless and until given form through interaction with a human. Put another way, humans see what they expect when encountering a fairy because they shape themselves to the human's expectation. 
6. fairies seek human incarnation - while we have a plethora of material, including Paracelsus, which discuss the fairies desire for souls and Christian salvation it seems to be an effect of Theosophy to believe that fairies desire or seek physical form in a human body**. This seems to have blended into some neopagan/witchcraft ideas around reincarnation and the afterlife to give us a belief in witches as fairy souls incarnate in human bodies or humans being corporeal fairies who return to Fairy after death.
   We do find stories, such as that of Melusine, that discuss a fairy reproducing with a human so that their offspring will have a soul, but that is a rather different concept. 
7. fairies as simple or childlike spirits - an outgrowth of Blavatsky's ideas of fairies/elementals as less evolved and less intelligent spirits, possibly blended with the Victorian infantilization of fairies, seems to be the idea of fairies as childlike spirits.

It should be understood that these ideas often work together or intertwine in modern thought, sometimes independent of other influences sometimes closely tied to related Victorian or new age beliefs, and sometimes woven into older folk material to create a new concept. If your understanding of fairies involves their being less than human, incapable of corporeal form, as childlike spirits, as beings who are bound to the natural world or as elemental beings embodying natural forces then you are being influenced by theosophical thought and its followers in occult and pagan philosophy. 

End Notes
*this is particularly worth noting in relation to the salamander which is envisioned as a kind of fiery amphibian creature but which Paracelsus saw as humanoid
**I am expressing no judgment on this belief, before people jump into the comments, simply tracing the available evidence for the source of the belief. 

References

Blavatsky, H., (1893) Elementals Retrieved from  https://www.theosophy.world/resource/elementals-hp-blavatsky

Paracelsus (nd) Tractatus IV Retrieved from https://theomagica.com/blog/paracelsus-wisdom-on-the-ecosystem-of-spirits

Willard, T., (2020) The Monsters of Paracelsus Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/83978616/The_Monsters_of_Paracelsus 

Theosophy World (2023) Fairies Retrieved from https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/fairies

2022 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 Dawn, Beltane Issue, 2022, no 223 “Finding the Aos Sidhe”, ev0ke magazine, June 2022

I presented "Fairies as 'Other': Gender and Sexuality Across Western European Fairy Belief" for the Folklore Open Voices: folklore for all, folklore of all conference and gave a lecture on the Aos Sidhe for the Folklore Library's conference. I was also very excited to present at Octocon in Dublin, to be on several panels, and to do a short reading of my forthcoming novel Into Shadow.

I wrote two short stories for anthologies, 'Dawn' which was published in 'Kindred Kingdoms' and 'The Herb in The Wood' which will be in the forthcoming 'My Say in the Matter', I also had a poem accepted for the latter book. I had two non-fiction pieces published in the Naming the God anthology, one on Finnvarra and one on Nuada.

I wrote the forwards for two forthcoming books, 'Bones Fall in a Spiral' by Mortellus, and 'Parallels Between Romanian and Irish Fairylore and Practice' by Daniela Simina. Both will be out next year.

I had two non-fiction books published, 'Pantheons the Norse' and 'Pagan Portals Aos Sidhe', as well as self publishing the prequel in my urban fantasy series 'Emergence'. In addition I wrote two books which will be out next year, 'Pagan Portals 21st Century Fairy' and 'Pagan Portals Freya'.

Beyond that I taught a couple classes for the Irish Pagan School and on my own offered Elves After Dark part 2 and From Leannán sidhe to Fetch. I was also the guest on various podcasts and restarted my Youtube channel which I hadn't had time to focus on much. And of course I've been continuing my translation work on Patreon, offering my patrons new English translations of Irish myths as I work on them as well as a final completed copy when its done.

That's about it for me this year. I'm hoping that 2023 is on an easier setting, to borrow a gaming term, and allows me to focus more on some of the projects I most want to get done, but we shall see.

What 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, lithe, and handsome is far from what we find in folklore. And while the images of small insect-winged* children may fit a very specific type of garden fairy, the more widespread images of winged Barbie-like beauties - wasp waisted, disproportionately large eyed, large breasted, with tiny hands and feet - is straight out of our culture's fantasies. Many modern images, such as those that depict selkies as a kind of seal mermaid with the upper torso of a human and lower half of a seal, are purely from an artist's imagination. In the same way the recent upsurge in anime and video game influenced images - those that have extremely long pointed ears, sharp features, slim figures but exaggerated sexual characteristics - don't reflect actual folklore or mythology but an artistic view that is aimed at appealing visually to an audience used to consuming a specific aesthetic. 

So, what do the Good People really look like? As with most questions relating to Themselves there is no simple answer, because the subject is too broad and diverse. I think, therefore, that the best approach is to look at a range of different types of fairies known to have more human-like forms and discuss how we see them described in folklore, in order to get a feel for the ways that these beings, overall, may appear. In order to keep this article reasonably short I'm only going to give very brief descriptions of each below:

Aos Sí - Yeats described the Daoine Maithe as looking much like human people, although prone to wearing slightly outdated fashion, although Yeats isn't an ideal source this view seems to be inline with wider Irish folklore. Described as around five feet tall, sometimes slightly taller, in most accounts from sources like duchas.ie the Good Folk aren't distinguished by their appearance per se but by an Otherworldliness around them or by their actions. We see the idea of their human appearance reinforced in much of the anecdotal evidence particularly stories of borrowed midwives, stolen brides, and musicians who spend a night inside a fairy hill. There would seem to be then at least one type of more powerful fairy people who do or can look very much like humans and may even pass for human to some degree. 

Y Tylweth Teg - like the aos sí generally described as human-like in appearance, usually blond haired. In some folklore said to be the size of an 8 or 10 year old child, but elsewhere described as adult human sized.

Pixies - Descriptions can vary greatly but they are known to wear green. Pixies may range in height from a few inches tall to five or six feet and Briggs describes them as red haired, with short faces, and up-tilted noses. 

The Baobhan Sithe - described as beautiful human-looking women, who wear long green dresses to hide their feet which are the hooves of a deer. Said to take the form of wolves and crows or ravens.

Brownies - generally about 3 feet tall, although folklore varies in some details, but they are usually said to dress in rough clothing or rags. Described in some sources as tanned and in others as uniform brown colour all over.

Leprechauns - look much like humans in the oldest stories, except they are said to only be about 12 to 18 inches tall. In later folklore they are described with a similar height and as looking like older men with grey or white hair and beards.  

Goblin, from 'English Fairy Tales' by J. Jacobs, 1895, pubic domain

Goblins - three to four feet tall, ranging from almost human like, although extremely ugly (by our standards), to very animalistic with whiskers, tails, claws, etc., Like other terms including elf and fairy goblin is a category as well as a specific term so there is a lot of variance here. 

Trows - in some folklore trows are described as very human in appearance, although they may appear old, shriveled, or physically deformed. In other stories however they are described as clearly inhuman, unattractive, and twisted, even in sometimes appearing as a mix of human and horse. They are often described in unflattering terms as having oversized feet, large noses, flat faces, and short limbs. They can range in height from three to six feet depending on the story. They are often said to dress in grey. 

Dwarves - Another type of fairy that has a wide range even within its grouping. In some cases they may appear as Tolkien described them, as short, barrel chested, heavily bearded men. In other cases the may have clear physical deformities such as animal feet or feet turned backwards at the ankle. 

Púca - a shapeshifter the Púca can appear as a variety of animals including eagles, goats, horses, bulls, and dogs. May also appear as a small man. 

Kelpies - can assume the form of a horse or of a dark haired person, usually but not always a man. As a horse he is appealing and fine-looking; as a person he would seem human except that his hair remains damp and may have water weeds in it if one looks closely. 

Merrows - Like traditional mermaids they have the upper torso of a human and the lower half of a fish; merrows also have webbed hands. Females are extremely beautiful. Males are hideously ugly, with green tinted skin, and deep set red eyes. Children born from the union of a merrow and a mortal are said to have scales. 

Selkies - Selkies can take the form of seals or of dark haired human-like beings. The children of selkies and humans are said in folklore to be born with webbed hands or feet.

Glaistig - May appear as a beautiful woman with slightly damp or dripping hair; as a woman wearing a long green dress to conceal her lower half which is that of a goat; or may appear in the form of a goat.  

Huldra - A kind of Scandinavian fairy that looks like a very beautiful woman but always has some hidden deformity in stories; sometimes a tail, or a hollow back. The Huldrekall (male huldra) is quite ugly with a long nose. 

Martin Brandenburg 'Elfenreigen', Public domain

Elves - elves present a unique difficulty because the English word elf is used to gloss several words in other languages and was also used for a long time as a generic. Because of this we end up with a range of beings that fall under the label 'elf' but are very different in nature and description. We may perhaps divide them into two main groupings, the tall elves and the small elves. The latter are generally described as about a foot tall and can appear as old and wizened or younger. The former group are often described as more human in appearance, although they are clearly supernatural in their abilities and are averse to iron. Grimm suggest a division in Germanic mythology of taller elves into three main groups, the ljossalfar, dokkalfar, and svartalfar, each living in different domains and having slightly different appearances; lossalfar means 'light elves', dokkalfar 'dark elves', and svartalfar 'black elves'. Snorri writing about Norse mythology described only ljossalfar and svartalfar. In Scottish and Germanic sources the tall elves may be described as beautiful and the word elf was sometimes glossed with incubus; elves were known for seducing mortal women. However in other Germanic sources elves were explicitly called ugly. 

Giants - there are also a variety of giants to be found in fairylore, beings who can be 7 or 8 feet tall or more. In English folklore these are usually named beings like the Jack-in-Irons or Jimmy Squarefoot. In other cultures these may appear as a type of being in their own right such as the Norse Jotun or Anglo-Saxon Ettin, both names meaning 'giant'. Giants may appear very human but on a larger scale or may be monstrous, such as the aforementioned Jimmy Squarefoot who was part man and part boar, or they may have extra heads or limbs.

Gruagachs - male or female, generally human-like in looks may appear as either young and attractive, or as wizened, old, and very hairy.  

Muryans - Cornish fairies that could be as small as ants. They might be shape-shifters who could take animals forms, particularly birds, but were also associated with the Heathen dead. It was believed they had once been human-sized but had shrunk over time, eventually disappearing entirely. 

This is only, obviously, a small sample of the huge array of fairies that can be found in folklore. I hope though that this has illustrated the range of descriptions we see, from human-like to monstrous, from tiny to taller, from what we may call beautiful to what we judge as ugly, from entirely human-like to animalistic, with various skin colors including green. As Katherine Briggs says "The fairy people are good and bad, beautiful and hideous, stately and comical...one of their greatest variations is size" (Briggs, 1976, page 368).  Fairy has an enormous diversity to it that far, far defies our modern cultural perceptions of 'beauty'. If we are seeking to understand and appreciate the folklore, and to connect on any level with these beings then we must understand this diversity and appreciate it for what it is without overlaying our own perceptions and opinions onto it. We must understand that each group of fairies, each kind, would seem to judge by their own standards just as we do by our cultural ones, so that what a pixie considers beautiful is not what an elf (of any type) might consider beautiful, and neither may be what a human would call beautiful. I think we limit our appreciation of Fairy when we are looking at it through our own lens of beauty, height, ability, size, skill, or mobility, rather than appreciating it and Themselves for what and who they are in themselves. 

 

Further Reading:

Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz

Celtic Twilight by W. B. Yeats
Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry by Yeats 

Meeting the Othercrowd by Lehinhan and Green

Teutonic Mythology by J. Grimm

Prose Edda Snorri Sturlisson

The Trows, Orkneyjar http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/trows/index.html 
A Dictionary of Fairies by Katherine Briggs
Elves in Anglo-Saxon England by Alaric Hall

*on a small side note, the idea of fairies having wings is actually more recent and comes from the theater. I recommend this article 'In Search of the Earliest Fairy Wings' for a far more in-depth discussion of the subject. 

* there is some art out there that is based more closely on folklore, rather than adapting an idealized concept of what a fairy is to our modern beauty standards. What I am referencing here is specifically the more popular images found in video games, anime, and more imagination based art. 

Pre-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 Christian in contrast to pre-Christian fairylore. 

This is one of those deceptively simple statements that's actually very, very complicated. So let's jump into why that is and why we shouldn't dismiss 'Christian' fairylore for an assumed pre-Christian lore. 

Firstly, yes the tithe to Hell is a clearly Christian concept, a belief found in Scottish folklore around the Selkirk area. The idea is that the fairies pay rent to the Devil for Fairyland, which by implication is the property of Hell. This tithe, or kain, is paid either yearly or every seven years and is paid in the currency of Hell, that is souls. Because the fairies prefer not to give up their own people they steal humans to offer up instead, which then further ties the folklore into beliefs around changelings. The layers of this concept are without debt Christian and play into the idea found across fairy belief which fits fairies into Christian cosmology by defining them as a type of fallen angel or demon-lite. 

There's no arguing that the belief is Christian and rooted in Christian cosmology.  However this is where things get complicated - saying that the tithe to Hell is a later Christian addition to pre-Christian fairy belief, while obviously true on the surface, implies the existence of pre-Christian fairy beliefs to contrast the later material to. And herein lies the rub. 

We have no recorded pre-Christian fairy beliefs, at least not in Ireland or Scotland.

Everything we have, even the oldest material which can be dated back to roughly the 7th century, was recorded by Christians in the Christian period. 

Now we can certainly theorize and extrapolate. We can look at similar beliefs in other closely related cultures that do have pre-Christian or conversion era material.  We can study the Christianity of various time periods across Europe and see how that meshes in with fairy beliefs of those times. We can study archeology that seems relevant. But we can't know for certain what the beliefs were or how they were practiced because we simply lack that information. 

It is also complicated to filter out exactly what and how much is Christian insertion. We can say with reasonable certainty that the idea of the fairies renting from Hell and paying a tithe to the Devil is foreign influence, because the ideas of Hell and the Devil are later Christian concepts. But beyond that it starts to get murky. Was the connection to changeling folklore before or after to the idea of the tithe itself? Meaning did people start to say that changelings were stolen to pay the tithe as a way to explain why fairies stole humans, or did beliefs about fairies stealing humans lead to the idea of the tithe? Was the concept of a rent to Hell entirely a new idea or based on older pagan sacrificial rites? Was the entire concept Christian cosmology influencing fairy belief or was it concepts of society and class structure around landlords and rent being reflected in the local beliefs?

Because these beliefs are fluid and adapt as time passes, there is no rigidly set pre-Christian form that we can simply look at - at best we have a scattering of clues to be traced and expanded on. And of course we have a lot of modern beliefs and practices as well. Fairylore is a living thing and must be understood that way, to be understood.  

Ultimately when we are talking about fairy beliefs across Ireland and Scotland we are talking about 1500 years of syncretic beliefs, and its impossible to unweave that completely. We can pick out the most obvious insertions - Hell and the Devil - if we're minded to and we can use a range of sources to reconstruct the likely older beliefs. But certainty is more elusive and controversial and pre-Christian beliefs will only ever be educated guesses.