Since we’re into October I thought it would be fun to do a list of my top 10 favourite horror movies – feel free to add your own in the comments. Outside of a few close friends most people probably don’t know that I’m a big fan of the horror genre. I’ve watched horror since I was about 12, saw Halloween for the first time, and fell in love with the entire concept. Probably less surprisingly my…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Following the Pleaides
As some people are aware for the last four years I have been researching the Pleiades from a spiritual perspective and working to create a system of rituals connected to it. As we approach the four year anniversary of the experience in Iceland which led me onto this path I wanted to recap how things have gone so far. image of Pleiades by NASA, public domainI’ve talked about the approach I was…
Tolkien, Stereotypes, and Diversity
I’ve written here before about representation and racism in fairy media and later expanded that into a full length article which was published in Witches & Pagans magazine under the title ‘The (White) Elephant in the Room: Race & Identity in Fairy Lore’. In both of these pieces I emphasized the diverse descriptions of fairies, elves, and other Otherworldly beings that we find across folklore and…
Folklore in Legend
The 1985 movie Legend is often classified as a dark fantasy but it contains many themes from older folklore. So today lets look at some of the folklore we find in the film and how it is incorporated into the story. 1551 woodcutting of a unicorn https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_unicorn._Woodcut_after_C._Gessner._Wellcome_V0021193.jpgSpoilers ahead:For those unfamiliar the movie tells the…
Marriage and the Otherworld part 2
In my last piece I established that marriage was a common feature of stories involving fairies but today I’d like to look at some patterns we can note within that wider concept particularly of the Good Folk marrying humans. I think this can help us further explore the idea of marriage with the Othercrowd and may be useful both for those with an esoteric bent as well as those writing fiction who…
Marriage and the Otherworld
Recently the subject of fairies and marriage was brought up in a discussion, with someone suggesting that fairies would have no such concept as ‘marriage’ and that there were no accounts of marriage either of fairies or between fairies and humans. Since I’m not sure how pervasive that idea is I thought the best approach would be to address it here and discuss the layers of folklore involved -…
Morgan’s Basic Ogham Cheat Sheet
Although there’s no solid historical basis for using ogham as a divination tool its certainly popular to do so today and there is more than enough material to make it a viable system. Much like tarot, actually, there is so much that it takes a while to learn to really read ogham well. I highly recommend checking out the original source material, the Auraicept na n-Eces as well as modern books on…
Complete List of My Published Works 2022
Its been about 18 months since I last shared my complete bibliography so its time for an update.
Articles
“Healing
Ritual for the Ocean Waters”, Circle Magazine issue 109 summer 2011
“A
Gaelic View of Samhain”, Celtic Guide, vol. 1 issue 10 Oct. 2012
“Celebrating Imbolc with the Family”, Air n-Aithesc, vol.1 issue 1, Feb.
2014
“The Witch, the Bean Feasa, and the Fairy Doctor in…
The Fairy Folklore in Pan’s Labyrinth
Continuing on with my series of fairy folklore in films and television let’s look at the 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth, or ‘El laberinto del fauno’ [the labyrinth of the Faun]. This movie, much like Henson’s Labyrinth, is full of folklore references which are worth discussing, as well as many references to classical literature and mythology which are beyond the purview of this blog. As with previous…
Are Fairies Physical?
One of the most common questions I’m asked is if fairies have physicality, if they are tangible beings. This is rooted I think in the common idea perpetuated especially in new age and post-Victorian fairy belief that these beings are entirely energy or thoughtforms, creatures that can be perceived by the mind but lack physical reality in this world. So let’s dig into this shall we?Arthur…