This year has been a chaotic one for many people, myself included. Last year I had debated archiving this blog but ultimately decided not to, however I definitely didn’t get much content up here, about on par with 2019 which was also a skimpy year for content. I’d like to think what did make it to the digital page was decent quality but obviously going from an average of 60 posts down to a bit…
Author Archives: Lairbhan
My Fairy Writings
I’ve been asked several times about what I’ve written on fairies by people looking into my writing on the subject. I finally decided it would just be easier to write a quick bit here about it. I’m including articles, presentations both on fairy witchcraft specifically and on fairies in general. I am not including the range of my blog material here or on Patheos Agora: Irish-American Witchcraft…
Euphemisms for Fairies
It’s been a common practice for centuries to refer to fairies by euphemisms, terms that are intentionally more positive than the beings being referred to. I’m going to start a list here which I’ll occasionally update of these terms and, where possible, the oldest known dates of their uses. This is a work in progress, if you have references to uses of any of these terms in specific dated works…
Representation and Racism in Fairy Media
I am planning to write a full length article on this subject, however I wanted to offer a brief overview here because I feel like this is an important subject that deserves discussion. This represents my off the cuff thoughts on the subject, with the longer, citation-full article to come.I’ve spoken out against racism in various areas, from Irish paganism to Asatru to folklore, but one area that…
Weaving Personal Gnosis Into Personal Belief: Understanding Sex and Love in Fairy
I often write about the more academic – let’s say objective – side of my beliefs and practices. That’s important because I strongly believe that we must ground our practice in something outside ourselves and having a firm foundation in structural, generational beliefs provides that. But equally important is the actual experiential side of spirituality, the parts that represent tangible…
History and Meaning of the Word Fairy
This is a question from social media, and also a topic I see a lot of misinformation floating around about so it seems like a good topic to dive into today. What exactly are the origins of the word fairy and fae? How do they relate to each other and what do they mean?Fae – also spelled fay* – is from the 12th century old French, likely from the older Latin Fata, meaning spirits of fate, and…
The Benefits of Fairy Work
I will be the first to admit much of what I write is aimed at sharing the more dangerous sides of fairies and fairy work with people, even those interested in connecting to them, because I think many are coming to this subject with an ingrained sense of human superiority and fairy diminishment. But of course there is a beneficial side to this connection and that’s also worth discussing. There’s a…
Fairy Help, Fairy Harm
Modern paganism, and perhaps more broadly mainstream Western culture, seems to constantly be trapped in a mobius strip argument about the potential help or harm caused by fairies. There is one side that argues, staunchly, that the Good Folk are entirely benevolent and benign to humans. In contrast there is another side that argues just as fervently that the Othercrowd should be entirely avoided…
Book Review: Royal Roads
So time for another book review. Today I want to write about my friend* Dana Corby’s book ‘royal Roads: Pilgrimages through the Four Elements and Beyond’ co-authored with Bjeon-Erik Hartsfvang. I’m friends with Dana on social media and became aware of this book when I saw her posting about it. Its a bit outside my usual purview but I think it overlaps enough with my own witchcraft practices that…
Black Eyed Children
One of several topics that I couldn’t fit into my new fairies dictionary was the Black Eyed Children so I thought I’d write about them here today. They present a fascinating piece of more modern folklore, somewhere between urban legend and ghost story yet with sightings across America and Britain. For myself I tend to believe they are either a kind of fairy or a form put on by fairies.
Black…