How did you have the idea
to start an outdoor Faery Festival?
The first festival was in 2007. I remember I was really strongly guided that there needed to be an event, an outdoor event. A celebration that was non-religious, you didn’t have to be Pagan or anything like that. Anyone, at any level of understanding, who loved faeries could come along. I didn’t know what to call it…and I was hanging some washing on the line when I saw this dandelion seed head. The lawn had been cut, and I remember thinking, “How has that dandelion survived when everything else has been cut?” Then three of the little seeds flew up, one, two, three, and then the idea of “three wishes” came into my head. Three Wishes Faery Fest. I knew what it had to be called, I knew it had to exist.
I also knew through guidance that it had to be at midsummer. Then I was prompted to announce it even though I had no idea where it was going to be! I was being tested, my faith and trust. I knew it would be in Cornwall, but not where it would be. Then I was led to the venue, and the owner was crazy enough to say, “Let’s do it!”
Why are the Faery events
so important?
It’s a celebration of Faery as real energies, the guardians of the earth. They really are connected to earth very strongly, and without them, I don’t think the earth would survive. It’s a very intrinsic thing. The festival is to create a utopia for a few days where people can come and feel really safe with likeminded people and just have a party. Dress up and have fun! It’s wonderful, because it’s creative, it’s innocent. All your cares can go and you can just be in a beautiful location and celebrate faeries.
And when you think about faeries, whether consciously or unconsciously, then ultimately it will bring you back to the environment. That’s why I think the faeries want us to do these events, to bring attention back to the land and to faeries as the guardians of the land. We really need to look after our planet, and without sounding like an eco-warrior type, it’s that—with wings and a bit of sparkle!
Faces of Faery
Let’s take a journey in pictures through some Faery events and see the different ways people express their love for Faery…
Here I am (center) in full bling mode with author
Kim Huggens (left) and artist Esther Remmington (right)
Naomi von Monsta (top right)
and artist Liselotte Eriksson (above, left)
have opted for a deliciously dark yet colourful look,
bringing a touch of Goth to their Faery costumes.
Note the wonderful details
such as the skull headdress!
Artist Jennie Cooper combines a pair of horns with lavender
and innocent white to create a playful look.
There is always a frolicking faun or two to be found at a good Faery festival! Here, the furry legs, horns, and hoofiness are provided by restaurant owner Darren Williams.
below: Alison Spence attended the Mermaids
and Pirates Ball as a rather wonderful sea witch.
right: Bryony Whistlecraft’s natural elfin beauty
is enhanced by a tasteful pair of antlers.
(photo courtesy of www.tpftpf.com)
Felicity Fyr Le Fay and my daughter, Willow, lead the faerie procession through the grounds of the 2011 Three Wishes Faery Fest in Cornwall.
left: Musician Abigail Seabrook
looks beautiful in gentle pastel colours, wings,
flowers, and glitter. below: Leaf reads tarot
and oracle cards at Faery events.
left: Trixie-Belle and Clairey Fairey are well-known faces on the UK festival scene. below: Trixie-Belle with facepaint by Andrea “Sparkle” Child.
left: Faery entertainer Trixie Pixie happily shows off her fiery outfit—corset and tutu, always a winning combination! below: A wandering gypsy caravan sells beautiful carvings of Faery fungus.
“As with inspiration, once you know where to find it, it is everywhere! My work is an expression of my world, of which I feel is neither completely in everyday reality nor completely in Faery…I have attempted to express through texture, colour, personality, emotion, and character. With all my sculptures I feel new emotions, as if they have grown from within me. I hope that the creatures who have been expressed from my world bring something new to everyone…but, strangely, you may feel as if you have already met!”
Armorel Hamilton
(www.armorelhamilton.com)
above: Artist Armorel Hamilton at her stall at one
of the Avalon Faery Fayres. left: Artist Linda Ravenscroft sketches one of her fans.
“I just love making beautiful things. I’ve always made things since I was tiny and just want to spread the magic, to bring it back into people’s lives. My sources of inspiration come from folklore and nature; one stems from the other. I want to try and bring the beauty back so that people can see—be inspired by nature—and know that we don’t all have to live in a concrete jungle.”
Chyna de la Mer
(www.tangleheads.co.uk)
Faery events always have unique handmade
arts and crafts for sale, such as the beautiful things
on offer from craftsperson Chyna de la Mer.
The lovely Tamara Newman is one of many talented, glamorous artists emerging on the Faery scene.
There is always a wide choice of entertainment
for children in the daytime…
...and for adults at nightime!
Also for the adults, there are all manner of magical potions available at the bar.
Flame by name, flame by nature!
(photo courtesy of TPF Images and Arts, www.tpftpf.com)
above: Felicity Fyr Le Fay and my daughter, Willow.
below: Aspiring artist and children’s author Natalee May is clearly an elf—no question!
above: Artist Laura Daligan’s love of mythology shows itself in her serpentine
choice of costume for the Faery Ball! Medussssssssssaaaa…
right: The mighty Kim Huggens, esoteric author, takes on the Faery Ball as an awesome tribal Faery warrior! (Photo courtesy of Nic Philips)
above: Kathryn Kerr has created a delightful
peacock-inspired outfit with fascinating peacock
feather eyebrows!
left: Many people love the creative challenge
of making their own Faery outfits,
such as fifteen-year-old
Cara Jones, who created this stunning ensemble
with the help of her mother.
below: Juliet Prentice
identifies with the spirits of the sea
in this glorious mermaid costume that creatively
incorporates her wheelchair.
But she has been caught by a fierce pirate!
(He’d better watch out…mermaids bite.)
Unicorn Faerie FaeNix dances
beautifully with her Isis wings.
left: Faery festivals often incorporate theatrical performances. Here, actor Matthew Wade makes a dashing Oberon, the Faery King, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (photo courtesy of Oliver McNeil, www.legend-photography.com). below: Helen Robinson shows us that pirates are a force to be reckoned with (photo and pirate costume courtesy of TPF images and arts, www.tpftpf.com).
Don’t forget to buy a new pair of wings from Twisted Twinkle before you go!
The Depth Behind the Glitter…
One of the many people who provide a bit of sparkle to Faery events—or, more accurately, a great bucket-load of sparkle—is the glamorous Felicity Fyr Le Fay, a circus performer and entertainer from New Zealand who now lives and works in the UK as well as travels around the world teaching about Faery through entertainment. Here she gives a very personal and fascinating insight into the depth behind the sparkle, about the difficulties of growing up in New Zealand without a community of like-minded people, and why the fest
ivals and events give a much-needed clan identity to those who may always have felt different or lonely because of their identification with Faery.
There is a lot of Faery energy in New Zealand, and the mythology is predominantly Maori, where there is a lot of Faery lore…they have giants, they have a kind of dragon, and they have the Faery people, who are very similar to the Tuatha de Danann. They have red hair, they’re very tall, ethereal, and godlike. But when I was growing up, New Zealand was not at the point culturally where Maori lore was being taught in schools, and so I didn’t know anything about it, though I did read British mythology. I do believe that when the British came over to New Zealand they brought the faeries with them, especially with the trees and foreign flora that was brought there.
So as a child there was a lot of magic around but no one to talk to about it at all. I felt really lonely, really sad, I was the funny-looking girl at school who got picked on. I was very obviously different and I didn’t fit in. This is really common with Faery people: we’re very passionate and sensitive, and we feel everything so intensely. We feel the environment pouring through our souls, we feel the pain in the trees and the suffering of animals. We can relate to and connect with animals, but when talking to other humans we’re sometimes confused because there are so many façades. Faery children find that confusing—they’re not used to all the human layers, not having experienced them in their previous incarnations.
It was really difficult for me, especially after the age of about ten. Before that I told everyone, all my family, about being a faerie—I would have exquisitely vivid dreams about going to Faeryland and my experiences there and all of a sudden, when I was ten, it wasn’t cool anymore. All your friends are being cool and suave and hanging out at the mall, trying to smoke and all that. This girl whose mind was full of unicorns and magic and who would get lost in the woods following the sound of bells just didn’t fit in.
I decided the thing for me to do was to look inwards and learn from nature, so I became a Pagan before I knew anything about what a Pagan was. I went through a phase where I read about every religion I could get my hands on. When I read about Druidry and Wicca, I realised that it was everything I had worked out entirely for myself. It was truth that I had found for myself. There were no books about Faery specifically, but I realised that if these other things I had discovered were true, then the part of me that was Faery was also true.
There’s a lot of different kinds of entertaining that I do, and children’s birthday parties are the most important. Every once in a while there comes along one or two of these children, and you can see they’re Faery people too. When you’re talking about the environment, about being called somewhere and getting lost in the woods, you can see that it’s happened to them too. Not just those children, but all the children—you’re trying to give them as much magic and beauty that they can hold in their souls so that as they’re growing up in a world that throws tax and paperwork and all this ridiculousness that throws life into a tangle, they have this beautiful place inside of them that gives them strength so that they can become the powerful tree of a person that they are meant to be. It’s so important for people to know that if you want to go out into the world and make it better, you can do that, with the full backing of the otherworld behind you.
“With all people, when they see beauty—real beauty, not necessarily pretty but something that makes them passionately feel—it’s something that imprints on their mind more powerfully than any image. So if you want to pass on a message about healing, about the environment, about helping the animal kingdom, the most powerful way you can pass that message on is by doing a performance that hits them right in the heart chakra. So that’s what I try to do.”
Felicity Fyr Le Fay
The Mermaids
Just as Faery is growing in popularity as part of the growing urgency of environmental awareness, so mermaids are also growing in popularity, even with their own events, such as Mer-Con in Las Vegas, the world’s first mermaid convention. The attendees of this event are a phenomenon in themselves, the closest thing you’ll likely find in physical reality to real mermaids, and many of them believe they are truly merfolk in human incarnations. These mermaids have specially made tails that they can wear underwater and often hold impressive records for holding their breath in order to perform. One such mermaid is the extraordinary performer Mermaid Melissa, who dons her mermaid guise in order to raise awareness of the world’s oceans and their importance to the future of the world. For more information, visit www.mermaidmelissa.com.
Images courtesy of Steve Williams
(www.stevewilliamsphoto.com)
Image courtesy of Jessica Yakamna
(www.dropjawphotography.com)
Creative Challenge: Faery on a Budget
A common issue that arises is that people would like to come to festivals and other Faery events but are unsure of what to wear or feel they can’t afford the amazing outfits that they see others wearing. It’s true that there are some fantastic specialist craftspeople making high-quality items of clothing just for this market, but it is also true that a lot of people make their own costumes and piece them together from carefully sourced bargains. I feel it is also important to emphasise that plenty of people have a wonderful time at festivals without having to dress up, but if you do want to try a creative approach, here are a few ideas that you don’t need to be in any way skilled to be able to achieve.
With a small budget and eco-friendly principles of reusing materials in mind, I set myself the challenge of putting together a complete outfit in a day.
All images on pages 216–237 by Studio Lotus (www.studiolotus.co.uk)
A friend and I set off into a local town hoping to achieve our mission of a Faery outfit on a budget.
We decided that charity shops were a great option, for not only would we be recycling materials but we should be able to find easily adaptable fabric and clothing at affordable prices. Plus all the money we spent would be going to good causes—bonus!
It can be difficult finding suitable items in the right size, but persistence and a bit of imagination can reap great rewards. We found a purple skirt and a glittery purple top in one shop. The top was rather large, but we had some ideas about easy ways to alter it with no sewing needed. The skirt was a little plain, but again, creative ideas were starting to brew…
Since the top and skirt would obviously form the main part of the outfit, we now needed to accessorise to achieve our desired effect. After much trawling through further charity shops we found a perfect necklace for a tiny amount.
We resorted to a local fancy dress shop to find a very affordable mask and a pair of rainbow-coloured fishnet tights.
We then needed to think about wings, of course. For this we returned to the charity shops and decided that a pair of net curtains could be adapted in some creative ways to make a fun winglike cloak. We also spotted a silver belt and a metallic scarf that gave us some more interesting ideas.
Pleased with our purchases, we returned home and started to create the costume.
The ill-fitting top we adapted by cutting a series of parallel holes down its back and using a long, thin strip of one of the net curtains as a ribbon. This managed to create a corsetlike effect that gathered the material and made the top a better fit.
The skirt was in two layers, so the top layer we cut simply into petal-shaped flaps to give it more of an organic effect.
The silver belt and one of the net curtains were put to good use. The curtain was cut into long strips that were then tied to the belt to make a rag skirt. This is a really easy and effective use of any scrap material you might have around the home. If you have the time, you could also dye it different colours.
The other curtain became the wings. With one long cut up the middle, then two strips cut next to that to use as neckties, it was just a question of cutting out winglike shapes on
each side, with a little hole in each corner for a finger to fit through. Again, this could be dyed or painted if you have the time. Even marker pens can be used to good effect to add some colour!
With the addition of the rainbow tights and glitter mask, the outfit was complete. You shall go to the ball!
This entire outfit cost only £25 and took just a couple of hours to put together. If you have a bit more time to find the really good bargains and put in a personal, creative touch, you too can create something truly unique and amazing!
The Power of Dressing Up
It is easy to dismiss the idea of dressing up as frivolous or as something that is “just for fun” and quite separate from any genuine connection or magickal practice. Indeed, it can be just that, and it is, of course, not in any way a required part of Faery Craft if it is something that simply does not sit well with you. However, hidden beneath the face paint and extravagant clothing there are depths to explore that yield surprising results and even practical everyday applications.
This may seem like a superficial concept until we consider the fact that ceremonial magick of invocation and classical theatre have the same roots, and that by taking on the appearance of the gods, usually through masks, actors would become more priest than player, taking on some part of that divine quality for the span of a play. Indeed, masks are still widely used within both theatre and magick, and as both a trained actor and a practitioner of magick, I can confirm that the effect in both cases is extremely powerful. Masks are fascinating objects with a power and personality of their own, which even without intent can affect the energy and behaviour of the wearer almost immediately. How, then, is putting on a costume or dressing with intent any different? Wearing face paint or particular makeup is a form of mask work and can be just as effective. In fact, if we consider the potency of energy contained within a painting done with magickal intent and then consider how that would affect an individual acting, in a way, as a living canvas, how could it not be transformative? When we combine this with the idea of forming an entire costume with this intent, we have a powerful technique that can also be a great deal of fun!
Faery Craft: Weaving Connections with the Enchanted Realm Page 16