I’ve previously written about faery music, what’s often termed ceol sidhe in Irish Gaelic, and people’s experiences of hearing it. In this posting I want to survey how faery music has more directly impacted human music, through borrowed tunes and as a source of inspiration to us.
The faes are renowned for their love of music (and dance) and for their skill in playing instruments. That skill can be conveyed to humans- one potential route for faery tunes to reach us, perhaps. The examples of this process seem to come almost entirely from the Highlands of Scotland, with gifts of proficiency in playing the bagpipes often bestowed- not uncommonly along with an enchanted set of pipes (or the chanter at least).
Across Britain, it has been common over the centuries for people to hear faeries displaying their instrumental skills, usually the sounds of music being overheard coming from below faery hills. Examples of such locales can be found from the Fairy Knowe on Skye to the ‘music barrows’ of southern England, for example at Bincombe Down and Culliford Tree in Dorset and Wick Moor, near Stogursey in Somerset. A rare exception to this ‘eavesdropping’ is found in the story of Finlay, grandson of the ‘Black Fairy’ on Mingulay, whose own faery lover used to play her harp to him.
A number of faery tunes have been copied and preserved in human music, most notably in Shetland and Wales, where they are still remembered and played. A famous Shetland tune is Be nort da deks o’ Voe, learned directly from the trows. There are several such so-called trowie or ferry tüns from the far northern isles; two Welsh examples are Cân y tylwyth teg and Ffarwel Ned Pugh.
The usual process for acquisition is simply overhearing the reel being played and committing it to memory. Most often this happens when a musician happens to be sat on or near a faery knowe, but in one Shetland case, a man heard a trow piper playing the tune when a crowd of trows passed his house one morning, whilst he was still lying in his bed. On the Isle of Man, a man called Willy the Fairy (William Cain) during late Victorian and Edwardian times often heard fairies singing and playing instruments in Glen Helen at night and had learned several songs just by listening to them. In fact, quite a number of Manx tunes and songs are reported to have been borrowed by humans, being fairy compositions originally.
In a few cases the tunes are more consciously passed on. A piper called Fyfe from Reay in Perthshire spent many hours with the fairies, enjoying their music and honing his own skills- giving his playing a magical charm that made him much in demand at dances. Sometimes conferring musical ability seems almost incidental or accidental: a fairy woman visited a Perthshire home and tuned the family’s bagpipes for them. She then played a few tunes before leaving, but the three sons of the family were endowed with great prowess as pipers thereafter.
A major problem in transmission is that faery music can prove notoriously hard to remember. In his 1779 history of Aberystruth parish, the Reverend Edmund Jones reported that “everyone said [the music] was low and pleasant, but none could ever learn the tune.” On the Isle of Man, one musician had to return three times to the same spot where he’d heard faery music to be able to commit it to memory (see Evans Wentz, Fairy Faith, pages 118 & 131). This aspect of the music has parallels with memories of time spent by mortals with the faeries ‘under the hill.’ Some have said they are unable to recall anything of what happened and what was said whilst they were there (although we may suspect that a diplomatic silence may actually be involved).
As for faeries and trows featuring in human music, Italian folk metal band Elvenking, for example, regularly refer to elvendom, elven legions and the elven king in their songs- see, for instance, ‘Oakenshield,’ ‘Banquet of Bards’ and, much more remarkably, ‘Trows’ Kind.’ This track, from the band’s 2006 album Winter Wake, is a unique catalogue of British folklore, from the Shetland trows “henking” at a dance, taking in southern Scottish Redcaps who are “greedy for silver and gold” to witches in the form of hares. ‘Henking’ is the distinctive limping dance performed by trows.
All in all, the song is a lament for a fading faery kind:
“Through years and centuries,
Through myth and poetry
Our race’s slowly dying
In the heart of mankind.”
At the same time, though, the lyrics are not sentimental about fae nature: they are “Nymphs of dark and lust- Fairy of bad fate!”- although it is also reported that-
“Somebody tells he has seen
Some of the little ones
Some even that have talked with them
So nice and handsome…”
Again, the wisest course of action over faery doings (and faery tunes) may be a discrete silence.
Overall, Elvenking seem to be under no illusions about the perilous truth of faery nature: they advise against getting involved- “Please, don’t be such a fool!” They know that faeries can be highly alluring, tempting humans into ill-advised sexual liaisons: “Desire grows, denial howls/ Your will has gone,” but the only likely outcome is enslavement and subjection.
See too my 2023 book, No Earthly Sounds- Faery Music, Song & Verse, which is available as an e-book and paperback from Amazon/ KDP. For more information on the impact of Faery on human composers and songwriters, see my 2022 book, published on Amazon, The Faery Faith in British Music.
British Fairies 
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