Chapter 7
The Good Folk have their own society, material culture, and conventions of behaviour. These are distinct from those of human beings and, to interact successfully with them, it helps us to understand how their world works.
Faery Government
It may seem a shocking challenge to very well-established conventions, as respected writers such as Shakespeare and Spenser have made faery royalty such a fundamental part of our conceptions of faery society, but I wonder whether we really mean the words we use when we so casually discuss the “faery kingdom,” the “faery realm,” the seelie and unseelie “courts,“ and the king and queen of Faery. We all accept what the great poets tell us, we all take the existence of a fairy queen for granted—but is she really more of a literary creation than a folklore reality?
In her recent book Faeries, Morgan Daimler observed that “the social structure does seem to operate as a hierarchy ruled ultimately by Kings and Queens.” Daimler was describing Celtic Faes, but examples from across Britain seem to back her up. There are, for example, said to be royal courts amongst the Dartmoor pixies, with all the pleasure and luxury that you might anticipate. This hierarchy of monarchs and subjects is allegedly reinforced by pixy law courts in which those who have offended faery morality will be punished by having to make ropes of sand—with which they’re then bound. In Wales it’s believed that the tylwyth teg live in communities under the rule of King Gwyn ap Nudd. There may be variation from region to region: the Highland Scottish Faes have an aristocracy and chiefs but no queen (rather like the local clans) whilst witnesses from the Scottish Lowlands and the North East coast mention meeting “the Queen of Elfame.” 154
All the same, the idea of faery royalty may be very much a projection of medieval structures by medieval writers. The idea is seen in the knightly romances of Chaucer and others and, two centuries later, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Herrick cemented the institution in our culture. Many of these writers wrote for an aristocratic audience and showed them the world they knew. Nevertheless, when we think of faeries now, we still unconsciously and automatically conjure images of Arthurian knights and ladies and all the structures of precedence and privilege that go with them. This is convention, but is it any more than that?
Our inclination to see our Good Neighbours as being organised in some parallel political structure is deep-rooted. Habitually, we speak of “kingdoms,” “reigns,” and “realms,” but outside the literature, what’s the actual evidence? 155
Faery Reign
We are very used to thinking of Queen Mab and of Oberon and Titania, but what need do the Faes really have of rulers? In the Middle Ages, monarchs were required to perform several purposes within their simpler states. Their primary function, initially at least, was to lead the people in armed conflict and, as I will discuss shortly, although war amongst the faeries may jar with our conventional views of them, the possibility of it is mentioned in quite a few sources and might therefore justify some sort of war chief.
Monarchs also served to dispense justice. We humans are aware of no codified laws as such in Faery, although there are clearly codes of behaviour that they impose (upon humans at least), the infringement of which (by humans) is subject to sanction. Parallel with this distinct morality, there is a prevailing atmosphere of unrestrained impulsiveness in Faery.
Kings and queens served to organise medieval states, but it’s hard to tell what, if any, structure there is within faery society. If we regard them as nature spirits, then they are all at the level of worker bees, it would appear. A few writers have proposed hierarchies, but these normally seem to involve different forms of supernatural beings rather than different ranks.156
Lastly, monarchs had a role as some sort of religious leader or high priest(ess). I’ll explore later the puzzling matter of faery religion but, whilst it’s an area of considerable uncertainty, there’s scant evidence for holy faery queens. None of the recognised regal functions seem especially essential to Faery as we generally conceive it. The title of “queen” in truth seems redundant—or at best merely a convenient honorary title.
Secret Commonwealth
Recalling what was just said about the absence of monarchs amongst the sith of the Scottish Highlands, let’s consider the views of the Reverend Robert Kirk, who (despite being a church minister) was deeply versed in local faery belief and is said, ultimately, to have been taken by them.
Writing in the late 1680s, Kirk titled his justly famous book The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Faeries. A “commonwealth” can merely denote a nation state, but it can also more narrowly have the meaning of “republic.” Given that he cannot but have been aware of the English Parliamentary “Commonwealth” that succeeded the execution of Charles I in 1649, it’s inescapable that this was the connotation intended by Kirk when he chose to describe his subject matter. That conclusion seems undeniable when we read at the head of chapter 7 of the book that “They are said to have aristocraticall Rulers and Laws, but no discernible Religion, Love or Devotion toward God … they disappear whenever they hear his Name invocked …”
For present purposes, we’ll merely note Kirk’s belief in the Faes’ aversion to church and religion, and focus instead on his conviction that they inhabit some sort of democracy regulated by rules of conduct of some description. Kirk was very familiar with (and shared) the beliefs of his parishioners, so it is telling that he chose to ascribe some sort of republican structure to their society.
Rank or Honour?
Perhaps those termed king and queen in Faery are simply those of the most distinguished character or the greatest magical power. Certainly, as far as we can judge from the experience of actual human encounters with faeries, there is little indication of any rigid hierarchy or organisation within their society. Individual faeries seem to operate quite independently of their community, doing what they please without any reference to higher authority. There may be some differentiation in status, because we do have stories of humble labouring faeries in the fields as well as meetings with “fine gentlemen” (although some of this finery may be nothing more than a projection of glamour), but there’s no real sign of a true monarchy.
Some of those accused of witchcraft in Scotland in the 1500s and 1600s claimed to have had contact with a faery king or queen (some even claimed sexual relations with the royalty). For reasons I’ll explain in detail later, I hesitate to rely too much on these stories, but even so there’s a curious lack of ceremony and aloofness on the part of these monarchs. Several quite ordinary humans are admitted into the royal presence and are given gifts, one getting a supply of a healing white powder, it is true, but another received a plain domestic quern for grinding salt. Andro Man of Aberdeen first met the faery queen as a boy when she attended his mother as a midwife; Bessie Dunlop was also visited in person by the faery queen, whom she described as a stout woman in simple clothes who walked in, sat down on a bench, and asked for a drink of beer. These are royals who earn their own keep, run their own errands and are not averse to intimacy with perfectly ordinary humans. At the very least, we have to say that what counts as royalty in Faery is very different in status to the same position in human society. As in everything connected with our relationship to the Good Folk, then, we should be cautious to apply our conventions and assumptions too readily to their ways of doing things.
In summary, the main influence shaping our conceptions of Faery as a stratified and monarchical society, with a royal family, a court, nobility and attendants, seems to be our own way of organising things, specifically European society during the medieval period, channelled through the literature of that time. The vast body of folklore accounts of faery encounters instead suggests a much more equal and free society where each member is at liberty to behave as he or she wishes.
Faery Crafts and Industry
It’s been said of the faeries that they are “very ingenious people … very clever, with very skilled artisans.” They are gifted in many crafts and, despite some stories to the contrary, highly resourceful and self-reliant.157
Faery Workmen
The first observation that must be made is upon the contrast between these craft skills and the usual impression we get that faeries’ only interest is having a good time. Sightings of faeries (other than the domestic hobs and brownies) engaged in manual labour are certainly rare in the older records. An isolated example comes from West Yorkshire in about 1850. A man called Henry Roundell of Washburn Dale near Harrogate got up early to hoe his turnips. When he reached the field, he was astonished to discover every row was being hoed by a host of tiny men in green, all of them singing in shrill cracked voices “like a lot of field crickets.” As soon as he tried to climb over the stile into the field, they fled like flocks of partridges.158
In more recent sightings from the last seventy-five years or so, instances of working faeries have become far more common. Experiences reported in Seeing Fairies and in the Fairy Census indicate that faeries are likely to be seen involved in three main activities. Most often they will be gardening or cultivating, as in the Washburn example, and they’ve also been sighted digging, with a rake, tidying up leaves and twigs, or with a wheelbarrow. In addition, the faeries may from time to time be seen seemingly involved in some sort of construction work (for example, carrying a ladder) or simply in transporting burdens, whether in a handcart, in a sack, or in buckets suspended from a yoke.
Faery Architecture
It may seem to run counter to our intuition to think of faeries building physical structures. Most descriptions of faery dwellings imply that they were natural features like caves and hills. This is perfectly correct, but our predecessors readily assumed and accepted that a great deal more could be achieved by their supernatural neighbours. They were known to live in natural features, but they could—if they wished—construct stone towers with their doors, windows, and chimneys skilfully concealed. Indeed, faerykind seem to excel at constructing grand accommodation for themselves—they’ve been called “unrivalled architects” whose buildings stand forever.159
This appreciation of faery skills dates back a long way. In the poem “Thomas of Erceldoune,” Thomas enters faeryland and sees a “faire castell” next to a town and tower; “In erthe es none lyke it.” In the twelfth-century story of King Herla the faery king occupies a “splendid mansion.” These tales convey some general impression of what the faeries could build, but the poem “Sir Orfeo” provides much more detail of a faery castle circled with crystal walls, buttressed with gold, and with chambers and halls of jewels and gems.
These beliefs in a parallel subterranean world of splendid palaces and fortifications persisted into the nineteenth century. Thomas Keightley recalled a conversation with a young woman in Norfolk who told him that the faeries were a people dressed in white who lived underground where they built houses, bridges, and other edifices.
These faeries were building for themselves in their own realms, but they would interact with humans in construction projects too. There seem to be three different situations in which faeries have got involved in building structures in the human world. First, this has occurred under duress. There are several instances where faeries have been compelled, against their will, to carry out tasks for a human. This might happen as the terms of a ransom for a fellow faery or because a human has gained some magical control over the Faes. For example, in Scotland a faery queen banished some troublesome elves from Cnoc-n’an-Bocan (Bogle-knowe, or Hobgoblin-hill, near to Menteith) into a spell book, The Red Book of Menteith. The condition was that they would only be released when the laird of Menteith opened the volume. Eventually, this happened by mistake and instantly, faeries appeared before him demanding work. Not knowing what work to set them to, his lordship hit upon the plan of making a road onto the island where his castle stood. They began the task energetically, but the Earl quickly realised that, if they continued, his hitherto impregnable retreat would be made vulnerable, so instead he asked them to make for him a rope of sand. They began this latter task without finishing the former, and finding their new work too much for them, they resolved to abandon it and departed, to the relief of the Earl.
Secondly, a large number of Scottish sites are said to have been built voluntarily by faeries. One, the Drochtna Vougha (faery bridge) in Sutherland, was for their own convenience to shorten the journey time around Dornoch Firth; however, it benefited human traffic too and, when one traveller blessed the builders, the bridge sank beneath the waves. Many famous Scottish sites—castles, palaces, bridges, and towers—are alleged to have been built by faeries, sometimes in the space of a single night, and sometimes by such laborious means as passing the stones from person to person over a great distance. All this effort to create edifices only used by humans might seem puzzling, but we are told that the church of St. Mary’s at Dundee was built for gold, so the Good Neighbours’ motivation in these labours might actually be very familiar indeed.
Lastly, there are numerous sites where the faeries did not build, as such, but objected to the site chosen by the human builders and overnight moved the assembled masonry blocks elsewhere using supernatural means. This would be done repeatedly until the humans accepted the inevitable and started construction on the new site. These stories mainly relate to churches, but they’re found right across Britain. It isn’t just religious buildings that have been moved: in Herefordshire the materials for Garnstone Manor were repeatedly transported up a hill from the original site until the human builders submitted to the faeries’ will.
Usually the faeries got their way—but not always. At Stowe Nine Churches in Northamptonshire a monk stayed up all night to catch the faeries interfering with the new foundations. As soon as his suspicions were confirmed, he prayed in order to drive them off forever. A similar story, with a sting in the tale, comes from Tingwall on Shetland. Stones from an ancient broch were taken to build a new church, but nightly the work was undone by the trows, presumably because they objected to the dismantling of the ancient structure. This problem was overcome by the priest consecrating the chosen site, which drove the trows away to the nearby island of Papa Stour, after which the building was successfully completed. However, the trows had the last laugh: the priest found himself struck dumb whenever he stepped into his new church.160
There are several comments to make on these records. First, it’s notable how most are Scottish or come from the North of England. It seems that the more northerly faeries are the skilled stonemasons, though why this should be we simply can’t speculate. Secondly, whilst we can understand why they should wish to build for themselves or hinder building at places to which they had some special attachment, their willingness to work for humans (even for gold) is less comprehensible, especially as that included buildings for religious purposes—something to which they normally violently objected.
What’s more, much of the impressive architecture reported by humans during visits to faeryland could have been simply “glamour”—with no physical reality. We are familiar with stories of midwives taken to assist faery women in labour who believe that they are in fine houses until they accidentally touch their eyelids with ointment intended for the faery newborn and see that, in reality, they are in a ruined building or a cave. Given their magical powers, indeed, one wonders why the Good Folk would bother at all with the labour of actually piling stone on stone when it could (presumably) all be achieved by the wave of a hand (or wand).
Faery Spinning
Whilst the Good Folk are said to indulge in several manufacturing enterprises, there is one craft activity that seems to be particularly associated with them: the making of thread and the weaving of garments.
The Reverend Kirk has this to say of the sith folk’s skill:
Ther Women are said to Spine very fine, to Dy, to Tossue, and Embroyder: but whither it is as manuall Operation of substantiall refined Stuffs, with apt and solid Instruments, or only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows, and a fantastic Imitation of the Actions of more terrestricall Mortalls, since it transcended all the Senses of the Seere to discerne whither, I leave to conjecture as I found it.161
Quite a few other sources confirm the connection. Brownies performing household tasks will often undertake stages of the cloth making process, for instance dressing hemp (though at the same time their aversion to gifts of linen garments is to be recalled), carding wool, and spinning tow (coarse hemp fibres used for ropes and the like). Cloth working is just one of the faery abilities that can be bestowed upon favoured mortals. In one Highland case, a man who entered the faery knoll at Barcaldine came away with not only great skill on the bagpipes but a magic shuttle that helped him to weave three times as much cloth as anyone else.162
Logically, of course, faeries have to be able to manufacture cloth and garments for themselves. Their royal courts and nobility are marked for their splendid robes, and other costumes of green are central to many accounts. It is only really the dobbies who are habitually naked or dressed in rags. The northern faeries are said to spin with mountain flax, while the pixies of Cornwall use cotton-rush. Typical activities within the faery hills of Scotland include spinning and weaving. For example, there is an account from Skye of faeries heard “waulking” (that is, fulling) some cloth and singing as they did so. At Green Hollow in Argyllshire there was reputed to be a cloth-dyeing factory operated by the faeries of Lennox. When humans tried to steal the secrets of their natural plant dyes, it’s said that the cloth workers concealed all their materials and fled. Those hidden dye-stuffs continue to stain the waters of a local pool.163
The Loireag is a Highland faery specifically responsible for overseeing the making of cloth through all its stages, from loom to fulling. She was a stickler for the traditional methods and standards, apparently, and offerings of milk were made by home producers to propitiate her. Another Scottish spirit, the Gyre-Carlin, had comparable links to cloth-making. It was said that, if unspun flax was not removed from the distaff at the end of the year, she would steal it all. Conversely, if asked by a woman for the endowment of skill in spinning, she would enable the recipient to do three to four times as much work as other spinners.
Thread and cloth making are not only marvellous, but according to faery tales, the process may also be perilous. On the one hand, faeries may enter your home to carry out these tasks. In Scotland it was believed to be the solitary female creatures—the glaistig and the Gyre-Carlin—who would most commonly enter human homes to spin, causing considerable disturbance and noise through the night. Such intrusions were not just a nuisance and a trespass—they risked too close a contact with these unpredictable beings, and measures had to be taken to prevent it. Several Manx tales warn how a failure to disengage the drive band on a spinning wheel before retiring to bed enables the faeries to come into a house overnight to use it for their own purposes. By inviting them in, albeit indirectly, you are potentially placing yourself in the power of the “Li’l fellas.” In the Scottish Highlands, this precaution was Christianised and it was said that the band should be disengaged on a Saturday night to prevent faery spinning early on a Sunday (Sabbath) morning.
The dangers associated with spinning can be greater still, though. A number of faery stories pair the faeries’ spinning skills with a task imposed upon a human that can be both impossible and fatal if it’s not completed. In many of the stories it’s a cruel human who sets the hopeless task and a faery who assists with it. An example is the story of Habetrot, in which a girl must prove her female skill at the spinning wheel or face some unspecified punishment by her mother. A faery woman named Habetrot (who’s been called the patron spirit of spinning) appears and assists the daughter, along with a team of helpers including Scantlie Mab.
Unfortunately, this faery assistance isn’t always free and disinterested. In the tale of Tom-Tit-Tot, a girl has to spin a large quantity of yarn overnight or face beheading by the king. The imp Tom-Tit-Tot helps her on condition that she will belong to him—unless she can accomplish another impossible-sounding task and guess his name. Fortunately, she overhears it and is saved. Sili-go-Dwt, Trwtyn-Tratyn, Terry-Top, Perrifool, and Whuppity-Stoorie are all similar British folktales in which an elf helps with spinning and demands a forfeit unless its name is guessed. Many readers will spot the similarity of these stories to the Brothers Grimm’s comparable tale of Rumpelstiltskin.164
Occasionally it’s a faery who imposes the impossible spinning task. In one Scottish example a girl is abducted by the sith folk under a hillock and is told that she will be held there until she has spun all the wool in a large sack and eaten all the meal in a huge chest. Despite her diligent efforts, neither diminish and she faces eternal confinement and labour until another captive soul tells her to rub spit on her left eyelid every morning. By so doing, she makes daily inroads into the wool and meal and finally escapes.
The heroine isn’t always saved and isn’t always successful, though. In the case of Welsh girl Eilian, she was obliged to become the wife of a faery man and live in Faery forever after she failed to finish the large quantity of wool that he’d demanded she spin.165 In the Scottish ballad “The Elfin Knight,” a human maid is told that the only way she has any hope of marrying the faery knight is to make a shirt without cut or hem, shaping it without shears and sewing it without needle and thread. This impossible task is combined with a comparable demand to sow and harvest a field subject to unachievable conditions. Needless to say, the shirt is never made and the girl doesn’t get the boy.
The stories listed above link several significant themes. One is the power of knowing a faery being’s personal name. If you possess that, you can overcome and escape the creature; if not, you face perpetual subjection. Intertwined with this is the obligation to perform an almost unattainable feat on pain of death (or, again, of faery enslavement). Most importantly, the tales stress the Good Folk’s superior skills. Characters are reliant upon their abilities, which border on the magical, and without which there may be fatal consequences. The spinning stories also strongly emphasise a dependent relationship between the faeries and humans. Perhaps too there is some notion of exacting a high fee for the teaching of the faeries’ remarkable craft knowledge.166
Other Faery Crafts and Occupations
Over and above their renown as builders and spinners, the faeries are expert weavers, tailors, and shoemakers. The trows of Shetland are renowned for their skills working brass, iron, and other metals whilst the Manx faeries excel at the many crafts associated with fishing, such as boat-building, mending nets, and making barrels to keep herring in. The Fae are also known to mine coal and metal ores: best known amongst these are the “knockers” who are a specific tin mine faery of the South West of England.167
These sprites, also known as “nuggies,” are frequently heard but very seldom seen, although from time to time they leave their tiny tools behind as physical evidence of their labours. They have been described as “withered, dried up creatures” the size of a one- or two-year-old child, with large heads and ugly old men’s faces. They never worked in the mines on Saturdays or Christian holidays and, in respect for this, the miners avoided the workings on the same days.
The knockers will guide favoured miners to good seams or lodes by various means—through their tapping underground or by dancing in rings—and digging on the spot indicated will strike rich ore. Digging wherever a will-o’-the-wisp is seen is also reputed to lead you to a profitable lode and it’s said to be good luck to see the pixies dancing in the adit of a mine. As well as pointing the way to mineral riches, the knockers will warn of impending disaster underground.
As with all supernatural helpers, they are averse to humans being too inquisitive. Although the sounds of their work indicate how and where to dig, if miners stop their work to listen to the knockers, they will also cease their labours. As with many faery types, those who offend them will be punished and those who betray the source of their good fortune will lose it.168
Faery Religion and Ethics
So far, we’ve discussed the material manifestations of faery culture, but we should also ask, “what do faeries believe in?” This may seem like a nonsensical question for at least two reasons: first, because some say that the faeries themselves are Pagan divinities and, secondly, because the faery code of morality is so distinctive and so deliberately selfish. Faeries are not concerned with good works; they are concerned with furthering their own interests and so seem outside the rules of religion and ethics as we understand them.169
Christianity
Throughout church history, for much of the last thousand years, the strict Christian view has been that faeries are devils or are, at best, a delusion sent by the devil to mislead us. The priests and monks disapproved of faery tales and preached against them consistently, but that couldn’t stop people wanting to hear these stories or believing in their subjects. To deflect ecclesiastical criticism, a lot of storytellers made their faeries into just another god-fearing creation of the Christian deity. This is revealed, in passing, in many of the earlier romances: for example, the faery monarch in King Herla’s tale exclaims “God be my witness”; the Green Children of Woolpit come from a place called St. Martin’s Land and profess themselves to be good Christians.
The belief that faeries have a place in a divine hierarchy, perhaps a few rungs down the spiritual ladder from angels, has probably strengthened again in the last hundred years. As recently as the mid-twentieth century, for example, a pilgrim to the Scottish island of Iona encountered a troop of faeries whom she believed tried to communicate their beliefs by showing her a cross made of twigs and bark. This might be so, although it might also be suggested that it was a demonstration that they understood what had brought her to the holy island.170
Faery Salvation
The condemnation of faery belief probably only intensified after the Reformation. Protestants were quick to suggest (quite unfairly) that the faery faith was all part of the general ignorance promoted by the Catholic Church. Puritan preachers emphasised how much people endangered their souls by being tolerant of faery stories—it allowed Satan to get near them. For English proselytiser Thomas Jackson, there was no question of distinguishing between the good and bad faeries because “it is but one and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both.” These attitudes have left their mark: one common explanation of the taking of children as changelings is that the faeries have to pay a tithe to the devil every seven years and, understandably, they prefer to do so with a human life instead of one of their own kind.171
Despite all this, ordinary people continued to believe—as did some church men, for that matter. Scottish minister Robert Kirk was convinced of the reality of elves and faeries and even felt that they were less sinful than men: “[they] 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.” 172
The Reverend Kirk believed that, whilst they appeared to have no religion and would disappear at the mention of a holy name, the faeries could behave ethically and had the same prospect of judgement and salvation as any Christian man or woman. In fact, a number of related theories emerged as to the place of the faeries in the Christian universe. One name for the faeries was “the Hidden Folk,” the origin of this name being explained in a story from Carmarthenshire told early last century:
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 faeries and had disappeared.173
Another widespread belief was that the faeries were fallen angels who had followed Satan in his rebellion but who had not yet reached hell when God commanded that the gates of heaven and hell be closed. They were left stranded in between and hid in holes in the earth. They will finally be released from this intermediate status on the day of judgement.174
Lastly, across Britain and Europe there are consistent accounts of incidents in which anxious faeries approach humans begging for reassurance that they too will be saved. Normally, the answer is no, to the faeries’ great dismay. In line with these stories, in his poem “Friday,” Sir Walter Scott imagined the faeries sitting at home on this day, “weeping alone for their helpless lot.” 175
Hell’s Bells
Our faery lore has been left in a confused state by all this controversy and the exact creed of the Good Folk remains unsettled. Some people connect them with angels and imbue them with some sort of divine purpose; others see them as quite free of human morality and full of antipathy to the Christian faith.
In line with the latter view are the stories describing the faeries’ strong aversion to bells and churches, which are common across Britain from the Shetland Isles to the south coast. For example, at Portland, Cadbury, and Withycombe in Dorset the church bells drove off the local pixies. This antipathy seems to be the main reason for faeries interfering in church building efforts. At Brinkburn Priory in Northumberland the churchyard is said to contain the graves of the local faeries, who were all killed by the ringing of the priory bells. Conversely, when the church bell fell at Hownam in Roxburghshire, the local faeries who had been driven away by its sound gathered there again to rejoice.176
One definite effect of Christian disapproval was to create the widespread popular belief that faeries are repelled by anything Christian. Possession of a copy of the Bible or some pages from it alone will be efficacious, as will saying grace, making the sign of the cross, and a number of other actions. For example, from the Scottish Highlands comes the story of a man invited to a faery wedding feast. The bridegroom sneezed and the guest instinctively said “bless you.” This dismayed the faeries the first two times it happened, but on the third the behaviour had become so intolerable that the guest was expelled bodily from the celebrations. On Shetland it’s said that the trows’ power of invisibility is instantly dispelled by a pious word and that the presence of a preacher in the vicinity will drive them away. This is the aspect of faery nature that’s widely recalled today and, as we’ll see later, blessings and other sacred words are repeatedly endorsed as insurmountable protections against faery malice.177
Pagan Pixies
There has been much discussion over whether faeries are Catholic or Protestant and over the question of whether they are pure or are evil incarnate—demons and servants of Satan. It seems that on the question of faery religion, much as with faery rulers, we humans have imposed our own preconceptions on a society very different from our own.
In any case, there is a hint of another view, one that may appeal more to many contemporary readers. In William Bottrell’s story “The House on Selena Moor,” faery 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 Fae 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.
Faery Violence
It has become a widespread belief nowadays that faeries are wholly benevolent and peaceable beings, to whom violence and antagonism toward humankind is anathema. This view of the supernatural realm would surprise our predecessors, who had a very different and more complex view of Faery. Older folklore portrays an otherworld very similar to our own, with its own internal conflicts and with a range of responses to humankind, from friendly to hostile. It’s important to appreciate this more perilous reality and to act with due care and caution.
Faery Warfare
It seemed entirely reasonable to earlier generations that the faeries could disagree profoundly and might engage in armed conflict amongst themselves. The Reverend Kirk said that “These Subterraneans have Controversies, Doubts, Disputes, Feuds and Sidings of Parties … they transgress and commit Acts of Injustice and Sin.” As a result, they have “many disastrous Doings of their own, as … Fighting, Gashes, Wounds and Burialls …” 178
There are numerous Scottish accounts in evidence of these conflicts. In the Hebrides it was believed that the faery hosts always fought at Halloween, proof of which was a red liquid produced by lichens after frost which was believed to be the blood of the faery fallen. On the shores of the islands people find a substance called elf-blood (fuilsiochaire) which is like a dark red stone and is full of holes. These so-called bloodstones are connected to the red skies of the aurora borealis, which themselves are termed the “pool of blood” and are a sign of faery fighting above. The trows of Orkney were sometimes seen fighting together whilst from Speyside comes the legend of a pitched battle between the armies of the White and Black Faeries.179
Similar stories are told elsewhere in Britain too, such as a Glamorganshire tradition of a faery battle fought in the air between Aberdare and Merthyr. A Cornish woman called Emlyn Moyle was pixy-led in the fog on Goss Moor. She found herself near to the ancient hillfort, Castle an Dinas, and saw a pixie battle being fought on the ramparts. When the fog cleared, though, there was no trace of any fighting there. It’s also been said that the pixies only gained control of Devonshire and Dartmoor after a protracted war with the elves.180
Faeries might fight amongst themselves for possession of territory or as part of a struggle between “good” and “evil” forces. In this, they’re depressingly like us. Whilst we may reluctantly accept this frailty, it’s more troubling to discover that they may also turn their hostility against their human neighbours.
Faery Violence Toward Humans
Faeries impose a strict code of morals and conduct upon humans and they don’t hesitate to enforce this by violent means. There seems to be little compunction over battering and injuring those amongst us of whom they disapprove. Offending individuals can certainly expect to be pinched mercilessly; they might also be jostled, assaulted, lamed, and (for the offence of seeing through the faery glamour) blinded.
The faery code is applied especially severely to those who are faeries’ lovers and they can expect to be treated harshly for any perceived slights. Slaps and thrashings are common, often made worse by the fact that the man can never escape his faery lover. She’s as relentless in punishing a faithless partner as she is in winning him in the first place. There are several such Scottish tales in which a man is compelled against his will to meet a faery woman, but is then apparently beaten for doing so. The battery appears to be either a means of ensuring his obedience by instilling fear—and a hint that the faery lover does not wholly trust her charms—or else it’s a punishment for his temerity. Either way it suggests that faeries can be vindictive and contemptuous, even toward those they favour in some way.
Faery lovers can be tempestuous, but there are some spirits whose primary purpose seems to have been to scare and control. These beings haunted dangerous locations such as ponds or riverbanks, and children were warned of them and told to keep away. Jenny Greenteeth and Peg Powler weren’t just names, nor would they merely give an errant child a fright: they would drag the disobedient infant beneath the water and drown them, using violence to warn other children.
Wholly unprovoked violence is also possible—some supernaturals are malicious by nature and human encounters with them will almost invariably prove fatal. These beasts include the Highland water horses: the each uisge or aughisky, the kelpie, and the shoopiltree of Shetland, all of which would lure people into mounting them and would then career at speed into a river or lake or into the sea, where the humans would be drowned and/or devoured. There were other non-equine but equally maleficent and dangerous water spirits in Scotland, such as the fideal, the fuath, the peallaidh, the muilearteach, and the cearb (the killer). In Wales the llamhigyn y dwr (the water leaper) and the afanc were known. All of these made a habit of tearing their unfortunate victims to pieces beneath the waves.
Elf Shot
The weapon by which faery injuries have most commonly been inflicted is the elf shot, or bolt, or arrow. These implements look very like prehistoric flint arrowheads: they have been described as heart-shaped and saw-edged, made from a hard yellow substance similar to flint. One legend states that the faeries obtained them from the elves, who got them in turn from the mermaids. These arrows are never found with long shanks, apparently, because the faeries break them off so as to prevent us humans firing them back at them.181
The faeries kill both men and cattle with these weapons. Whilst injury to cows may be part of their attempt to steal them away, attacks on people are motivated by pure malice. It’s said that the faeries shoot with such precision that they seldom miss and the resultant wound is always fatal. The arrows strike with such force that they pierce straight to the heart.182
A sure symptom of a cow’s injury by elf shot was said to be the impossibility of getting its milk to churn into butter. In the days before farmers had access veterinary specialists, when cattle fell ill they sought out those endowed with special faery knowledge to diagnose whether elf shot was to blame and to recommend how best to treat it. On Shetland one traditional treatment involved rubbing the cow from head to tail and around the belly with a cat and then having it swallow three live crabs; another involved feeding the cow soot and salt mixed and then burning gunpowder beneath the poor beast. Cattle might also be cured by tying a needle, folded inside a page from the psalm book, to their hair; by giving them water to drink in which an elf bolt had been dipped; or by simply touching them with another elf shot. These treatments were all thought both to heal the afflictions and also to protect against any future assaults. Furthermore, it’s notable how the efficacy of the elf shot is so easily transferred into water or by contact; we’ll see later how other faery magical powers can also be passed on in the same ways.183
Over and above their use in treating sick livestock, elf arrows are often kept as family heirlooms and are worn on cords round a person’s neck as an ornament. They’re said to bring a family general good luck. They protect the wearer from attack with bolts, they can act as love charms, and they will cure sore eyes. Giving away the bolt is unwise, however; the generous donor may subsequently find themselves abducted by the Fae.184
Faery Cruelty
Although the Good Folk are ready to torment and injure humans—and certain animals belonging to us—this doesn’t appear to extend into a general cruelty toward living things. Cows are probably only victims because the faeries want to steal them for their milk and do it under the guise of their illness and death. Wild animals, in contrast, have much less economic value to either faeries or humans and are left alone.
There was a trend in Victorian faery painting to depict faeries as wantonly cruel to wildlife—most famously by artist John Anster Fitzgerald in his series of pictures of faeries tormenting and killing a robin (although he also painted scenes of faery communion with wildlife). There is no traditional support for these images. In contrast, for many contemporary faery writers and enthusiasts, faeries have become the archetype of eco-awareness and, as such, the concept of abuse of wild animals seems anathema. This appears indeed to be the more traditional view.
As early as the popular seventeenth century song “The Pranks of Puck,” faery protection of hunted beasts is a theme. In the ballad Puck hides himself in snares and traps left by men and scares off the hunters when they return to collect their catch. Very much more recently, the same kind of behaviour is ascribed to the Somerset pixies. In one story told to folklorist Jon Dathen, the pixies give shelter inside a tree to an exhausted fox pursued by the horses and hounds of the local hunt.185
Elsewhere in Dathen’s book he is told (by two separate interviewees) that “if there’s one thing the pixies despise, it’s cruelty to animals.” If they become aware of mistreatment or neglect of wild or domesticated beasts, the guilty person will be punished by the pixies, generally by the time-honoured means of vicious pinching. The pixies are described as being especially close to certain animals, including horses and robins. In Seeing Fairies, Marjorie Johnson’s collection of modern accounts of faery sightings, there’s a mention of the faeries taking care of wildlife in heavy snowfall on moorland.186
The Good Folk are not seen traditionally as gratuitously cruel. They injure those who offend them, but not defenceless beasts. Although more modern representations of faeries as harmless, winged, and tiny have undoubtedly compounded the perception, the concept of faeries as being in harmony with nature and protecting their surroundings seems to have deep roots.
Violence as a Way of Life?
Wildlife aside, a broader perspective on faery conduct confirms the impression of Faery as a fractious, rough, and sometimes vicious society. Many aspects of their culture depend upon violence to some degree or another: human children and wives might be taken by force to supplement the faery race; a significant portion of the food and drink consumed in Faery is stolen, usually by stealth but sometimes coercively; and, thirdly, it seems fairly clear that the faery idea of fun often involves tormenting people or their livestock—for example, the habit of “riding” horses at night, a practice which left them weak and distressed in the mornings.
As this catalogue shows, traditional folk belief was a great deal less confident in the good nature of faerykind than some contemporary commentators. A more honest view of their behaviour has to be nuanced: the faeries may not gratuitously injure or torture animals or people, but these scruples may be subordinated unhesitatingly to the faeries’ desire for amusement. The best counsel must therefore be to approach with care—or better still, to be on the safe side and to protect oneself with charms and to seek to avoid the “Good Neighbours” altogether. Faeries can be as variable, unpredictable, and potentially vicious as any imperfect human being.
I mentioned earlier the fear that some people have experienced when they meet faeries, as well as the animosity that is sometimes detected. In just a couple of cases recorded in the Fairy Census, this was taken further and there was actual violence reported against the witness. In one case this involved a terrifying attempt to abduct a woman; in another, the pursuit of a young girl by beings throwing sticks and rocks. Such cases are very rare, but we must acknowledge the fact of their existence.187
154. Daimler, Fairies, 61; Gwyndaf in Narvaez, Good People, 159; Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends, 87.
155. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part One c. 12 & Part Three c. 29; Scot Book II c. 1, s. 13.
156. See for example two interviews with “Irish seers” conducted by Evans-Wentz—one with George William Russell (AE) and a second with an unnamed Mrs. X. of County Dublin—The Fairy Faith, 60–66 and 242–3; see also C. Leadbetter, The Hidden Side of Things, 1913, 147.
157. Grant Stewart, Popular Superstitions, 73–74.
158. Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire, 60.
159. See too chapter 4 of my British Fairies; Grant Stewart, Popular Superstitions, 77.
160. See Hardwick, Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, 125; Marwick, The Folklore of Orkney, 37; Hill, Folklore of Northamptonshire, 105. The churches include Rochdale, Samlesbury, Winwick, Newchurch in Rossendale, and Burnley, all in Lancashire; Gadshill, Isle of Wight; Holme on the Wolds and Hinderwell in Lincolnshire; Walsall and Hanchurch in Staffordshire; Stowe near Daventry; Knowle and Warmington in Warwickshire; Churchdown, Cam, and Bisley in Gloucestershire; East Chelborough, Folke, and Holmest in Dorset; Matchy in Essex; at Ince and Stock in Cheshire; at Kirkheaton, Kirkburton, and Thornhill in West Yorkshire; and at Gletna Kirk on Shetland. See too Bowker’s story of The Spectral Cat.
161. Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, c. 5.
162. MacGregor, Peat Fire Flame, 2.
163. Addy, Household Tales, 135; Hawker, Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall; J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands, 15; Evans-Wentz, Fairy Faith, 98.
164. Addy, Household Tales.
165. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy Faith, 97; Rhys, Celtic Folklore, 212.
166. See too chapter 19 of my British Fairies.
167. Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends, 27; Fergusson, Rambling Sketches in the Far North and Orcadian Musings, 120; Morrison, Manx Fairy Tales.
168. Jones, Appearance, no. 64; Hewett, Nummits and Crummits, 50; A. Craig Gibson, “Ancient Customs and Superstitions of Cumberland,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. 10 (1858), 108; Deane & Shaw, Folklore of Cornwall, 69; Roberts, Folklore of Yorkshire, 102; Davies, Folklore of West and Mid-Wales, 136–137.
169. See chapters 2 and 18 of my British Fairies.
170. Bord, Fairies, 60.
171. Jackson, A Treatise Concerning the Original of Unbelief, 178.
172. Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, “Question 2.”
173. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy Faith, 153.
174. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy Faith, 85, 105, 109, 116, 129–30 & 205.
175. See Spence, British Fairy Origins,165; Bett, English Myths and Traditions, 10; Grant Stewart, Popular Superstitions 59–62; & the story of the “Minister and the Fairy” printed in Folk-lore and Legends: Scotland, 1898.
176. Fergusson, Rambling Sketches, 110; Bowker, Goblin Tales, Appendix 9; Denham Tracts, 134.
177. Browne, History of the Highlands, 110; Edmondston, A View of the Zetland Isles, 142; Marwick, The Folklore of Orkney, 37.
178. Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, chapter 11.
179. MacKenzie, Wonder Tales From Scottish Myths, 11; Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands.
180. Bruford in Narvaez, Good People, 131; Tregarthen, Pixie Folklore & Legends, 67–75; Bray, Peeps on Pixies, 12.
181. Grant Stewart, Popular Superstitions, 134; Henderson, Notes on the Folklore, 185; Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, 142.
182. Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends, 43.
183. Denham Tracts, 110; County Folklore vol. 3, 37–9; Spence, Shetland Folklore, 144; Marwick, The Folklore of Orkney, 43; Knox, Topography of the Basin of the Tay, 111.
184. Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, 142; Marwick, The Folklore of Orkney, 44.
185. Dathen, Somerset Fairies and Pixies, 22.
186. Dathen, Somerset Fairies and Pixies, 14, 72–74, 72–3 & 48; Johnson, Seeing Fairies, 135–136.
187. Census nos. 476 & 428.