written in 2022; revised 2026
Recently I’ve seen a lot of discussion
about what exactly pagan priesthood is and should be, which is a good thing.
This is a topic that needs to be discussed more often and more thoroughly in a
community where many people clamour for the title but fewer are perhaps willing
or equipped to do the actual work. John Beckett has written about pagan…
Today I’d like to take a look at the fairy folklore in the 2023 horror film ‘Unwelcome’. This movie differs slightly from some of the previous ones we’ve looked at in this series; because it is folk horror the folklore elements are more pronounced and pivotal to the wider story. This is both a benefit and a weakness of the movie, as it openly incorporates beings from fairy belief but also…
I had recently made a short video discussing [read:ranting] about people on social media who overly romanticize the Irish language and treat it as magical. In that video I strongly emphasized my belief that learning Irish is for everyone and that it is an amazing language, and was asked for my recommendations for learning Irish. Below I will offer my suggestions, with the understanding that…
Its difficult to find a book on global fairy belief that’s solid, especially in the age of AI. I have read much of what’s out there that attempts to offer a wide overview of fairies or of specific types of fairy beings, from Bane’s ‘Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology’ to the ‘Fairy Bible’ and consistently find them to contain glaring errors. It was exciting and…
This article was originally written for my Patreon in 2023 and I am making it public nowYesterday I gave a talk for the Folklore Podcast, as part of a lecture series to raise funds for the Folklore Library. My focus was tracing the history of the Scottish fairy courts across the last 500 years, from folklore to fiction. In the Q&A which followed someone asked a question about why…
It’s been a very busy year, with less blogging and more working on bigger projects. In 2025 I wrote 5 books (4 to be released next year)I had 4 books published: Paid With A Kiss, Tales of the Tuatha De Danann vol 1, Pantheon the Irish, and Dangerous MagicI had four articles published in various magazines and journalsContributed to two anthologies which came out this year: Fairies a…
It’s been awhile since I did a ‘fairylore in popular media’ article, but I thought this one would be worth digging into now. Stranger Things is a cultural phenomenon which I admit I’ve previously avoided. But at the urging of my 12 year old I’ve dived in and was pleasantly surprised to see the many echos of fairylore in the show, particularly the first two seasons, although I’m focusing…
As part of a book that I am currently working on I am doing a survey of modern changeling beliefs, particularly focused on people who identify as changelings. I am hoping to gather a range of responses that will help to illustrate the diversity of modern beliefs on this topic and the value of the concept to people who identify with it.If you are interested in taking the survey you can email…
The Dance: The 7 Queens and the Moon
The cycle of the Pleaides is something that
I have found to be important within my spirituality across the last 7 years. I
have, in that time, shared various rituals I have designed to help nurture a
connection to the Other who are aligned with these stars. That cycle has slowly
grown across time, moving towards a fully fleshed out ritual cycle,…
For this installment of fairy facts lets look at a particularly complicated topic – the Leprechaun. this one is particularly tricky (pun intended) because it exist in two distinctly different forms between mythology and folklore. But that’s also a great reason to include it here, so let’s dive in.Leprechaun, 1900, public domain Name: Leprechaun, modern Irish Leipreachán or Lucharachán,…