And on the tawny sands and shelves,
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
John Milton
I have met many witches, frustrated with a lack of advanced or intermediate techniques and materials, who turn to faery magick out of the desire to learn something, anything new. There is a certain sense of historical romance about it. Faeries were thought to have whispered herbal remedies to the wisewomen of old.
Nevertheless, faery magick is not to be taken lightly. The realm of the Tuatha de Dannan, the Sidhe, and the Fae is to be approached with respect, courtesy, and caution. It’s time for you to do a little research and be specific before you go banging at the doorway to the Faery realm.
Why? Because you are dealing with a whole different realm. Faeries are considered by some to be from the kingdom of the elementals. Others consider them a separate race, known as the Tuatha de Dannan. There are tales that faeries are actually angels who refused to choose sides when Lucifer was rebelling, and so in punishment they were sent forever to the Earth. You will have to decide for yourself who and what you believe them to be.
If you are interested in working with these energies, your best bet would be the garden-friendly gnomes, brownies, and sylphs. Gnomes and brownies are earth elementals. Gnomes are the guardians of the treasures of the earth. They help create plant colors and facilitate the growth of flowers and trees. Gnomes are often perceived to be gnarled, diminutive old men.
Brownies are household fairies. They are said to appear as small, brown, and furry little men. They protect the home, guard your property, and look out for your children and animals. Brownies will also help keep your house clean . . . if you show them kindness.
The sylphs, air elementals, have their own energies and powers. They represent the creative force of the air element: inspiration, intuition, and knowledge. Sylphs appear to us as a classic storybook-type of faery or angel. There are some gentle sylphs and even plant spirits that could pass as a Tinkerbell type of faery—you know, the ones that you’ve pictured as little air sprites, fluttering about with gossamer wings. Those are the safe sort you’d like to have working with you in the garden. I like to think of them as flower faeries.
Rarely physically seen, these flower faeries make their presence known by walking through your hair or making the leaves on the plants bounce and the petals on the flowers quiver for no apparent reason. They help care for the garden and also enjoy families, pets, and children.
But we must remember that Nature is an entity unto herself. She has many faces, some gentle and others not. The spring breeze that refreshes you can turn into damaging winds during severe thunderstorms. The same creek that babbles by your backyard may do monstrous damage in a flash flood situation. Nature is a paradox. So, too, is the faery realm.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Tuatha de Dannan once were treated as gods in pagan Ireland. For instance, these old gods of the earth were at one time so feared it was forbidden to say the word “faery.” They were referred to instead as the Gentry or the Good People. The Irish faery beliefs are the most detailed and generally held, and include many types and varieties of faeries. Some are grotesque and almost all are formidable, but what strikes me most of all are the tales of the great beauty of most of the faeries. Over and over we hear legends about their love of music and poetry, faery feasts and rides (or raids), and the beauty of faery women and the faery horses. The Welsh tale of Rhiannon would be a prime example.
Rhiannon’s story goes like this. A prince named Pwyll decided to challenge himself by sitting on a hill (faery mound) and tempting fate. Legend stated that any man who sat upon this hill would either receive a “great blow” or see something amazing.
What Pwyll saw was Rhiannon: a beautiful woman in gold, slowly trotting around the hill on a white horse. Captivated, the prince called for his fastest rider to go and fetch the fair maiden, but no matter how fast he went, she was always just ahead and out of reach. Pwyll tried it himself, wearing himself and his horse almost to the point of exhaustion. Still Rhiannon’s pace never changed and she remained just ahead of the prince.
Finally, in frustration, the prince called out to Rhiannon and asked the lady to please stop. She did so immediately, and turned to look at Pwyll with amusement. She then told the prince that it would have been better for the horse if he would have but asked her earlier.
For Pwyll it was love at first sight, and he asked Rhiannon to marry him. Rhiannon accepted.
There is thought to be a connection between the realm of the Faery and the dead, but the grandeur of faeries seems to derive from their godlike qualities. In Ireland, more than anywhere else, the faeries are often thought to be shadows of the old gods of the country. In other magickal places, such as Scotland, beliefs are different.
Here the emphasis is placed on the good and the bad among the faeries. Sometimes you will see this referred to as the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I suggest caution. There are many monsters in Scottish faery legend, the kind that come slithering or crawling out of the mist—not to mention the Cailleach Bheur. An aspect of the Crone goddess, the Cailleach is the personification of the typical hunchbacked old crone stirring the smoking cauldron. What does she look like? The Halloween-type, hook-nosed old witch—wise, all-seeing, and a little frightening . . . be careful, my little pretty, or she just might get you too! Some modern authors have described her as being blue-faced and sporting fangs. Now that’s downright creepy.
The Cailleach is from the Highlands and she is a more elemental and imposing faery character. The key word here is elemental. Do I detect a hint of the old earth gods? It is fascinating how the Cailleach ties into the faery mythology. This is a goddess of the land; the Highlands, to be precise. Today, the Cailleach is a powerful representation of the Crone. Sure, she may be a little scary, but if you approach her wisely and cautiously, you just might learn something.
You need to acknowledge and understand just who and what you are dealing with. The faeries are considered to be good-hearted and merry. Conversely, they are fickle, easily offended, obstinate, and quick to anger. The old beliefs about the dangers surrounding the shifting glamour of Faeryland are ones to take into consideration.
Yes, there are many tales of elven heroism and faery beauty. These fantastic beings are often imagined as suitable for a child’s bedtime story, with the traditional tales of enchanting music and their love of sports and revelry. There are also just as many dark legends as well. In reality, try thinking of the Faery kingdom as the good, the bad, and the ugly. You better believe they can still make their presence felt and known.
When I first approached writing this chapter I started to include as much information on the Faery realm as I could find . . . started to, anyway. After a few nights of vivid nightmares, I got the message. A friend pointed out to me that he had heard a story about the poet W. B. Yeats and his search for faery knowledge. Yeats was fascinated by the faery realm, but he was warned by an Irish medium to be careful, and not to seek to know too much about the Fae. That’s good advice.
Some witches make the mistake of working with the faeries without realizing exactly what they are getting into. Be very particular. If you call them, they will come. I know about this from personal experience.
Faery Mischief and Graveyard Dirt
When I was a young witch and my children were small, I invited in the faeries—specifically, the brownies (house spirits)—to guard the house and yard. I thought the children would love it and I was charmed with the idea. At first, we had a few months of harmless, mischievous pranks. Jewelry started to disappear, car keys went missing, you could leave a room only to walk back a moment later and discover everyday things missing or moved around.
One night I was folding laundry in the living room and I stopped to put the kids to bed. It was one of those wild nights only a parent of several small children could appreciate. Children, toys, and clean laundry scattered all over the floor. The kids were trying to “help,” which of course only made it twice as much work.
I hustled the kids into bed and with the three of them safely tucked in, and our old orange tabby cat to keep me company, I started to put away the laundry.
As I walked back into the living room, the laundry basket was gone. I turned around to find it on top of the television. I can honestly say that I had never put the basket up there before. It had been on the rug in the middle of the floor. My heart thudded hard in my throat. I looked down at the cat, who looked up at me as if to say, “Don’t look at me.”
I scooped up the cat, left the basket untouched and backed out of the room. I walked down the hall to find the kids all still in bed. That was weird, it couldn’t have been the kids. I would have seen or heard the kids if they had gotten up. They couldn’t have reached the top of the TV at that age, let alone put a full basket up there. My husband worked nights so that left him out, and obviously the cat hadn’t done it . . .
Why was the basket on top of the TV? When I walked back into the room to double-check, the basket had moved; it was now on the floor, centered in front of the TV.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned in time to see something brown and small dart across the floor. The cat in my arms tracked the movement and swung her tail lazily around, but showed no signs of distress. I could feel waves of mischief and fun in the living room. And I knew . . . we had brownies.
During this time we were in the process of building a garden on the side of the house and were besieged with bad luck during our project. We hired someone to remove one hundred feet of old driveway and put in a new, smaller one, a new back porch, and a sidewalk. The kids thought it was great and we were excited . . . I guess the brownies were as well.
The first crew we hired crushed our shed in the backyard and then got mad when we asked them to either pay for a replacement or deduct the cost of the shed from our bill. With hurled obscenities, they walked off the job, leaving the concrete half torn out and our yard looking like a war zone, or a miniature of the Grand Canyon.
After reporting them to the Better Business Bureau, I had to go hire a new, reliable contractor. We found one but had to wait three weeks until he was able to work us in. After he arrived and surveyed the site, he told us we would also have to bring in three dump trucks full of soil for the new side yard, an expense we hadn’t planned on.
On the first day the new concrete workers arrived to finish the tear out, they pulled up to get started, only to have to stop an hour later as they mysteriously had two flat tires on their equipment truck. Not one flat tire, but two.
They were embarrassed and had to call a special tow truck to haul away their truck. They left with the promise to return the next day as soon as possible. The owner apologized again for the delay, and repeated how he had never in all his years seen anything like it. Was I cursed or something? he asked.
No, I assured him. But I was beginning to get really suspicious of our “guests.” Disappointed and frustrated, I herded the kids back into the house. As the kids and I went back inside, I saw the cat fly down the hall in hot pursuit of something. The kids took off happily after the cat. I sat down and cried.
That night after I put the kids to bed, I looked up ways to counteract faery mischief. There was the theory that they were repelled by iron, and that they disliked cats. I dismissed the latter one, as the brownies didn’t seem to mind the cat so far . . . in fact, some texts claimed that cats were faery creatures. Faeries and brownies supposedly love kids and action. We had plenty of that.
I read up on banishing unwanted entities, but that seemed like overkill . . . after all, I had invited them in. So I followed my instincts and sat down to have a little heart-to-heart talk with our brownies. I left them some small crystals by the hearth as a thank-you gift for all their hard work in guarding the house and yard. Then I told them all about the great garden I was planning for them. (Should have done that in the first place.)
I believe that they were only trying to do what I had asked them to do: protect the house and yard. Even though we were in the middle of a landscaping job, the early stages involved a lot of tear-out work. I’m sure to the brownies it seemed like the destruction of our and their home. They probably weren’t too thrilled with all that noise and equipment on their turf.
I also did a spell to counteract any bad luck, and then went outside and blessed the yard. To avoid any more equipment problems, I doused any equipment the concrete crew had left behind with sea salt. It worked. The concrete guys finished their work without incident, except they kept accusing each other of eating crackers or pretzels on the truck. The only problem left was to find the dirt for the yard.
When I had given up on finding any affordable topsoil, a neighbor suggested a friend who owned a backhoe. I called him and he quoted me a price that was very inexpensive. The three tons of topsoil was scheduled to arrive the next day, so the concrete workers could move some of it for us with a Bobcat.
Right on time, Mr. Phillips dropped off the first and second dump truck loads. Then he climbed out of the cab, resplendent in his overalls and with a toothpick clenched in his teeth, to inform me that he would be back with the final load later in the afternoon. Before he could return, he had to go to the dentist and then go dig three graves.
The concrete guys stopped working and did a double take; all my neighbors, who had been watching, fell silent; and I just stood there trying not to grin. Mr. Phillips looked uncomfortable and started for the dump truck.
“Hey, Mr. Phillips!” I called after him before he could drive away.
“Yes?” He turned to look at me as I climbed up on the side of the truck so I could see him better.
“By any chance, this dirt wouldn’t be graveyard dirt . . . would it?” I asked him.
He turned off the radio and adjusted his cap. He took a deep breath before answering. “Would it bother you if it was?”
“Are you kidding?” I laughed. “As long as there are no body parts in it, bring it on in!” He smiled, relieved, and I climbed down from the truck and waved as he drove away.
My neighbors thought I was taking it awfully well. I thought it was hysterically funny. The concrete guys thought it was great quality dirt at an affordable price, and wanted his name for other jobs. I was happy to pass it along.
My husband said to me when he came home that day, “Well, honey, that kind of goes with the theme, doesn’t it?” In a way, I guess it did. I planted the beginnings of my gardens about a week later.
I bet you’re wondering if anyone else ever saw the brownies? Actually, yes. Close friends of ours came over to visit and I was telling them about the flat tire incident. As we were sitting around the table visiting, Skippy, our cat, decided to grace us with her presence by jumping on the middle of the kitchen table. She knew she wasn’t allowed to do this but, like most cats, she really didn’t care about house rules.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and, as my husband turned his head to look, our guests both yanked their feet up off the floor in alarm. My friend, Paula, looked at us and said, “Did you guys get another cat?”
“Well, no,” I told her. “I think you’ve just met the brownies.”
Her husband, Craig, looked at me and smiled. “You’re not talking about the Girl Scouts, are you?”
Faeries in the garden are a wonderful thing. They help care for your plants and protect the garden. If you had invited them into the house and want them to go into the garden instead, they will be more than happy to go. Just politely invite them to move to the garden. Make it a special place for them. Leave gifts, such as crystals, in the garden. Or leave a circle of bread or cookie crumbs under a full moon in thanks for their assistance in the yard.
How will you know if the faeries have moved in the garden? The plants will start to grow more luxuriantly and you will probably find a faery ring in your yard. The circle of mushrooms can be anywhere from three feet wide to much bigger. We had one once that was twenty feet across.
Faery folks are in old oaks.
Old Rhyme
Faery Plants and Garden Plans for Sun and Shade
To attract the flower faeries, try adding these plants to your garden. For the shady garden try ferns, columbine, foxglove, meadowsweet with its wonderful vanilla scent, and lily of the valley. As mentioned before, foxglove and lily of the valley are poisonous plants. You may want to wait until your kids are older before planting these. That’s what I did. Forget-me-nots are a faery plant that are rumored to help you in your search for hidden treasures. Violets and lady’s mantle are also great shade perennials for a faery garden. Violets are a main faery flower. A chaplet of violets are a charm for love and a shelter from treachery.
For your sunny faery gardens, plant these: lavender, betony (that’s lambs ears), yarrow, and rosemary. Train an annual morning glory vine up a trellis and stand back. They grow up to fifteen feet tall in one season. Morning glories are used for all kinds of garden witch spells. Remember, this is another plant you want to make sure your kids don’t eat. All parts of the vine, blooms, and the seeds are mildly toxic. You can always try a honeysuckle if you prefer; it’s equally favored by the faeries. The lilac shrub is another popular flower with the Fae. There is nothing like the scent of lilacs in the garden.
Add roses in all varieties and colors, the more heavily scented the better. For your children, try growing the miniature variety of roses, sometimes called “fairy roses.” They come in all different colors, even green! Add some cherry-scented heliotrope, daisies, and allysum, and what a lovely faery flower garden you’ll have!
A Full Sun or Faery Garden Layout
1 Annuals for color (Petunias or Allysum)
2 Lamb's Ears
3 Dwarf Lilac
4 Heliotrope
5 Yarrow
6 Coneflower
7 Rosemary
8 Lavender
9 Rose
Enter those enchanted woods,
You who dare.
George Meredith
Faery Times and Places
A charm to call the flower faeries into your garden should be worked on a full moon. The full moon in May is traditionally a opportune time to introduce yourself to the faeries. Other favorable faery days include all the sabbats, with your best times being Ostara, Beltane, and Midsummer.
There is a tradition of working in the between times and places. For example, the beach is neither the ocean nor the land. Likewise a riverbank, or at a crossroads, where two rivers meet . . . are you following me here? We should also mention that places such as natural springs, waterfalls, meadows of wildflowers, pristine woods and wildernesses are the most likely to have faery activity. Faery times of day are just before sunrise, noon, twilight, and midnight.
Suitable oils to be employed in faery spells are lilac and violet. However, the scent of violets makes some people a little queasy. Use it sparingly until you find out how you handle the scent.
There are many deities associated with both the garden and the faeries. You could call on Flora, Roman goddess of flowers; Demeter, the goddess of the harvest; or the trinity of moon goddesses, Artemis, Selene, and Hecate. Feeling romantic? Try the faery queen Titania, or the God in his aspect as the Green Man, or Pan. Behave yourself, now, if you invoke Pan. This lusty god is associated with the nymphs and the satyrs, after all. If you’re not comfortable with any of those suggestions, then call on the Great Mother or the Earth Angel to assist you.
I imagine that someone is probably grumbling about my not having included the Goddess Rhiannon or Morgan le Fay. Rhiannon, a faery bride, endured years of torment and hard labor from her own husband and his court from being falsely accused of the murder of their infant son. Eventually Rhiannon was exonerated and restored to her rightful place when the boy was discovered alive and well.
Morgan le Fay was the older sister of King Arthur and the mother of Arthur’s only son, the ambitious Mordred. Morgan or Morgaine was either hailed as a priestess and a tragic hero of Avalon, or as an evil temptress with designs for the throne, depending on whose version of the story you believe. So you may want to think carefully about it before you work with these goddesses, as neither of these archetypes led carefree, happy lives.
If you choose to try faery magick, you could build a small altar in the garden. A faery statue nestled into your flowers with a large flat stone in a garden clearing or a small bench is ideal for such a purpose. Make absolutely sure it is a safe place for an open flame. For outside rituals, I like to use tealights with a drop of essential oil on them. I arrange these on a plate when I’m working outside. The flames are small, the candles don’t attract unwanted attention from neighbors, and they are portable (I bring the plate inside when I am finished). Never leave a burning candle unattended, especially outdoors.
To begin your get-acquainted ritual, invoke your chosen deity. Leave an offering to the flower faeries, such as a garland of violets, a rose, or small cakes, on your garden altar. Light your candles and speak the following:
Gentle flower faeries from near and far, come watch over my backyard.
Bless these herbs and fragrant flowers, fill them with your loving power.
Late at night when fireflies glow, use your magick to make them grow.
By the power of the stars, moon, and sun, do as I will and it harm none.
When finished, you may choose to meditate for a while or just lie back, sip some wine, and observe the moon and the night sky. Don’t forget to bring your candles in when you are finished. Let nature claim the flowers or the food that you left on your altar as an offering.
When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.
Sir James Barrie, Peter Pan
Faery Magick and Kids
When you work with the faeries for any length of time, you may start to notice a certain amount of faery mischief in your home. This can be benign or troublesome, depending on the level of faery interest you are receiving. Bottom line, if you practice magick and you have kids, you are going to attract the attention of the faeries. If you have children who have a natural flair for magick, you’re in for even more interesting times.
When our old orange tabby cat died a few years ago, the whole family was heartbroken, my daughter especially, as Skippy had been “her cat.” Our other cat, a young gray and black tabby, was lonely without Skippy, but we all decided to wait a while before adopting another animal into the family.
My daughter, Kat, was not so patient. After a few weeks it seemed like every time I opened the door, a different friendly stray cat would be sitting on my front porch—harmless, cute, curious, and wanting a good scratch. My daughter was only too happy to oblige. I warned the kids to be careful and not to feed any strays, and assumed that would be the end of it. A few days later I arrived home from work to find my daughter sitting in the back yard with a big fluffy orange cat on her lap. After the initial double-take, when I assured myself that it was not our Skippy, I went outside to ask her about her new friend.
The cat had a collar and actually belonged to a family down the street. No, we could not keep him, I told her. However now that he had found a soft touch, that fluffy cat was back every day. For a month this neighbor would sit outside under the kitchen window and meow loudly until Kat came outside to hold him and play with him. This continued all summer until the family that he belonged to moved away. When the parade of strays suddenly resumed once again, I took my daughter aside and reminded her that it was okay to miss her pet. I then gently asked her if she had been working any magick.
Her face turned red, and she started to laugh nervously at her spell’s success. Kat admitted that she had asked the faeries to send us another cat. And they certainly had, every stray in the neighborhood. “What do we do now?” she asked me.
That evening, the two of us performed a small ritual to thank the faeries for helping, but to please stop sending any more cats to us for now. The parade of strays stopped immediately.
I bet you’re wondering if my daughter ever managed to get another pet? Yes, she did. About a year later, my family adopted a stray kitten from the animal shelter in our neighborhood. We ended up with a sleek, solid black feline with bright yellow eyes. She adores my daughter and follows Kat everywhere.
Sometimes faery mischief gets a little out of hand. Signs to look for are a suspicious string of small annoyances or bad luck—missing jewelry that will then turn up in odd places, skittish household pets, and a house that never seems at rest or calm, even after the kids go to sleep.
A witch that I know, Crystal, has a young daughter who possesses a real knack for calling in the faeries. Missy is a natural. At the tender age of eleven, this young girl possesses as much information and experience of working with faery energy as most adult practitioners that I know.
Unfortunately, it tended to create havoc with any and all spells that her mother performed. The entire house and yard was a hotbed of mischievous faery activity. Guest’s car keys would disappear, and the house had an unsettled, jumpy feeling, way beyond what you would expect in a house full of small children. When our group put their heads together, we came up with a way to minimize the trouble her daughter was causing, albeit unknowingly.
The first thing we did was to have Crystal cleanse the house and perform a banishing. As a single mom she was the head of the house, and if anyone could do a little faery busting, it should be her. I had her take some salt and water and asperge the four corners of the house and announce that any unknown spell or purpose not in alignment with herself should depart.
Why? Because by announcing that any magick other than her own had to go, she cleaned up any extra bits of magickal energy that might have been floating around, causing chaos. I encouraged her to remind her daughter to take down any circles that she was casting—no sense in having a bunch of trapped, pissed-off elementals hanging around the house. They had enough nature spirit activity in there already.
As a group, we all tried to teach Missy some faery etiquette. Nicole (another adult member of the group, who is herself very talented with nature spirits) gently reminded Missy to be very careful with the faeries. Nicole and I both warned Missy that the Fae are infamous for stirring up trouble and causing mischief, just for the sheer joy of it. It is simply their way. Nicole had a personal stake in this, as it was always her keys that would disappear! They turned up in the weirdest places on circle night. I would watch her put her keys in her purse and then later, when it was time to go home, they were usually gone.
Crystal performed her cleansing and it worked out very well. The animals are calmer and friendlier, and her house is a much more relaxing place to be. It now has a welcoming, I’m-so-glad-you’re-here feeling. So the moral of these stories are (and all good faery tales have a moral): Don’t allow your children free rein with faery magick. Supervise them if possible, or you may find yourself in some faery-mayhem situations. Remember to teach your children that if they work with faeries to always make sure they work inside of a cast circle. More importantly, remind them to take down their circles when they are finished. Encourage the fairies to live outside in the garden and everyone will be happier.
My teenage daughter Kat helped me to write these next faery spells. She went over this entire chapter’s spells and charms with all of the relentless enthusiasm of a drill sergeant. I dedicate this chapter to her because she always insisted, rather loudly, that I should tell our faery stories.
Do you seek the road to fairyland? I’ll tell; it’s easy, quite.
Wait till a yellow moon gets up o’er purple seas by night
And gilds a shining pathway that is sparkling diamond bright
Then, if no evil power be nigh to thwart you out of spite,
And if you know the very words to cast a spell of might,
You get upon a thistledown and, if the breeze is right,
You sail away to Fairyland along this track of light.
Ernest Thompson Seton
Faery Spells
Spell for Faery Protection of Your Property
For this spell, you will need:
• A small, attractive faery or gnome statue to place in your garden, to represent
their benevolent presence on the property
• A few tealights
• Violet or lilac oil (just a drop or two)
• A posy, or small bouquet of flowers that are sacred to the faeries
• Timing: In a waxing or full moon. Work on a Monday for the moon’s psychic influence. Chant the following spell three times:
Small garden faeries, brownies, and gnomes,
Come circle ’round and protect my home.
A token of friendship I now leave in this place
May you always guard and defend this sacred space.
Stopping Faery Mischief in the Home
To work this spell, you will need:
• A tealight
• Patchouli oil (a drop or two on the candle)
• A half cup of graveyard dirt—if you can’t discreetly get your hands on some, you may substitute dried, crushed mullein leaves
• Iron cauldron, any size. Put the graveyard dirt in the cauldron. Place a tealight inside of the cauldron, on top of the dirt. If you use dried mullein leaves, sprinkle them in a circle going in a widdershins direction around the outside of the cauldron. (For safety, do not have dry ingredients near an open flame.)
• Timing: On a full moon for power; during the waning moon for a banishing; and in the dark of the moon if you are in way over your head. Work on a Friday (Venus’ day) if you are asking them to leave nicely. Choose a Saturday, Saturn’s day, for a full-blown banishing, should the situation be intense. Repeat this spell three times.
That’s quite enough trouble, it’s time now to cease,
Halt your Fae mischief, cause no more faery grief.
With love I release you, go safely on your way,
Return to the garden to sing, dance, and play.
Take out your garden witchery notebook or use this book’s journal and jot down your ideas for a faery garden, and note any faery plants that may already be growing in your yard. (Don’t overlook those violets!) Make a wish list for some new enchanting plants and add them into your garden as soon as you are able.
Nature spirits are shy and may take some time before they will make their presence known to you. Be patient. You will probably sense them long before you ever catch a glimpse of them. Pay attention as you work in your garden. I have watched with held breath as the flowers quivered or a tree limb bounced, for no other obvious reason, as I spoke to a plant or tree. The faeries may make their presence known in a variety of ways.
Even I, who have worked with the garden faeries for many years, was surprised to have been awoken late one Beltane night to the sound of what could only be described as faery music. Drifting through the window, first loud and then soft, came the unbelievable combination of whispers, flutes, and bells. Coming fully awake, I raced to the bedroom window to try and pinpoint the source of that sound. As I stood there, I began to realize the sound was definitely coming from somewhere out in the garden. Did I rush outside to investigate? No, I accepted it as the extraordinary gift that it was, for I knew that to intrude would be disrespectful. I climbed back into bed and happily burrowed under the covers just to listen, leaving the faeries to their own revelry.