One of the most commonly recommended books I see in groups and on reading lists is the 1911 work ‘The Fairy Faith In Celtic Countries’ by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. The book is often hailed as the benchmark in fairylore and a staple of study in the field or for anyone interested in the subject. I also personally suspect its rampant popularity in modern pagan groups is due in part to it being in the…
Author Archives: Lairbhan
New Liminal God: The Queen of Apples
Earlier this year there was some talk in a Fairy Witchcraft group on Facebook about a liminal god called the Queen of Apples. Several people felt like they were connecting to her and shared their thoughts on who she was. I was asked what my impression of her was.
It’s important to understand here that the particular type of Fairy witchcraft I practice gets very messy when it comes to Gods….
The Return of the Otherfolk and the Puritan Egregore
For several years now there has been talk among some practitioners (of various sorts) in North America suggesting both that the Otherworldly energy present here has been increasing and that the Otherfolk themselves have been pushing through into the human world more strongly. I wrote about it on my Patheos blog in a piece titled ‘Return of the Othercrowd’ and Seo Helrune and John Beckett have…
Basic Guide To Identifying Spirits
I have taught a class a few times which focuses on helping people learn to differentiate between several types of spirits they may be interacting with. The point of doing this is that what a ghost can or can’t do is different from what a fairy can or can’t do which is different again from what a third type of spirit might be capable of.
This is by no means a foolproof process but was intended to…
Ritual For The Pleiades: The Way Opening
We are reaching the time of year for the acronychal rising of the Pleiades, when they are on the eastern horizon just after full dark, or roughly about 9pm for my latitude, This coincides with the general time of the autumn equinox and I personally choose to celebrate my ritual for it on the equinox. In my constructed mythology this When the time of the Opening of the Way Between Worlds, when…
Review – Carnival Row
There’s been a lot of buzz since last year about amazon’s series Carnival Row. The premise, as advertised, is a Victorian-esque world where fairies and humans live side by side with fairies mostly limited to a neighborhood called Carnival Row; a series of murders occurs which the main character is trying to solve. This is the summary of what we know going into the series, and obviously is the…
Some Advice For Former Christians About Unpacking Christian Baggage
I’ve never made any secret that I wasn’t raised Christian but rather grew up a secular agnostic, with all the fun of Santa and a magic chocolate delivering bunny. I actively got into paganism and witchcraft around the age of 11 or 12 and have been practicing since; I didn’t make an effort to learn about Christianity until I was in my 20’s. This gives me a different perspective on some things…
Ritual for the Heliacal Rising of the Pleiades
Continuing with our series of rituals for the cycle of the Pleiade we have arrived at the next one, the heliacal rising of the Pleiades after their conjunction with the sun. This marks the time when the stars are once again visible in the sky just before dawn and occurs now between June 18th and June 24th. I have roughed out a ritual that people can use if they’d like, in line with the others in…
Q & A With My Fiction
I’m still working on the next book in my fiction series, progress being slowed by several other contracted projects that have deadlines. But I thought it would be fun here to do a question and answer on social media for my fiction, to tackle any and all question people might have about my ‘Between the Worlds’ series.
The following may contain spoilers for those who haven’t read the books or have…
Cautions For Pagans Who Want to Honour the Fae Folk
My friend Seo Helrune has recently been blogging about ancestor cultus and I recommend checking out the series of posts they have out so far. Reading the series and especially their take on the pitfalls of ancestor veneration has inspired me to write my own post here about the problems that can come up for pagans incorporating the Fair Folk into their practices or who are trying to set up the…