I have been invited to a winter solstice gathering at the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities (an event I sadly can’t attend because of a family visit), but the invitation included a poem by science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft I decided to share. It would be more appropriate for my Nymphologyblog, I know, but I thought I’d post it here for more people to read, as it relates to several topics touched on in past articles I’ve posted.
Impressively, the poem was written by Lovecraft when he was only twelve years old, in 1902, and was first published in the Tryout magazine in 1919 under the title ‘An Old Pagan Speaks.’ It is related in theme to the much more famous Dead Panby Elizabeth Barret Browning and to Ezra Pound’s Pan is Dead. Schoolboy Lovecraft’s lament adopted archaic, ‘poetic’ diction, which seems very stilted indeed now, but the speaker’s powerful desire for the nymphs still to be alive, active within Nature, is a sentiment that I find attractive- as, I hope, do you.
To the Old Pagan Religion
“Olympian gods! How can I let ye go And pin my faith to this new Christian creed? Can I resign the deities I know For him who on a cross for man did bleed?
How in my weakness can my hopes depend On one lone God, though mighty be his pow’r? Why can Jove’s host no more assistance lend, To soothe my pain, and cheer my troubled hour?
Are there no Dryads on these wooded mounts O’er which I oft in desolation roam? Are there no Naiads in these crystal founts? Nor Nereids upon the Ocean foam?
Fast spreads the new; the older faith declines. The name of Christ resounds upon the air. But my wrack’d soul in solitude repines And gives the Gods their last-receivèd pray’r.”
Writer, photographer-filmmaker, and cultural curator Hannah L Close as Seonaidh, Lewis, summer 2024
There would appear to be an extremely fine line between polite sharing with faeries and human behaviour that more closely resembles the making of offerings or, to put it more bluntly- sacrifices, to the Good Folk. The implications of this difference are, however, profound, for they distinguish between a friendly quid pro quo and a stark indication that the other party is not merely approached with caution and respect, because of their unpredictable temperament and capacity to cause a nuisance, but is feared because they have much greater and far more extensive powers.
Such supplications are likely to be made where humans feel helpless and vulnerable. I will suggest that this is particularly the case in those situations where water is involved, as we are then more exposed and more at the mercy of the elements.
Marine spirits & Mermaids
Communities would often make small sacrifices to appease the sea folk. At Halloween, the people of Lewis used to attend a nocturnal ceremony at St Malway’s church that involved brewing a special beer that was then poured into the sea by a person who had waded out from the shore. This act was accompanied by an oral invocation: “Seonaidh, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you will be so good as to send us plenty of seaware [seaweed] for enriching our ground during the coming year.” The hope was that ‘Shony’ or ‘Shoney’ (Seonaidh: meaning ‘augury’ or, perhaps, ‘John,’ in the sense of the Christian saints) had sufficient control over the sea and the weather to guarantee a good supply of seaweed over the ensuing twelve months. A very similar ceremony was performed on the remote isle of St Kilda, where shells, pebbles, rags, pins, nails and coins were thrown into the sea. The ‘sacrifice’ of relatively precious metal objects (often bent and useless as well) is notable, not only for its historic precedents dating back to pre-Roman times, but because these items were also dropped into faery ‘wishing’ wells. In those instances, the prediction of a future lover was frequently what was sought. Seonaidh’s powers were clearly much greater.
All around Britain, in fact, meat, drink, bread and other valuable or necessary items would be offered up to sea spirits. On the coast of Somerset, fishermen walking from the village of Worle towards the quay at Birnbeck followed a path along a ridge, halfway along which lies a pile of stones called Picwinna’s Mound, a reputed pixy site. The passing fishermen would pick up a stone as they walked and throw it onto the mound as they passed, wishing “Picwinna, Picwinna, bring me a good dinner.” The cairn is also named Peak Winna in some sources; this form indicates that people were trying to make sense of a word that made no immediate sense to them- in turn, it’s pretty clear that its original form and meaning are lost. I’ll hazard a wild guess that the name might be a relic of far older times- perhaps Pwcca Wyn or the Brythonic equivalent- the ‘White Spirit’? Further west still, at Newlyn in Cornwall, the pixies living between low and high water mark, known as the bucca, would be offered a ‘cast’ of three fish so as to guarantee a good catch in the nets. These ‘sacrifices’ imply that- like Seonaidh- these faeries possessed some kind of control over the sea and its contents and that th eofferings were therefore made with a view to a specific outcome- in effect, a prayer bargain with minor divinities.
On Orkney the custom was that the first fish caught on a hook when out line-fishing would be thrown back to ensure that the rest of the catch would be good. Indeed, the superstition was carried much further: people drowning were regarded as being a sacrifice to the sea spirits. Regrettably, this meant that to try to rescue them would cheat the ocean of its offering and would bring bad luck on those who intervened- and even those who touched drowned bodies.
The people of the Isle of Man interestingly sought to control the sea by propitiating a land-dwelling (if liminal) spirit. They used to sacrifice rum to the buggane of Kione Dhoo headland. A small glassful of the spirit would be poured into the sea by fishing boats sailing from Port St Mary as they passed the promontory on their way to the Kinsale and Lerwick fishing grounds. The specific site of their sacrifice was a cave called Ghaw-Kione-dhoo (Black Head Inlet). Rum was occasionally thrown from the top of the cliff as well, with the words “Take that, evil spirit (or monster)!”. This dedication resembles that used by fishing boats’ crews who were preparing herring on board ship: they always threw a share to the mermen in recognition of the help they gave and to keep on the right side of them,saying “Gow shen, dooinney varrey!” (‘Take this, sea people.’) What’s absent here is the specification of what was wanted in return, such as we saw in imprecations to Seonaidh. All the same, the implications are pretty clear.
The sea-trows of Shetland were regarded as dangerous and best avoided, but they might occasionally be helpful to humankind. Reversing the land/ sea division just described, at Crawford Muir on Shetland in the 1770s a tenant was reported to have sacrificed a black lamb to the sea-trows so as to reinforce curses he was placing upon his enemies. Also known on Shetland is a species of water horse called the shoopiltee. One local folklore authority has explicitly classed the creature as a “water deity,” who is in special charge of both the sea and the islands’ streams. Shoopiltee can appear in a number of forms- as a sea monster to fishermen or, on land, in the form of a pony. Again, as with Seonaidh, people once sacrificed ale or pins and coins to it to ensure good catches at sea.
The Bucca, as created with Arts Lab help by Year 6 at Newlyn School for Mazey Day during the Golowan Festival (see thelostgiantmakers on Instagram)
Fresh Water Spirits
Even on land, the spirits of bodies of still or flowing water represented a danger to humans and to their livestock and were propitiated accordingly. These freshwater spirits turn out to be much more blood thirsty than the marine ones.
A fearsome being that demanded human sacrifice infested Lochan-nan-Deean in the Highlands near Tomintoul. The local people resolved to drain the lochan to get rid of it, but as soon as work began an enraged man in a red cap emerged from the waters and drove off the workers (the cap and its colour are supernatural markers and remid us of the Red Caps of the Borders). Here, violence and fear was successfully applied by the faery in order to perpetuate fear and self-inflicted violence. A similar monster called Mourie inhabited Loch Maree in the Highlands and was appeased with the sacrifice of a bull on August 25th each year.
More typical of the freshwater sprites is Peg o’Nell of the River Ribble in Lancashire- a being who lives in Peggy’s Well near the watercourse and emerges to claim a human life every seven years- unless a small animal or bird has been sacrificed to her. There is a similar sprite haunting the stepping stones at Bungerley near Clitheroe in Lancashire, which can take several forms and which, just like Peg o’Nell, takes a life every seven years. Comparable perilous creatures inhabit the River Gipping in Suffolk, the Derwent in Derbyshire and the Dart in Devon, a watercourse that claims a human heart each year, it is believed.
Offerings to Spirits on Land
On land, as at sea, we may identify two separate categories of offering- those that might be termed general ‘protection money’ and those that are specifically related to favourable outcomes in farming, whether crop cultivation or livestock rearing.
Clearly falling into the ‘protection racket’ category is a story from the Borders. The lowland Scots ballad Tam Lin refers to those passing the faery hill of Carterhaugh leaving a wad (that is, a ‘wed’ or pledge) for the residents. This makes the traveller’s ‘gift’ sound very much like a transaction or guarantee, a payment for protection from faery ill-will. This becomes even more apparent when we discover that, in the song, the ‘pledge’ that’s demanded from young women is “Either their gold rings, or green mantles, Or else their maidenhead.” A pledge is, of course, a valuable security that’s theoretically returnable (as with gold items given to a pawnbroker); needless to say, the sacrifice of virginity can only be regarded as an extorted payment. Plainly, these faes demand an extremely high price for a person to be free of their malign attentions and, as is often the case in human-faery relations, sexual exploitation may never be far away.
We find traces of related attitudes a little further south into England, at Alnwick in Northumberland. Here it was recorded in early Victorian times that an old woman regularly put out “a loake [a small amount] of meal and a pat of butter” for the faeries. She explained that she got a “double return” from them for her mark of respect. As these examples emphasise, it can often be hard to determine whether these ‘gifts’ were provided out of sympathy and neighbourly kindness, out of fear of a supernatural power, or as a kind of bargain, as appears to have been the case in Alnwick.
The Cheese well, Mincmuir, near Traquair
Fear was plainly the motivation in the next example. In Aberdeenshire, there are two hills topped by wells at which travellers must make a small sacrifice to the bean-sith (banshee or faery woman) of the hills. The customary offering is a barley-meal cake, marked with a circle on one side, which is placed beside the well. Neglecting this can have dire (and swift) consequences: for instance, one woman failed to leave a cake at the well and fell dead at a cairn only a short distance away. Rather similar, it appears, was the practice at Minchmuir, Peebles-shire, where there was the so-called ‘Cheese Well’ into which locals threw pieces of cheese for the guardian faeries. At Wooler, in Northumberland, the implicit deal was plain: sickly children would be dipped in the well’s waters and bread and cheese were left as an offering. Offerings of pins were also made at Wooler so as to have a wish come true; pins were given too at Bradwell in Derbyshire on Easter Sunday and at various other sites in Scotland (along with buttons). If we see the faes as having some sort of divine status, then these offerings are marks of honour aimed at appeasing the Good Neighbours, averting ill fortune, and ensuring their continuing good will.
Something more like a sacrificial bargain was involved when a Shetland boy had been made ill by the trows. His parents were advised to tether a calf to his bed and offer it to the ‘grey folk.’ The next morning, the boy was well and the calf had died. This appears to be a sort of indirect immolation, exchanging one desirable life for another.
In one account from Skye, a man came across a bean-nighe washing a shroud at Benbecula and, following established practice, seized her tightly and demanded to know whose the shroud would be. It turned out to be for the local clan chief but, when this noble learned of his apparent fate- that he would leave Skye and never return- he decided to take matters into his own hands: he slaughtered a cow and left the island of his own volition. By this pre-emptive action, it appears that he succeeded in breaking the faery spell, as he survived, albeit far from home. As with the Shetland incident, what we seem to have here is the exchange of a life for a life; the sith folk were satisfied with blood, regardless of its source.
Given these last two examples, it is less surprising to hear that when, in 1859, some archaeologists opened up a barrow near Tynwald Hill on the Isle of Man, a local farmer killed and burned a heifer there after they had departed, with the aim of atoning to the ferrishyn for the desecration of the site.
The Maiden Well or Pin Well, Wooler
Offerings to Earth Spirits
To prevent (it would seem) faery interference in agriculture, offerings were regularly made to them. It was the habit in the Scottish Highlands and islands to make regular donations of milk to the gruagach and glaistig who often looked after the cattle on farms and in communities. Small quantities were poured out on special stones, perhaps after every milking or at certain times in the farming year. At Pier o’ Wall, Westray, in Orkney, stand two burial mounds called Wilkie’s Knolls. Milk used to be poured daily into a hole on top of one of these. If this was neglected, the resident spirit called Wilkie would cause a nuisance and- far more seriously- could bring down plague on the cattle. There is in these cases a degree of confusion between spirits who might cease to care for the livestock they oversee and those who might decide to inflict harm on humans through their property.
All the same, a case from East Lothian reveals that offerings such as these should not always be viewed as a bargain or appeasement. Tried before a church court in 1649, Agnes Gourlay was accused of pouring milk down the drain for the faeries; her justification was “they that are under the yird [earth] have as much need of it as they that are above the yird.” Agnes was acting charitably, therefore, indicating a very different balance of power between the parties.
English orchards are haunted by sprites whose role is to bring life to the trees and to protect the crop from thefts. These beings go by various names- Owd Goggy, Lazy Lawrence, Jack up the Orchard, the grig and the apple tree man. At harvest time a few apples should always be left behind for them- an offering termed the ‘pixy-word’ (or hoard)- and, if this is done, the faeries will bless the crop.
Conduct closely comparable to that of farmers was found in the mines of the South West of England. The miners would give up a portion of their lunches to the ‘knockers’ in the mine, hoping that they would then be led to the best lodes of tin. Just as Seonaidh and others control all aspects of the marine environment, so too faeries and pixies govern the produce of the earth- both above and below.
Lastly, readers will be familiar with the brownies and broonies who helped out in the farms and homes of England, Wales and Scotland. They received food and a warm fire as a kind of recompense for their labours, but once again the distinction between ‘pay,’ ‘protection money’ and a sacrifice can be hard to pin down.
Writing about Shetland in 1808, John Brand reported that forty or fifty years earlier, nearly every family had had a “browny” who had faithfully served them and to whom they “sacrificed.” By this he meant that, when milk was churned, some would be sprinkled in the corners of the room and, when beer was brewed, some of the wort would be poured into a hole in a ‘browny stone’ (closely comparable to the milk offerings just mentioned). The brews would fail without these offerings, although if the neglect persisted, eventually the brownies would desert the house. Brand indicates that it was godly adherents of the reformed church who drove out the domestic trows, banishing them not by kindness but by deliberate refusal to engage with or to respect them.
In conclusion, British attitudes towards faeries seem to have varied across the country according to local circumstances and experiences. In some places, the faeries were deserving of food and shelter- I hesitate to say they were in need, as such, as this downplays the respect and caution that underlay the interactions. Elsewhere, the elements of prudence and deference were much more obvious in the relationship. Lastly, in some regions, the faery beings approached a status of ‘godling,’ controlling the environment and therefore the prosperity and well-being if humankind. Here, offerings were made less out of wariness and more as propitiation.
British Fairies 