Folk Lore to Faerie Lore

Faerie World

Amy Brown's Discovery

"The World of Faerie dances,
breathes with thee,
floats on breezes,
skies and seas,
above and under,
up trees, beneath leaves,
across and away,
over and upon, here and yet gone.
It has been and it is
believed in, wished upon.

Beyond and yet, near.
Right there and right here,
in the palm of our hands,
or yonder in un chartered lands.

It is there in the eyes
awake or asleep for the dreamer believes
and is wrapped up and steeped
in the depths of its realm
by day or by eve
living for moments in the visions it weaves.
Swept up, and kept, wept or unwept
in the tears of
gladness or sadness
faerie appears.
Often walking the byways
of our innermost fears.
Looking out from the shadows
to scare and to jeer.
Faeries eternal, ever now, ever near.

For in the blink of the eye,
the nod of the head,
daydreaming or wishing
on stars or four leaf clovers its said:
The Fairy is found
the Faerie abound.
The source of our wonder
Fantasy's gown!

Thus, it is and has been
as it always will be again.
Every time we dream and believe.
taking wing
on
The Flights of our Fantasies!
September 27, 2000

By Lady LaMythica (Linda A. Copp)

Faerie, Fairy Land and Fairy Tales, what are they?

Folklore is filled with Faerie, fairies of all sorts and descriptions, as diverse as the people, cultures and countries from whence they came. Faerie Lore is woven of this same fabric, reflecting the heritage, hopes, beliefs, customs and characteristics of the humans, who believe in and create them mirroring their histories and traditions in the process.

The word faery originated from the latin word "fata" or "fatae" meaning "The fates" and "fatum" meaning enchantment or destiny. The French changed "fata" and "fatum" to "fee" and "faerie" meaning, the enchantment. The English followed suite adopting fees or fey to describe their supernatural beings using it interechangeable along with Elf, the word they had used previously.

Later, fey was anglicized into fairy, its more common name in the thirteenth century.
Fairies or Faerie were usually thought to be winged, diminutive, replicas of human beings, capable of Magic, or the "Glamour," fairy magic, which they used at their whimsy to either help or hinder mankind and or to alter events. [In earlier times, they were wingless, could change size at will, could shape shift and did good or mischief as they pleased. They traveled on the backs of creatures, flying on the backs of birds, butterflies, leaves or the like and levitated. The winged fairy did not appear until its introduction by Alexander Pope in his poem, The Rape of the Lock in the eighteenth century.]

Now, however, the definition of Faerie has been expanded and is used more often than not, to describe the dominion, land and home of the entire realm of the fantastic, inclusive of all fantasy beings, creatures, times, or places. Faerie in this context includes all manor of the fanciful, benign and horrific as well as, the domain, or domicle, fairyland in which they reside.

Folklorists have tried to explain the coming of fairies by theorizing these diverse yet, contradictory explanations for and definitions of them. The Maybe they were these and maybe they were that theories. They are as follows:
Mythological: Faeries are bred of the pagan Celtic divinities. Or are descendents of the Spirits, Gods and Goddesses of various Nations Mythologies.
Hades and or Purgatory: Faeries are the souls of the dead and unforgiven still awaiting judgment day when then, they may be reunited with their bodies and are sent to heaven or hell.
Or faeries are fallen angels sent from heaven to this other world trying to attain redemption and their place back in heaven.
Or they are the souls of those who upon death, were not good enough to be angels and enter heaven, nor bad enough to be condemned to hell. Hence, this is their Hades, their purgatory, their other world created for this purpose, neither here nor there. Fairy mounds and burial sites adds to the power of this theory.
Pigmy: Faeries are memories of a now, extinct prehistoric Mongolian race driven out of Great Britain and parts of Europe by the Celts.
Druid: Faeries are a folk memory of the Druids born of their religion and its magical powers.
Naturalistic: Faeries are part of the ancient belief in Nature Spirits. Dryads and Nymphs and Sprites
Psychological: Faries are part of the animistic spirit and are universally recognized as belonging to the doctrine of the soul. They are renderings of the soul living in astral world.
Actual: Faeries are members of a supernatural race. They are real and not imaginary. [All these theories are chronicled in Beatrice Phillpotts "The Fairy Companion" published by Barnes and Noble. It is an excellent book and worthy of your attention.]

No matter what theory you chose to consider, I think in the end, we are left with this, faerie is the realm humans create to let themselves wonder and dream. It cannot hurt us in reality, but it can inspire us and it can fulfill our need to believe in a place and spirits beyond ourselves, as well. WE want there to be more than what we see. We want to be able to effect change. We want to feel the power of belonging somewhere, to someone, at sometime whether it be a family, or a cause, for when we are there we become the faerie, the hero or heroine and we exert control over our destinies, a control we do not always feel we exert in our own, very real world .

Fairies may reside on the astral plane, unseen by man or in the etheric state, seen, but as semi transparent, beings of lightness in the real world. There is conflicting data as to their invisibility capabilities. Some claim they move in the blink of an eye and hence, are undetected by man. Others say they change from astral to ethetic at their will or they shape shift taking on forms of both kinds, human or animal and they interact with us in this way. Then there are those who claim they may only be seen at specific times and places, like when we enter a fairy ring or fairy mound. Given the more current definition of Faerie, including all manor of the fantastic being, it is easy to see the breadth and scope of Faerie would be as diverse and contradictory as the individual's, who conceive them. However, it is folk lore, once again, which weaves these individual beliefs into a kind of collective consciousness, reflecting the oral tradition, history and beliefs of the majority in a designated culture and society.

Faerie Land, Fairy Land, Fairydom has just as many conflicting ideologies and as many names for them as the faerie realm does today. These specific faerie lands range from Avalon, and Middle Earth, to Oz and are enumerated in countless numbers of books, set in magical times and places. Fairyland was once believed to be an actual geographical location though once again this location changed depending on the nation and their view. The Welsh believed it was to be found in Pembrokeshire, the Irish felt it was on the Isle of Hy Breasail, and the English thought it to be on the Isle of Man.

However, The Land of Faerie, inclusive of all its counties and locations, Oz and Middle Earth, or in my case Aureole, is as vast and as deep as the imaginations reach into the realm of the fantastic. Its dimensions are ever changing, rearranging, boundless and forever undefined. Its breadth is as high and as wide as wonder can soar seeking, growing and still wishing for more. Yet, its depths run as deep as any ocean, any burrow underground, or any root of any idea and is just as foreboding or as exciting as our worst fears or our best wishes. Faerie is wonder, dreamed and believed. Its soul is fantasy, its canvas, our dreams and its brush pure Magic. A Magic born of the psyche set free to play, drawn of its brush, a compilation, an art gallery of the innermost self, renderings of the soul, painted with finger tips of thought, expressing our wishes, visions, dreams, hopes and fears. It is the world we create with all of these as fearsome or dreaded as the worst nightmare ever conjured up by any human and or as sumptuous as the sweetest candy, the loveliest, loftiest delight, of harmony, love and joy. So, it is a world of fears, terrors and quests, love and justice, peace and hope, gentle and graceful or wild and unmanageable. It is both the world we fear and yet, the world we wish for as well.