One of the most consistent threads among the folklore, and one that I’ve touched on previously in my articles on the Leannán Sí and Changelings, is also one that seems to endlessly fascinate modern people: fairies and humans as lovers. While some today like to scoff at the concept as the fodder of lascivious imaginations and trashy novels it is actually an idea that is found and reiterated in…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Ireland: Seeing the Stories
The idea behind today’s blog is pretty straightforward – its a collection of pictures of from my recent trip along with some related lore, history, myth, or personal stories. I had been sharing these in snippets on social media and decided to collect them all into one place here and share them with a wider audience. Display at the Bru na Bionne Visitor Centre, "Stone Balls"
"He was eating a…
7 Snarky But Serious Tips for Dealing with Fairies
Inspired by the always awesome Seo Helrune blog and today’s ‘Eight Sarcastic But Serious Tips for Necromancy’. I give you 7 snarky but Serious Tips for Dealing with Fairies
Since fairies are pretty trendy right now and people are paying mad money to become a certified Fairyologist – or Fairy Doctor, or Fairyist, or whatever today’s popular term is – I thought I’d save everyone some money and…
My Shifting Spirituality and Fairytale Wolves
I’ve been thinking a lot about wolves lately. I’m in a place spiritually right now that is a bit contradictory – several events in Ireland were very empowering and intense for me and moved me into a deeper connection with the Other Crowd, but at the same time other things have become chaotic as a result. Not all of this chaos was predictable and the wolves are a good example of that. I have a…
Quick Thoughts on Apotropaic Iron
there seems to be a lot of confusion about the apotropaic qualities of iron.So, let’s clear some points up.Iron is said in folklore to protect against a wide range of spirits and negative magics including [most of] the Good Neighbors and Alfar, Ghosts, Demons, and witches. Iron objects deter the majority of the Other Crowd who are averse to its presence and things like knives, scissors, nails,…
Changelings
I’ve recently had Bridget Cleary on my mind and that along with some synchronicity on social media that brought the subject up in a separate context made me decide to write today about changelings. For those who don’t know, Bridget Cleary was a woman in Ireland who died in 1895 when her husband and several family members and neighbors burned her alive after several days of trying to ‘cure’ her,…
The Doubled Edge of Fairywork
Sometimes people ask me why I don’t talk much about personal practice and experience with the Othercrowd, beyond a handful of anecdotes that I repeat and some fairly generic for-public-consumption stories. I’m pretty free with talking about experiences that occured with other people, about being pixy-led, or seeing fairy hounds, or items being taken and returned. And I will talk about the…
Meeting a New Liminal God
I’m on a brief hiatus at the moment, and today is Thanksgiving here in the US, so I am re-posting this from my other blog ‘Into the Twilight’. Its a look at more of the personal side of my witchcraft practice. Enjoy!
Generally speaking in my practice of Fairy Witchcraft I honor two main pairs of deities. From Bealtaine to Samhain the Lady of the Greenwood and Lord of the Wildwood hold sway as…
Stepping Into Brigit – a Review
Many people are familiar with my dedication to the Morrigan but what may not be as widely known is my love of Brighid. It is, by its nature, a different sort of love, but it is just as much a presence in my life in its own way. So when I was asked to help Beta test* a new course ‘Stepping Into Brigit’ designed for people interested in Brighid to learn about and connect to her I jumped at the…
Fairies, Witches, and Dangerous Magic
When many people think of the classical image of the witch it comes with the implicit shadow of the Devil looming over it and an inherent sense of danger. When the folklore is studied in Scotland and Ireland, however, it is not cloven hooves and hellfire that mark many witches but the touch of Fairy and interaction with the Otherworld that made them what they were, and for some of us what we are…