"Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."
One of the richest mythologies in all of folklore is that of the fairy folk. These mysterious guardians of the natural world take many forms and have a decidedly complex relationship with their human neighbors - sometimes acting benevolently, and sometimes not. Our opening poem this week is an excerpt from one of my favorites by 19th century Irish author W.B. Yeats, titled The Stolen Child, which describes a human child being drawn away from home to live forever in fairyland.
It would be impossible to cover the rich folklore of the fairy folk in a single episode, so this week will serve as an introduction. Thank you for listening, and welcome to Scholar Minor’s Fairies, Part 1. I hope you enjoy.
In much of Western Europe, and Ireland in particular, the members of the fairy kingdom came in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and appearances. Oftentimes, fairies - especially in more recent centuries - have been depicted as possessing an otherworldly beauty and youthfulness. While most folks today probably picture pretty little fairies hiding out in flowers, some fairies of folklore are bizarre and even scary.
The Irish banshee, who takes the form of a washerwoman wailing while cleaning bloody clothes, is technically a fairy - as is the mischievous and unsettling Puca - a shapeshifter and frequent kidnapper of lone travelers. If you’d like to hear more about the banshee, puca, and the leprechaun - who is also a fairy - check out Scholar Minor Episode 11.
How do you know if there are fairies around?
One of the most recognizable fairy footprints is the fairy ring. Most often, the term ‘fairy ring’ refers to mushrooms growing in a mysterious circular pattern. There is an incredible amount of folklore and superstition attributed to these rings. They were considered sacred to the fairy folk and in many cases were entrances into the fairy kingdom, and it was super dangerous to step inside one.
While they may very well be the domain of the fairy folk, the scientific reason for fairy rings is actually pretty cool. Mycelium is how fungi reproduce asexually, and it looks a bit like roots at first glance. These hairlike fibers are called hyphae and they weave together forming a net beneath the surface of the soil - out of which, new mushrooms will grow.
Scientists believe that fairy rings are formed when a mycelium uses up the nutrients in an area, and as it moves outward from where it started, the nutrient-rich perimeter is where new mushrooms have the resources to grow. This causes the circular patterns of the fairies' mushrooms. Other mysterious and ancient circular patterns, like the raised burial mounds and standing stones found throughout the British Isles, were believed to be the work of the fairy folk.
Domestic animals like sheep or cattle acting strangely could also be a sign of fairy visitations. Creatures that were jumping or moving erratically were believed to have been shot with fairy arrows. The folklore of Western Europe also tells us that fairies love horses almost as much as they love mischief, and horses that were discovered sweaty and exhausted in the morning were believed to have been taken out for a joyride by the fairies during the night.
Tripping over your feet for no apparent reason may not be the result of clumsiness - it’s possible that a fairy interfered and put something invisible in your way. If you’ve lost something and found it again - but not where you thought you left it - the fairies likely borrowed and returned it. If these last two signs of fairy visitors are indeed accurate, my apartment must be absolutely overrun!
There is a lot of debate, especially among modern magic practitioners, as to whether fairies are good, bad, or somewhere in between. It seems from traditional accounts that fairies fell somewhere in the neutral category - at times benevolent, other times very scary indeed.
Travelers, especially those in Ireland, were told to beware if they heard a haunting melody coming from a patch of woods. Gifted with otherworldly musical talent, the fairy folk were known for making beautiful music - sometimes for their own entertainment, but not always. Folktales warn us that following the sounds of fairy festivities could lead to curious travelers being kidnapped and trapped in the fairy realm forever.
In The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, published in 1903, an unnamed rural vicar recounts this harrowing tale:
"A woman, who had paid a visit to a sick friend and was returning home along a lonely footpath, which was pointed out to me, close to a wood, and as she was approaching the sideland she heard charming music, much like that produced by numerous small silvery sounding bells. Her path lay close to the spot whence the music was proceeding, and when she was within thirty yards of the hollow in the field where it was, she stopped and listened to the sweet sounds;
but she had not long been there before a something came running forwards from the direction of the hollow, and brushed past her and struck against her as it passed. This frightened the woman greatly, and in fear, she went quickly towards her home. The only explanation that she could give of the strange music was that it was fairy music."
Fairy food was also a method used to trap mortals in the fairy realm. If a human stumbled upon a fairy feast and consumed food or beverage, the passage of time would alter and if the human managed to escape - they’d find that decades or even centuries had passed in what felt like only a few minutes. And this is the best-case scenario.
Oftentimes eating or drinking with the fairies bound you to them permanently, and you would never be able to return to the human world. In some regions of Western Europe, if a traveller went missing during their journey and was never found, it was believed that the fairies were to blame.
The folklore of Southern France describes some fairies known as “Dracs”, which would curl themselves up to resemble little golden cups. In this form they would float together down a stream, enticing curious humans to approach and try to catch them. When the human entered the water, however, the Dracs would catch and drag the hapless swimmer underwater.
One of the biggest reasons that human communities traditionally feared the fairy folk was the fairies’ tendency to kidnap. Sometimes a human would be abducted as a punishment - for being too nosy, or for treating something sacred to the fairies with disrespect. Some folklore tells us that young human women and men would be stolen as wives or husbands for the fairies, and that young mothers who disappeared had been made into nurses for fairy babies.
Changelings are certainly the creepiest aspect of fairy folklore. If a newborn infant began to cry inconsolably or had an unusual appearance, it was whispered that the infant may have been kidnapped and replaced with a fairy baby. The Welsh Fairy-book, published in 1907, describes some of the solutions suggested by traditional superstition.
I do have to warn you that they are never in a billion years advisable, and that if your baby is behaving strangely, TAKE IT TO A DOCTOR! DO NOT, as the Welsh Fairy-book describes, "leave it all night in a cradle under an oak tree", "throw the changeling into a river or lake", or "[take] them to a wooden bridge and drop them into the river beneath".
Another suggested method, that is, at least, less dangerous by comparison, is "to take a shovel and cover it with salt, and make the figure of the cross in the salt. Then take the shovel to the room where the changeling is lying: open the window, and place the shovel on the fire until the salt is burnt. Then you will get your child back again."
Less bizarre methods of deterring fairy baby theft were hiding magical charms in a baby’s clothing or blankets. The fairies were believed to be on the lookout most often for healthy male babies, so some sources claim that dressing male toddlers in traditionally female clothing would trick the fairy folk into moving on to a neighbor’s house.
When Christianity had taken over much of Western Europe, fairy lore maintained and some superstitions adjusted to incorporate the newly Christianized worldview. Later tales state that fairies would only replace your baby with a changeling if your baby hadn’t yet been baptized.
So, how does one prevent negative interactions with fairies? Thankfully, a person can enforce boundaries with the fairy folk by utilizing the herbs and flowers grown in the garden or found wild in the countryside. Fairies cannot pass over primrose flowers, and they will avoid St. John's Wort and Yarrow. Foxglove, Ragwort, and oak trees, on the other hand, are fairy favorites.
Caring for fairy-approved greenery can win you their approval. To attract fairies to your garden - which is said to improve plant health and productivity - you can hang small bells around your plants for the fairies to enjoy.
Fairies don’t take kindly to humans invading their territory, and some sources advise requesting permission from the fairies prior to building a new human structure, like a house or barn. To determine whether or not you have the fairies’ blessing, you can either leave a spade sticking upright in the undisturbed earth where you plan to build, or carefully make a line of round stones. Leave your spade or stones overnight, and if they have remained in their original position by morning, the fairies don’t mind your development plans. If the spade is knocked over or the stones moved, however, you better kick rocks.
Some accounts describe that maintaining a clean home and hospitable demeanor gains you the respect of the fairies, and they will bless you with luck, good health, and good harvests. A dirty house with badly tempered inhabitants will gain the ire of the fairies. To ensure only good fairies will visit you and even hang around your living space, some customs advise leaving a bowl of milk or porridge out overnight. These benevolent household fairies are known as brownies, or Heinzelmännchen, in German.
By all accounts, fairies don’t like to be spotted by humans and will do everything they can to avoid an accidental encounter. There are ways to trick them and catch a glimpse of the fairy folk, however. If you hide and stare at a rosemary bush or a fern for a long time, for instance, you may spot a fairy crawling out from underneath it.
The Encyclopedia of Superstitions also informs us that, "In England, it is believed that if you put your foot in a fairy-ring, with a companion's foot on top of yours, the fairy world and the little elves will become visible. If you wish to have a charm that can defy all their anger, turn your coat inside out, while you put your foot in it."
That’ll do it for our introduction to the fairy folk today. I can’t wait to revisit them in more detail again soon - perhaps I’ll even try to attract some in the meantime and report back if I have any mysterious visitors.
I hope you enjoyed and thanks again, everyone, for listening. My sources are in the show notes, as is my email if you’d like to say hello, and a link to my website www.ursaminorcreations.com. Please consider subscribing to Scholar Minor if you haven’t already, wherever you find your podcasts, including on YouTube - which will have some new content soon!
Have a beautiful week, and until next time.