Not all modern beliefs should be tossed out or ignored, by any means, and sometimes things evolve as new ideas, but still work well. I have found using alternate names for the two Courts to be both useful and evocative, for example, and I know many people who have created a deep and meaningful connection to their land spirits and the smaller fey based on following the Victorian garden fairy ideas.
Beliefs are not static things, they grow and they evolve. Some beliefs can be traced back to genuinely old roots; sometimes they have been formed within our own generation. Often there is an assumption that only the old has value, and there is a certain logic to that, as the old has been time-tested and proved. Because of this it is common to justify new beliefs with an older back-story, which can then muddy the waters of the actual history. But the new is not necessarily bad, and sometimes the new represents evolutions in old beliefs – although only time will tell which new beliefs last and which ones fade. I’m obviously a big believer in the value of the older beliefs and traditions myself, but I’m also an innovator and modifier as well, because I try to remember that the old beliefs were new once too.
I don’t necessarily agree with all the changes and directions that the new beliefs are taking, and in some cases I outright argue against them, but nonetheless belief is a fluid thing. I may not like it, but I can see that in some way or other it has a purpose. In the same way I’m sure not everyone likes the adaptations and changes made to the old beliefs to make them better fit new places and environments, but that doesn’t make them less necessary or important. Everything that is living is growing and adapting to the world around it, and that is a good thing; but as we grow and adapt we should always remember the truth of our roots, whether those roots are old or new. We should also always be cautious not to innovate purely for innovations sake, and to allow the beliefs to evolve naturally not to try to force changes for our own benefit or comfort.
Personal Modern Fairy Encounters
Although everything to do with Themselves is tricky, and often carries specific prohibitions about what can and cannot be shared, there are certain experiences that happened that involved more than just myself or which I know it’s okay to talk about. These are an array of things and involve, naturally, a variety of different kinds of spirits, but nonetheless I’d like to share some here. Hopefully this will give people an idea of what these things can be like and show that the Fey Folk are still active in the world today4.
• I had made a habit of offering milk every Friday to the spirits of my home and immediate area. My finances took a downward turn and I couldn’t afford to keep up with it so I switched to other things. One Friday a couple of weeks after I stopped offering the milk I was carrying groceries in from my car after going grocery shopping when a gallon of milk was forcibly pulled out of my hand. The container hit the grass and burst. From then on I made sure to offer at least a small bit of milk each week
• Many years ago I had a loose assortment of friends who were all different types of pagans. One full moon we decided to get together and have a ritual and one woman mentioned a spot out in the woods that she had used many times. We all met up in early afternoon and then drove out to the suburban home where her parents lived, before hiking back into the woods about a mile or so. The ritual location was lovely and we had a casual ceremony followed by a long, pleasant conversation that lasted into the early evening. Finally it was fully dark, and even with the full moon above us the forest was closing in so we packed up and started back. After walking for about five minutes we could clearly see the lights from the houses shining through the trees ahead of us. But after ten more minutes the lights were no closer. We climbed over rocks and around trees, through thorns and fallen branches, yet never seemed able to move forward. One other friend and I began to suspect fairy enchantment, as the rest of the group fought to push forward. After perhaps another 15 minutes of walking, my friend and I acknowledged that we were being Pixy-led; we began to laugh and compliment the fairies on such a fine joke. The energy broke with an almost physical snap and within a few minutes we emerged in a backyard a few houses down from where we’d first gone into the woods.
• My friend has had a large shrine/altar for the fairies in her store for 15 years. One year around the equinox we needed to move the shrine, which was an epic undertaking, and took most of a morning. Several days later I noticed a fluorite ring was missing from a jewelry display. We both assumed it had been stolen, which was upsetting. Then my friend found it, days later on the new fairy shrine – covered in years of dust as if it had been there for a long time. We left it there – if they want an offering enough to take it, they can keep it.
• I have seen fairy hounds twice in my life. The first time, many years ago, a friend and I were sitting in the doorway of a mutual friend’s business in the city, beneath the darkness of the early evening sky. Suddenly we both became aware of the eerie silence – the sounds of the city had fallen away, the traffic had stopped going past on the street, everything seemed deserted. As we watched two huge black dogs came trotting down the sidewalk across the street. No one was with them, but they walked calmly and with a purpose. My friend broke the silence and joked that perhaps they would cross the (empty) street and no sooner had the words left his mouth then both dogs changed directions and moved across the street towards us. We immediately fled into the building and closed the door; peering out of the window we looked out to watch the dogs walk past and saw nothing. Literally no dogs, anywhere. Venturing back out we saw the dogs walking down the sidewalk away from us, although it was impossible for them to have passed where we were without us seeing them. They disappeared when the road curved and moments later the sound and traffic returned.
• The second time I saw a fairy hound happened when I was working as an EMT. My partner and I were on a layover at 5am on a winter morning in a city by the shore of Long Island Sound and we had parked in a lot next to a large field fenced off for construction. My partner was reading a book, but I decided to get out and stretch my legs while we waited, despite the cold weather. I walked over near the chain link fence that surrounded that field and noticed something white moving on the far side. As I watched in the darkness the white shape moved steadily towards me; it seemed to be moving quickly across the field and eventually I realized it was a dog although its gait seemed odd. I looked past it for any sign of a person out for a morning walk with their pet, but saw no one. The white dog, some sort of hound by its shape, was so white that it almost glowed in the pre-dawn darkness and I stood there watching it come straight towards me, trying to puzzle out why it was alone in a fenced in field and why its movement seemed jerky and off even though it moved quickly. When it had crossed about two-thirds of the space between us I finally realized that it had only one front leg – not that it was missing one, but that its front leg was placed in the center of its chest. A wave of fear went over me and before I could think I had turned, run, and jumped back into the ambulance. My partner looked up, startled, and asked me what was wrong, and I told him there was a dog. Looking out he asked me what dog. Sure enough when I looked there was no dog to be seen anywhere, despite the fact that there was nowhere for it to go in the empty field and no time for it to have gone anywhere.
• As I was helping out in my friend’s store one day I looked down and realized my wedding ring was gone. I panicked and my friend and I searched everywhere, but there was no trace of it. I made several offerings hoping the ring would turn up, because I knew of the fairies tendency to take jewelry, but it didn’t. Months went by and I felt pressed to write my Fairy Witchcraft book, which I did, although that’s another story. Shortly after I finished the book and submitted it to my publisher my friend found the ring sitting in front of her altar.
• About a decade ago I was at a local state park that has a strong Other Crowd presence. While I was there I left a small pendant, a moonstone with an iolite set above it, as an offering. At my house I have a small room dedicated for ritual use; it is
where all my altars are. About a year ago I walked into my ritual room and sitting on the floor in front of my main altar was the pendant I had left as an offering all those years before.
• I had been given a small bracelet as a gift by a friend. I took it off one night and when I went to put it back on it was gone. The lesser fey are fond of taking my jewelry, although so far they’ve always given it back, eventually, so I was annoyed, but not too worried about it. Several months went by and the bracelet still hadn’t reappeared; at this point my family was getting ready to move to another town and I was getting worried. I tried everything I could think of, but no bracelet. Finally I decided that maybe it wasn’t Themselves who took it after all, but I’d just lost it. We moved to the new house and a few days after moving in I walked into the bathroom and the bracelet was lying in the middle of the floor.
• About 15 years ago I was hiking in a local state park known by some to have a strong presence of the Good People to it. In this same place I’d been Pixy-led while I was with a friend, and I know of at least one other person who had also been Pixy-led there. This particular day I decided to go off trail at the bottom of the waterfall and hike around the rocky area near the water’s edge. I came around a place where the rock face had jutted out and into a small secluded area with a little pool. I stopped; in the pool was a pale, dark haired woman; I knew immediately she wasn’t human. She was so pale her skin was literally white and there was an aura of Otherworldliness around her. She was about waist deep in the water and had been running her fingers through her hair when I walked around the cliff. There was a strong feeling of menace in the air that made my hair stand on end. She looked at me. I looked at her. She told me to get out. I backed up and left the way I’d come as fast as I could.
• I have seen the Slua Sí several times in my life. One particular time that I will share I was going out with my children and as I stepped out of my door I felt the wind pick up and looked up towards the road. It was a gaoithe sí, a fairy wind, and the fallen leaves spun around in a rising circle as the whirlwind took them. My children were in the yard in front of me, and there on the road I saw a rider where the whirlwind was, a man on a dark horse, and I heard the sounds of dogs growling and horses moving restlessly, although I only saw the one rider. I looked at him and he looked at me, with my children between us and me frankly terrified, then he was gone. I went immediately and made an offering of cream, and it was honestly one of the most frightening experiences of my life. A little while later I found out that about 10 minutes after I saw this, seven miles across town on another back road six telephone poles were all broken about six feet off the ground and fell together in a row, without explanation. I firmly believe it was the passage of the Slua that caused it.
• Twice at least I believe the Good People have saved my home or my life one way or another. The first time I was in my living room, getting ready to go run some errands when I caught sight of something moving on the wall behind the television, by the outlet where the electronics are plugged in. I walked part way across the room, but there wasn’t anything there. I stood for a minute or so, nothing happened, so I went and sat back down. Glancing over the same thing happened again, but I ignored it. The third time it was the more distinctive form of a small person moving back and forth in front of the outlet, so I got up again and walked over this time right up to the outlet. The figure disappeared but a few seconds later the largest cord plugged into the outlet sparked and then started burning. Because I was standing right next to it I had time to pull it out of the wall before anything else caught fire, and the only damage was the cord itself, melted and burned (also probably added some white to my hair).
• I have had many strange experiences with the Other Crowd relating to butterflies and moths, also I mentioned that I believe they have saved my life. Several years ago, just before going to bed, I started to have a severe allergic reaction to something (for which I now have an EpiPen by the way). I was going into anaphylactic shock, which as a former EMT I recognized, but at the time I was scared and made the very irrational decision not to disturb my husband. I went to bed, with my tongue swelling and each breath a struggle. Suddenly my husband jumped up yelling and turned on the light. He swore that a huge moth had just flown, forcefully, into his face, although he could find no evidence of any moth anywhere. A sense of calm came over me and I told him to call 911 and explained that I needed help. And obviously I lived, although I’ll admit things got a bit dicey on the ambulance ride. I truly believe that it was the fairy folk who saved me by waking him up.
• At one point we had a relative staying with us for an extended period of time who the house fairies did not like. The day the person moved in, the back door of the house, through which their furniture was being moved, jammed and had to be broken in order to be opened. Once they moved in, their room that had always been the warmest in the house became the coldest and they complained of constantly hearing strange noises when they were in the room. Their phone line and Wi-Fi repeatedly went out, although technicians could find no reason why. Their electronics repeatedly broke, and items went missing from their room and reappeared at odd times. As soon as the person moved out all of these problems stopped. When a house fairy doesn’t like a person they make their feelings known.
• We have a fairy thorn in my yard – which is its own story, actually. Anyway, one day while doing yard work my husband damaged the tree accidentally. He came in and told me and I was very upset (read; freaked out) and told him to go make an offering right away. I went out myself and offered honey and milk, and asked him if he had done that too, but he was still in the middle of mowing the lawn. I emphasized he needed to do it as soon as possible. So a week or so went by and it was about 7am one morning. I was up with my son, who was an infant at the time, while everyone else was still sleeping, when we heard the most Gods-awful loud crashing noise. I rushed to the window with the baby and looking down at the driveway saw that a roughly 20 foot long branch from an oak tree had impaled my husband’s car. I went to wake him up, and the first thing I said was something like: ‘Did you make that offering to the fairies like I told you to?’ He said: ‘No I thought you’d done it for me.’ So I said: ‘Oh no. You should have done your own. You’d better go see what’s happened to your car.’ The car was totaled and my husband is a lot more careful around that tree now.
• When I was visiting Tulsk, in County Roscommon, I spent time in Uaimh na gCat (the cave of cats) with the group I was traveling with. While we were in the cave I saw the back wall open up and inside was a shining hall, the sí of Cruachan. There were many people, finely dressed, and a long table set with food. I could hear music playing, a flute and fiddle, and the whole place glowed as if it was filled with a golden light.
• On that same trip we also visited Sliabh na Caillighe in County Meath. It’s a pretty steep hike up the hill to get there, then it flattens out at the top. While there I felt a very strong presence of Themselves and at one point as dusk was falling I couldn’t find the way out; I said as much out loud and immediately my eye was drawn to the gate. I left a small offering of butter in thanks then headed down, walking with a friend. As we walked down we chatted and I found myself, against all wisdom, joking about how I wouldn’t be surprised if I fell on my bum5 because that was the kind of thing that would amuse the Fey Folk. I of course immediately fell on my backside, much to my friend’s consternation, as I felt one of my ankle’s being grabbed and pulled. No harm was done and I laughed as I stood back up.
These are some of my own personal experiences, but I am far from the only modern person to still experience the Fair Folk today. There is a very good book called The Fairy Faith – In Search of Fairies by Simon Young that documents modern fairy anecdotal experiences, and there was a documentary film made by Wellspring Media in 2001 called The Fairy Faith that did the same. Both of these are resources for other people’s modern experiences and I encourage you to consider them as well.
End Notes
1. The story of Mr. Perry is included, briefly, in the 1938 book Connecticut: A Guide to its Roads, Lore, and People, page 460.
2. I can only point out here that the use of Grey Court for a third neutral court sitting between the so-called Light and Dark Courts is exactly how it was used in the paranormal romance series.
3. None of the Fair Folk are ‘good guys’ by modern human standards. All of them are equally capable of harming or helping, and are mercurial to different degrees as to which they are more inclined towards.
4. For those who have read my previous books on Fairy Witchcraft some of these anecdotes may be familiar.
5. It’s never a good idea to say something like that aloud especially if you already know or suspect there are fairies around. They are pretty good at coming up with their own mischief, but they are also often open to suggestions if you are foolish enough to make them.
Chapter 9
Dealing With Fairies
Meddle and mell
Wi’ the fiends o’ hell,
And a weirdless wicht ye’ll be;
But tak’ and len’
Wi’ the fairy men,
And ye’ll thrive until ye dee.
McNeill, The Silver Bough
(Meddle and mingle
Fairies Page 19