‘Hence to Hell or Faery’- the nature of fairy religion

Huon meets King Oberon, by Henry Ford

What do fairies believe in?  This may seem like a nonsensical question for at least two reasons:

• firstly, if you subscribe to the belief that our current fairies are the diminished remnants of former pagan gods and goddesses of nature, then it is illogical to propose that an erstwhile divinity should worship another deity; or,
• secondly, because the fairy code of morality is so distinctive and so deliberately selfish (see my earlier post or chapters 2 and 18  of my British fairies): fairies are not concerned with good works; they are concerned with furthering their own interests.

These objections are quite valid, yet our predecessors (at least before the Reformation) almost unconsciously assumed that these creatures would be Christians just like them.  Our medieval ancestors had absolutely no hesitation in accepting fairies as just another god-fearing creation of the Christian deity.  This is revealed, in passing, in many of the earlier stories.  The fairy king in King Herla’s tale exclaims “God be my witness;” the Green Children of Woolpit came from a place called St Martin’s Land and professed themselves to be good Christians. Oberon, the king of faery in Huon of Bordeaux, for example exclaims “God keepe you all! I desire you to speake with mee, and I conjure you thereto by God Almightie and by the Christendome that you have received and by all that God hath made” (chapter 21).  In several Scottish ballads, including that of Thomas the Rhymer, the fairy queen points out to the hero the roads leading to heaven and hell, which lead from faery.

Thomas the Rhymer, by Thomas Canty

Reformation

This uniform certainty in the orthodoxy of fairy kind received severe blows during the sixteenth century.  Two events undermined the formerly unshakeable conviction in their godliness.  One was the Reformation, which, as we shall see, initiated attacks upon all forms of superstition.  The second key factor was the settlement of the Americas.  Christians were confronted with continents and civilisations unheard of by the Bible and who knew nothing of the church or Christ.  The question arose how these peoples were to be accommodated in the existing world view and whether they had souls capable of salvation.  These debates must in turn have given rise to doubts over the position of fairies in the Christian creation.

Some people persisted in the older beliefs and still simply accepted fairies as another Christian race.  In a spell to conjure the fairy Elaby Gathen, Elias Ashmole reminded the spirit that “thou doest feare the heavy wrath and judgment” and demanded that the being “should be obedient or judged to eternal damnation with the demons in hell.”  As a magi, Ashmole very likely believed fairies to be a form of spiritual being closely related to angels, so their godly nature was something he took for granted.  More surprising are the recorded beliefs of Scottish minister Robert Kirk, who felt that the elves and fairies were less sinful than men, “but yet are in ane imperfect State, and some of them making better Essays for heroic Actions than others; having the same Measure of Vertue and Vice as wee, and still expecting an advancement to a higher and more splendid State of Lyfe.”

Salvation?

The Reverend Kirk believed that the fairies had the same prospect of judgment and salvation as any Christian man or woman. In fact, a number of related theories emerged as to the place of the fairies in the Christian universe.  One name for the fairies was ‘the Hidden Folk;’ the origin of this is explained in a Carmarthenshire story told to Evans-Wentz:

“Our Lord, in the days when He walked the earth, chanced one day to approach a cottage in which lived a woman with twenty children. Feeling ashamed of the size of her family, she hid half of them from the sight of her divine visitor. On His departure she sought for the hidden children in vain; they had become fairies and had disappeared.” (Evans-Wentz, p.153)

Another widespread belief was that the fairies were fallen angels who had followed Satan in his rebellion but who had not yet reached hell when God commanded that the gates of haven and hell be closed.  They were left stranded between and hid in holes in the earth (Evans-Wentz, pp.85, 105, 109, 116, 129-30 & 205).  They will finally be released from this intermediate status on the day of judgment.  Lastly, there are Europe wide stories telling of incidents in which anxious fairies approach humans begging for reassurance that they too will be saved.  Generally, the answer is no, to the fairies’ great dismay (see Spence, British fairy origins, p.165 & the story of the ‘Minister and the Fairy‘ printed in Folk-lore and legends: Scotland, 1898).

Fairies and devils

At the same time, in some quarters there was a clear conviction that fairies could never be good Christians, because they were either demonic delusions wrought by the devil or they were deceits of the Roman Catholic church (which to many godly Puritans amounted to the same thing anyway).  Certainly, fairies, elves and the like were hard to accommodate within the strict terms of the Bible.  Whether they were genuine malign entities or just an invention of the Papist clergy- and thus a minor distraction to reformers- was never fully resolved, but the different positions are very well evidenced.

For Thomas Heyrick, fairies were nothing but vain stories:

“Dotage, the Vice of ancient years …

Listens to each Fabulous Legend, every story

of Relicks, Exorcisms and Purgatory,

of Fairy Elves and Goblins, wakeful Sprights

That rouze the drowsie Monks to Beads at Nights!”

(The new Atlantis, 1687, p.15)

Likewise, for George Chapman, they were a product of a more credulous past: “Fairies were but in times of ignorance, not since the true light hath been revealed, and that they come from heaven I scarce believe.” (A humorous day’s mirth, 1591).  Fairies and witches were nothing but conceits “whereby the Papists kept the ignorant in awe” (T. Cooper, The mystery of witchcraft, 1617, p.123), they were the worthless recipients of reverence from “silly people” (John Penry, The aequity of a humble supplication, 1587).

In contrast, others saw real harm and spiritual peril in the fays.  For Thomas Jackson, there was no question of distinguishing good and bad fairies because “it is but one and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both” (A treatise concerning the original of unbelief, 1625, p.178).  Fairies and elves were nothing more or less than “infernal deities” (Henry Smith, Christian religion’s appeal, 1675, p.45); they brought disease and madness (Mirror for magistrates, 1575, line 215; William Vaughan, The soul’s exercise, 1641, p.113) and they had to be cast out in the same manner an any evil spirit: “Gang hence to Hell or to the Farie” (Philotus- a comedy, 1568). One common explanation of the taking of children as changelings was that the fairies had to pay a tithe to the devil every seven years and, understandably, preferred to do so with a human life instead of one of their own kind.  Ironically, the truth is that the Catholic church had much the same opinion as the Puritans: the fourteenth century Fasciculus morum, for example, condemned all belief in fairies and elves as “only phantoms displayed by an evil spirit.”  As I have described in discussing  witchcraft and fairies, the result of this kind of thinking was to mix up belief in fairies and in witches, with serious consequences for those professing a faith in our ‘good neighbours.’

It must the penetration of popular culture by such ideas that led to accounts describing the fairies’ strong aversion to bells and churches.  I have mentioned these before in a my postings on the departure of the fairies and on fairy building, but the stories are common: for example, in Dorset at Portland, Cadbury and Withycombe church bells drove off the local pixies, whilst at East Chelborough the resident sprites objected to the site chosen for a new church and removed it bodily.

“But the king who sits on your high church steeple/ Has nothing to do with us fairy people!” (Charlotte Mew, The changeling)

One definite effect of the post-Reformation debates was to create the widespread popular belief that fairies were repelled by anything Christian.  Possession of a copy of the Bible or some pages from it alone could be efficacious, as could saying grace, making the sign of the cross and a number of other actions.  This is the aspect of fairy nature we recall today- not the earlier views.

All of this brings us full circle.  It came to be said that fairy belief was on the wane in Britain because the fairies were less and less frequently seen and the reason for this was that they were Catholics and had deserted British shores since the break with Rome.  See, for example, Richard Corbet’s Farewell, rewards and fairies:

“Lament, lament, old Abbeys,

The Fairies’ lost command…

But now alas, they are all dead,

Or gone beyond the seas,

Or farther from Religion fled,

Or else they take their ease.”

(see too my British fairies chapter 6 and appendix)

Corbet’s allegation is that with the fairies’ went ceremony and dancing, and, more seriously, justice and equity too.

Pagan pixies

Much of this discussion has been concerned with whether the fays were Catholic or Protestant, or whether they were pure evil incarnate- demons and servants of Satan.

There is, though, a hint of another view, one that may appeal more to many contemporary readers.  In William Bottrell’s story of The house on Selena Moor fairy abductee Grace makes this remarkable statement about her pixie captors:

“For you must remember they are not of our religion,” said she, in answer to his surprised look, “but star-worshippers.”

If this truly represents Cornish belief of the late nineteenth century, it might be a relic of older ideas about the fays and- perhaps- a connection that was made between them and ‘The Druids.’  This need not necessarily be a much older idea- it might have emerged in the previous century or so- yet it may be a tantalising hint of theories relating the pixies to worship at Cornwall’s many ancient monuments.

Further reading

See too my postings on the relationship between fairies and the dead and on the process of laying, or exorcising, fairies.  As my postings on the fairies’ preferred days and times of the year suggest, there is some antipathy towards the church and some inclination towards older, ‘pagan’ feasts.

An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries, which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.

 

 

Oberon’s books- fairy spell books

There is a scattering of evidence to the effect that fairies had their own spell books, as well as their innate magical abilities, which I have described before.

There are only a few references to these spell books:

• In Robert Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth (chapter 7) he informs us that:
  • “They are said to have many pleasant toyish Books; but the operation of these Pieces only appears in some Paroxysms of antic corybantic Jollity, as if ravished and prompted by a new Spirit entering into them at that Instant, lighter and merrier than their own. Other Books they have of involved abstruse Sense, much like the Rosicrucian Style. They have nothing of the Bible, save collected Parcels for Charms and counter Charms; not to defend themselves with, but to operate on other Animals, for they are a People invulnerable by our Weapons…”;
  • From this we can deduce that there seem to be three varieties of spell book- one to used to send the fairies into some sort of ecstatic dance; a second using scraps of Biblical verse for casting spells on others (rather like local magicians offered to do in human communities) and a third that was employed for more powerful conjuring- perhaps to contact other spirits such as angels, a practice used by such magi as Queen Elizabeth’s own conjuror, John Dee;
• The Red Book of Menteith- the story goes that a fairy queen banished some troublesome elves from Cnoc-n’an-Bocan (Bogle-knowe, or Hobgoblin-hill) near to Menteith into The red book of Menteith.  The condition was that they would only be released when the laird of Menteith opened the book.  Eventually, this happened by mistake and instantly the released fairies appeared before him demanding work. He had to set them various impossible tasks to be freed of them himself.
• The Red Book of Appin is another Scottish tome that, J. G. Campbell implies, has power against both witch and fairy spells.  That said, its primary content is concerned with healing sick cattle and with maintaining the fertility of fields (although of course these may both be the subject of fairy blights).  The Red Book was therefore a local cunning man’s book of incantations used for assisting small farmers with their common problems.  The legend is that it came from a mysterious ‘fine gentleman’, although it does not appear clear that he was of fairy origin; when the book was obtained from him by devious magical means, he transformed into many shapes, implying that he was (at least) a wizard and maybe a demon.  He was defeated, however, and the book came into more benign human hands;
• Thomas Keightley states in his Fairy mythology that the Danes believed that the elle folk had books which they would give to favoured humans and which helped them tell the future.  The existence of such volumes seems to have been a wider Scandinavian belief.  In Iceland the story is told of Jon Gudmundsson of Reydarfjord who met an elf girl called Ima whilst tending the family flock one day.  He and Ima were strongly attracted to each other and during the course of their courtship she told him about a book that her father possessed that was full of marvellous lore and from which Jon could learn a great deal; he would become a poet whose verse would have magical powers and he would foresee the future and ‘never be surprised by things.’  Jon persuaded her to arrange a loan of the book and then generally ‘enjoyed her company.’  The loan was made but then after a fortnight when return of the book was requested, Jon refused.  He was threatened with fairy vengeance.  On Christmas Eve Ima, her father and mother and a man who had been abducted and trapped by the elves planned to attack his home to recover the text.  The plan was betrayed to Jon by the captive human, who had tired of his interminable supernatural life.  Jon was prepared for his attackers’ arrival and slew all four, including Ima, before burning their bodies.

There is tendency for humans to believe that fairy magical powers are wholly innate. Various evidence I have offered in recent posts suggests that the situation may be different: either it is acquired by physical means after birth- whether by dipping in a pool (for which see c.16 of my British fairies), by learning their magic hand gestures, by the application of herbal ointment or by some other form of of physical contact– or it is learned (or at least supplemented) from written sources.  If any of these are at least partially true, it makes our access to supernatural power considerably easier than we might have supposed.

An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries, which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.

‘Reach out and touch me’- the physical transmission of magical power

Fairy touch, by Carol Armstrong

I have written here before about fairy magic (and see chapter 10 of my British fairies) and about the properties of fairy ointment.  In this post I want to home-in on another aspect of our good neighbours’ magical powers- their ability to convey these by mere touch.

The most significant consequence of this aspect of their magic is that it demonstrates that their abilities seem not necessarily to be innate; they may be learned from grimoires or they may be transferred by supernatural means- they are capable of being passed simply and quickly from person to person. In this respect the situation resembles the ointment which I discussed previously. Magical ability is, we might say, a commodity to be acquired by anyone, regardless of birth or status.

Scottish accounts

Receipt of magic vision is demonstrated from several sources.  Seers (those endowed with the second sight) can admit others to their visions by means of mere contact.  The Reverend Kirk in chapter 12 of The secret commonwealth tells us about this:

“The usewall Method for a curious Person to get a transient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterraneans, (if impotently and over rashly sought,) is to put his [left Foot under the Wizard’s right] Foot, and the Seer’s Hand is put on the Inquirer’s Head, who is to look over the Wizard’s right Shoulder, (which hes ane ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony ane implicit Surrender were made of all betwixt the Wizard’s Foot and his Hand, ere the Person can be admitted a privado to the Airt;) then will he see a Multitude of Wights, like furious hardie Men, flocking to him haistily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air…”

Those with second sight are, of course, humans who are privileged to be able to see the supernaturals surrounding us which are invisible to most.  Those fairy beings have the same power, nonetheless.  In various Scottish ballads and poems we hear of an identical process.  In the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer the hero meets the fairy queen who tells him:

“Light down, light down, now, True Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide and rest a little space,
And I will shew you ferlies [wonders] three.”

The same is recounted in Thomas of Erceldoune and in the Queen of Elfland’s nourice:

“O nourice lay your head
Upo my knee:
See ye na that narrow road
Up by yon tree?
. . . . .
That’s the road the righteous goes,
And that’s the road to heaven.
An see na ye that braid road,
Down by yon sunny fell?
Yon’s the road the wicked gae,
An that’s the road to hell.”

Welsh evidence

You may notice that all these examples are of Scottish provenance, but the conception is not exclusively from the north of Britain.  John Rhys tells a tale of a Gwynnedd farmer:

“who lived not long ago at Deunant, close to Aberdaron. The latter used, as is the wont of country people, to go out a few steps in front of his house every night to–before going to bed; but once on a time, while he was standing there, a stranger stood by him and spoke to him, saying that he had no idea how he and his family were annoyed by him. The farmer asked how that could be, to which the stranger replied that his house was just below where they stood, and if he would only stand on his foot he would see that what he said was true. The farmer complying, put his foot on the other’s foot, and then he could clearly see that all the slops from his house went down the chimney of the other’s house, which stood far below in a street he had never seen before. The fairy then advised him to have his door in the other side of his house, and that if he did so his cattle would never suffer from disease. The result was that the farmer obeyed, and had his door walled up and another made in the other side of the house: ever after he was a most prosperous man, and nobody was so successful as he in rearing stock in all that part of the country.” (Celtic folklore, p.230)

Lastly, we may note that this idea has a long history.  In the Life of Bartholomew of Farne, which is published as an appendix to Simeon of Durham’s Works (vol.1, Appendix 2, CUP reprint 2002) there’s a story about how the devil showed the hermit Bartholomew spirits in the form of sheep.  It was only when he put his foot on the other’s that the holy man saw through the deception and realised they were actually demons.

Summary and further reading

What can we conclude from all this?  Well, the process of transference by touch certainly suggests the considerable power of the magic involved, yet at the same time it implies that magical ability is not unique.  Anyone can acquire it provided that they have the right materials (to make ointment) or the right acquaintances.  It suggests too that there may not be a huge gulf between humans and fairies: they seem to be closely related and the distance between us is narrow and easily bridged.  All we need then is luck, the right contacts and/or determination and commitment (for example, to gather enough four leaf clover to be able to produce a usable quantity of the magic ointment).

There are many ways to acquire the fairies’ magic powers- fern seed may also be laboriously collected (like clover), a spell book might be acquired or a person may  learn their magic hand gestures their spells and their conjurations.  These have all been examined in separate postings.

Further reading

An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries, which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.

 

Girdle measuring and fairy healing- some curious folk beliefs

As I have described fairy blights before in a post and in chapter 20 of my 2017 book British fairies, it was widely accepted in the British Isles that fairies could inflict harm upon humans, whether by striking them with illness or disability or by abducting them.  This illness was so familiar as to be known as ‘the fairy;’ the symptoms might also be described as being ‘fairy- taken’ or ‘haunted by a fairy.’  This being the case, medical practitioners had to be able to respond to the condition.

Symptoms

In 1677 John Webster in his book The displaying of supposed witchcraft  had this to say on the belief:

“… the common people, if they have any sort of Epilepsie, Palsie, Convulsions, and the like do presently perswade themselves they are bewitched, fore-spoken, blasted, fairy-taken or haunted with some evil spirit and the like…” (p.323)

Clearly a range of maladies might be ascribed to supernatural causes, but it appears that ‘fairy-taken’ often had a more precise identity.  Speaking of Ireland, W. B. Yeats described how in the late-nineteenth century men and women would be ‘taken.’  This very often happened to women soon after childbirth, but it was also common for sufferers to take to their beds, perhaps for weeks, for years (frequently for the magically significant period of seven years, but sometimes for decades) or for the remainder of their lives, lying in a state of unconsciousness, as if in a dream or trance.  During this time they were believed to be living in Faery.  (Yeats, note 39 to Lady Gregory’s Visions and beliefs in the West of Ireland pp.287-8).

I’m not in any position to diagnose this coma-like state but it seems to have had consistent, recognisable symptoms.  Yeats’ description also helps to explain a detail of the record of the accusation made against Isobel Sinclair, an alleged witch, who was tried on Orkney in 1633.  The court heard that she had been “six times controlled with the fairy.”  In light of the above, we may conclude she had half a dozen periods of illness when she was unconscious and assumed by her family and neighbours to have been abducted to ‘Elfame.’

Treatment

Healers offered to diagnose and treat cases of ‘taken’ individuals.  Very frequently this was done by means of ‘measuring.’  This was an ancient practice worldwide, but in Western Europe  it can be traced back at least to the time of Pliny.  It was used in England until the late sixteenth century and in parts of Wales into the nineteenth century.  A change in the size of a girdle or belt could indicate that a person had been invaded by a fairy or evil spirit; clearly there are suggestions of demonic possession in this.  Charms and prayers could exorcise the spirit, although the belt might also be cut up as part of the cure.  In Ireland headaches were treated by measuring the sufferer’s head, whilst in Wales a range of conditions including depression, jaundice, nervous complaints, consumption and witchcraft were all detected by means of ritual measurement from the elbow to finger tip or by tying a cloth or rope around the body or limbs.

Girdle measuring was definitely used to identify and to help cure those taken by the fairies.  Here are a few examples:

• in 1438 Agnes Hancock in Somerset was treating children afflicted with ‘feyry’ by inspecting their girdles or shoes;
• in 1566 Elizabeth Mortlock of Pampesford, Cambridgeshire did the same.  She repeated a series of Catholic prayers, and then measured the child’s girdle from her elbow to her thumb, asking god to confirm if the girl was haunted with a fairy.  If the girdle or belt was shorter than usual, the affliction was clear and she had assisted several children in this manner;
• in about 1570 Jennet Peterson was accused before the ecclesiastical court at Durham of using witchcraft.  According to Robert Duncan of Wallsend she practiced the “measuring of belts to preserve folks from the farye.”  Jennet seemed to make a good living by identifying and curing fairy blights upon her neighbours;
• Lady Gregory (see citation above, p.237, but see generally her chapter IV, ‘Away’) told a story of a changeling child that seemed to be thriving until a neighbour called into the house.  She proposed to measure her child and the changeling with the string from her apron.  From that point on the infant did not thrive and was always screaming.

Once the ‘feyry’ had been diagnosed, presumably various talismans and charms would then have been used to drive off the malign elf or fairy.

Further reading

I have discussed the difficult issue of ‘fairy healing‘ further in another post.  An expanded version of this text will appear in my next book, Faeries, which will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide next year.

On my fairy bookshelf

I have created a recommended fairy books page to complement my website list, this time offering a guide to what I consider to be the best books on fairy-lore available.

Naturally, I would urge you all to purchase a copy of my own British fairies (and to read my three fairy novels!), but should you want to read more broadly and more deeply, click here to read more about what you should be reading more about!

See also my own faery publications here as well as my list of useful fairy websites.