Sidhe's Not All That

 Something that seems to be an increasing trend is to label everything Other as 'sidhe' whether or not it is or even whether it makes sense to call it that. Which is, quite frankly, very odd given that the English language has at least two generic terms - elf and fairy - for Other beings that have been in use for over 1000 years and 700 years respectively. So stealing borrowing one from the Irish language is unnecessary, yet here we are. Perhaps its because English speakers have chosen to radically minimize and disempower the words elf and fairy, reducing the beings associated with them into cookie bakers/shoe makers or twee little pre-pubescent children with gauzy wings and glittery wands. Perhaps because it all just seems so much more magical if the term isn't in English. 

Sidhe - properly Aos Sidhe or Daoine Sidhe [people of the Otherworldly Hills] - is not just an Irish language substitute for the English word fairy, a convenient shortcut away from the twee-ified English terms. And I mean that literally, because the Irish word* for fairy is sióg. But that isn't what people want. They want the mystery and the power of sidhe, the implication of something godlike. 
Which is, of course, exactly what elf and fairy originally implied. But why do the work to redefine one's own terms when one can just take someone else's and make them mean whatever you want? The blunt answer is laziness. Its hard and slow (not in the fun way) to reshape a term - the witches who have worked to redefine the word witch in western civ cultures across the last 70 years can tell you all about that - and its easy to grab a new, foreign term instead. 

Of course we have our theories as to why people are glomming on to sidhe, but no one is going to want to hear them. Because they involve nasty words like colonialism, and appropriation, and exotification. They're rooted in the same poisoned soil that made Irish folklore so very popular during the Victorian era. When your own folk beliefs and terms have become children's nursery themes then your eyes naturally drift to your neighbours who you see as less sophisticated and more in touch with (uncivilized) spirits. Much noble savage. So magical.
Who doesn't love a little primitivism, right? Especially with added magic sparkle. 

Here's a novel idea - instead of taking another culture's term from another language and rewriting it for your own purposes, why not just rehab the terms you already have? They meant power and danger once, they can mean those things again. All it takes is people embracing the language they have to work with. How do you think they went from meaning 'powerful potentially helpful or dangerous spirits' to 'cute and probably needs human help' in the first place? People re-wrote the stories, re-wrote the meanings, and the associations with the terms changed. Change them back. Its possible and honestly its important. Reclaim the terms and reverse that diminishment. Empower instead of disempower. Give elves back their numinousness, give fairies back their danger. 
Reject the Victorian propaganda that made these beings helpless - because they never actually became helpless, they were just unmoored from the language, lost to popular culture's consciousness. 

Sidhe are very specific beings.  They are rooted in a specific cultural belief. They have their own forms and ways and magics. Their own preferences and powers. Not every non-ordinary thing is of the sidhe. And, if we may be so bold, if it isn't at least a little bit dangerous, at least a little but frightening - doesn't bring a feeling of awe - then it isn't of the sidhe. Even in ordinary guises they are unnerving. 

Honestly elves and fairies should be as well, because most of what gets labelled as an elf or a fairy also isn't, or isn't exactly, in the way they would have been understood before. As the terms were watered down and broadened they took in a range of other - or Other - beings who weren't deity adjacent, weren't subtly terrifying. And that's alright, better too broad than too narrow. Call it an elf or fairy if you must, because those have been generic terms for a very long time but before you jump to label the random, helpful, wants-to-be-your-new-bff-ascended-guide spirit you just met 'sidhe' maybe take a minute to find out if it actually is one of na Daoine Sidhe. And no, the spirit being okay with you calling it that doesn't mean that's what it is. It could let you call it Bob and that doesn't mean its name is really Bob. 

And yes, its a sad day when there's an argument to use these words which have for centuries been avoided in favour of euphemisms. Words which the Good Folk don't enjoy hearing, which offend them - but what offends worse is being labelled as the wrong being entirely. Truth, in the end, is better than homogenization. And so, as I said at the start, here we are. 

*Obviously there is no Irish word for this, but this is the word usually used in translation, representing roughly analogous concepts. emphasis on roughly.  

The Power of the Stories We Tell

So, let's jump right in shall we?
There's a lot of misery percolating in Western Europe and the US right now, driven by some ugly cultural forces. And, to be blunt, some humans who are fighting against totalitarianism, fascism, and Christian dominionism are doing themselves no favours.  Let me explain. 

Stories have power, sometimes enough power to create. There are beings that have been born from stories, told over and over and believed in. Beings who exist today as individual sentient creatures but started out as a whisper of an idea. 

Let's take the example of Christian dominionism. One one hand you have these groups fervently praying and throwing energy into their ideas of their flavour of religion dominating everything. They create a strong sense of us and them, and literally demonize what exists outside their 'us'. They pour energy into their narrative, their story; they create a spirit that is the culmination of that energy. And they feed that spirit with every prayer, every strong emotion, tied to the symbols they use. 

In modern parlance you might call this spirit an egregore - a group thought form that takes on a life of its own. An Evangelical egregore with millions of humans feeding and empowering it, intent on their goals of placing themselves as rulers over everyone else, in deed if not in name. A spirit that is full of the hate and ill will which created it and just as zealous in its intentions. Something that can and does affect the human world. 
Its has a lot of energy to play around with after all. 
And we are seeing the effects of it now, eating through different cultures and bringing with it misery for everyone who isn't aligned with it.

So why is this being discussed here, when its the antithesis of this blog? Because humans have forgotten this power, and those who would fight against this spirit - or who are actively trying to - are unintentionally feeding it more energy by using the same symbols that the egregore uses. Imagery from a popular book and television show that was meant as a warning but acts as a roadmap to this energy. Imagery of the world these humans want to build. The fear and anger and anxiety that these things cause feed that egregore just as effectively as the prayers of those who want to fashion the world that way. 

Don't feed your enemy and expect them not to make use of what you give. 

This impacts the world of the Unseelie too - once depicted as dangerous, spoken of in whispers, appeased with euphemisms, feared and fearsome, the Folk of the Unseelie court are increasingly reduced to powerless things, or worse beings that need human help, human affection. A popular witchcraft book suggest making friends with the Unseelie and suggests the worst of the Court is just tired of human overreach. As if humans haven't been on the menu for millennia. Endless novels paint the Unseelie as misunderstood and easily swayed by just the right human with the right offer of love and acceptance.
 Did you ever wonder why the Unseelie are shown as dangerous? Beyond the fact that there's real danger lurking in the lonely, shadowed places? Fear is power. Fear feeds the monsters that lurk just beyond the waking edge of your nightmares. Taking that fear away weakens that which relies on it, erodes their power in the human world. Yes it can also have its advantages by making it easier to lure in the unwary but the damage of those stories changing and becoming gentler and kinder outweighs that advantage. 

Humans today are feeding the wrong monsters.
Starve the evangelical egregore with images that weaken it, images of hope and unity. Save the fear and despair for the Unseelie court and stories that make fairy folk fearsome again. 

The Problem of Anthropocentricism

I know its been a while since your favourite Unseelie messenger shared any snarky commentary but let's face it the human world has been more than usually hectic for many people in the past year. I have a moment now between other Otherworldly projects and shenanigans so let's jump right in...

You may have noticed a theme to several of the previous articles here and indeed to much of my (our?) complaining. And this theme revolves around the idea that many humans have that they are, in fact, the centre of all things and the most important being in existence. Or put another way, a lot of humans out there really believe they are the main character in the story of reality. 
So, to be blunt - you aren't. 
No one human is the centre of all things, or the most important individual in all of existence. And humanity in general is 100% definitely not. 

Now I know, I know, you're saying "But Unseelie Messenger I am the most important person in my life and I do need to centre myself in my interactions with other humans." And alright that's a fair point when it comes to specifically your daily life and dealing with other equally egocentirc humans. And yes, also a fair point that you may need to put yourself first in your interactions with other beings around you, for example if you eat meat then obviously you are prioritizing yourself over the animal you are eating. And hey we'd be the last ones to discourage carnivorous behaviour, or hedonism, or even some well earned selfishness.
But here's the thing that gets lost, the nuance so many humans miss - there is a line between healthy egocentricism and destructive anthropentricism. Because yes, you as an individual need to put yourself first in certain ways to live a fulfilling, safe life but putting yourself first in all things and worse assuming your entire species is somehow central to everything is both untrue and obnoxious.  Also the root cause of the massive destruction humans are wreaking on themselves and their world in my opinion. 

Now I'm guessing this idea that humans are the ultimate creation or the golden child of the universe is rooted in some religious ideas somewhere, probably in more than one place, and I certainly see it reinforced all over everywhere. Even people who claim to channel the sidhe or other fair folk forward this idea with material that says the Good Neighbours are very concerned in helping humans, in toto, be the best humans possible or helping humans evolve into better versions of humans. 
Funny how no one forwarding these ideas ever seems to ask why an entire species of Other beings* would be dedicated to helping better humanity. Its like arguing that all humans are dedicated to helping chimpanzees be better chimpanzees and evolve into their higher selves, which I think is pretty blatantly not the case. And don't give us the old 'its to save the earth' bit because its just as egocentric to think that all spirit beings would care about humans wiping themselves out when life in various forms would adapt and go on without humans. Life, et al, is a lot more resilient than humanity. 

Of course there are some fair folk who are interested in rehabbing humans just like some humans rehab injured wild animals. People have their personal interests and hobbies, whether they are Otherworldly or earthly. But the idea that all of the Good Folk are focused on improving humanity is just hubris. Or anthropocentricism if you will which is just a fancy word for thinking humans matter most. 

They don't. 

Humans are just one of many, many different beautiful, fascinating expressions of life and humans aren't inherently better than any of the others just because they like to think they are and created the internet. 

The Good Folk are independent beings with their own agendas and agency, and with a dizzying amount of diversity. Some may help an individual human, for various reasons, or form close relationships, or become invested in the welfare of family lines. But there are others who consider humans yummy appetizers, or a plague on the earth, or amusing toys that can be replaced when broken. 

Its very important for individual humans to get the idea of the universal importance of humanity out of their heads. Its dangerous for you and its also, honestly, just profoundly rude to the Otherworldly beings you deal with. You know how so many other countries joke about how rude and entitled US tourists are when they visit other places? Well, bad news humans are basically the US tourists of sentient beings - assuming everything exists for them in one way or another. Its not a good look. 

*don't start on about angles here. The Good Folk were not created and don't exist to serve a higher power who tasked them with watching over humans, and quite frankly while we don't really grok angels (outside our bailiwick) we're suspicious that even they weren't created to cater to and protect humanity despite what some humans like to say. 

Nature Hates You and So Does The Unseelie Court

 I know its been a while since I posted last, your pardon for that its been quite the eventful year.
Also yes this headline is entirely hyperbole - nature doesn't hate you it just doesn't care absolutely at all that you exist. 

Which segues into what we can talk about today. Something that is becoming more and more common, it would seem, is the idea that all fairies are kind and gentle and wish humans only well. We've talked about that before, its true, but the iterations that are running around recently seem to hinge on the idea that fairies are all nature spirits (not true) and that because of that they must all be friendly and helpful. 

Dear reader, there is such a thing as taking romanticization too far and we have certainly reached that point here. Not only the romanticization of fairies but also of the natural world. 

To argue that fairies are all benevolent because they are connected to nature which is in turn also benevolent - the ever loving arms of some personified earth - is frankly untrue. The natural world was very rightly called "red in tooth and claw"  by Lord Tennyson because it is. It is a place where every life feeds on other life and each day is a game of survival. If you are too slow, too old, too unlucky then you are food for something whether that's a predator or the earth itself. Nature doesn't care about any single life's survival. Nature isn't kind or gentle or caring. Nature is a vicious game.

To argue that fairies are benevolent because they care for the green world is not any better. Plants are not just some pretty colours and decoration. Many plants will also kill you with a quickness if you make even a small mistake with them, because they are just as eager to survive as any other living thing. They have developed weapons to fight for their own survival, including poisons and thorns. If you think fairies must be wonderfully good because your garden flowers are so very pretty then you need to remember that garden flowers are but a tiny minority in the plant world. And maybe look up how agonizing it is to die from hemlock poisoning. Here, I'll help with this link.

The idea that nature is kind or gentle is one fashioned by people who have very little experience with nature outside limited, controlled situations. It is a romantic view of an idealized reality that  doesn't actually exist.  The forest isn't your friend - if you want to survive in it for more than a few hours or days you better be prepared to fight for yourself.  Predators will try to kill you. Weather will try to kill you. Even bacteria in unfiltered water will try to kill you. Its an illusion that humans are masters of the natural world, an illusion created by carefully controlled circumstances. And trust me that illusion humans have of control is easily disproven by a hurricane, tornado, or the obvious signs of global warming, never mind getting caught out by an apex predator. 

It isn't a lie to compare the fairies to the natural world - in fact its a deep truth. But its a truth that is so twisted and misunderstood that it may as well be a lie now. Fairies are exactly like the natural world - merciless, and cruel, and uncaring about your individual survival. 
Well, the Unseelie are at any rate.

I'm no fan of the Victorians (who is really?) because they were the start of such horrid modern ideas about fairies but even they knew that fairies could be dangerous if only on the reduced scale permitted them - as shown by art depicting fairies hunting or killing small animals and insects. Have we actually arrived at a point where the Victorian fairy artists with their twee winged figures are closer to the truth than people who claim to believe in fairies as real? Now that is tragic. 

Fairy Hordes Attacking a Bat by John Fitzgerald (1819 – 1906)

The Seelie court has done great public relations work to convince people that fairies are wonderful and majestic and friendly. We see their hands in so much of what's out there now. 
But remember dear readers, there's more to Fairyland than just the lot that think humans are good. 
There's the Unseelie as well, and we can confirm that the kindest opinion there is fairly aligned with the actual natural world.

Unseelie - Not Just Cheeky Troublemakers

 I know I haven't posted much in the last several months, please forgive me its been quite busy for your friendly local unseelie messenger. I'm popping around today though to address something I am seeing more and more of, which is this idea that the Unseelie are just naughty or antisocial beings who may be mischievous but aren't really dangerous. I've seen it in books claiming that the unseelie just need a friend or a hug to be brought round to the side of goodness and light and from people claiming to speak to unseelie fairies who act as their personal unpaid therapist spirit guides. 

Seriously, people? If I see one more human claiming to channel an unseelie guide who is just the sweetest, sassiest ball of chaos or a dark brooding emo bro with a heart of gold I will scream. Not a small scream or a muffled scream but a full bodied, window cracking, scare-the-birds-from-the-trees scream. 

Whatever you all are channeling it isn't unseelie. Which is fine. Great even. Channel whatever you want to talk to and revel in their cheerful inspiring messages - just stop calling what you are talking to Unseelie. Unseelie isn't whatever you personally feel like it should be and it isn't whatever your favourite young adult novel says it is. Unseelie is a Scots word and it means, among other things: ungodly, evil doing, unfortunate, and dangerous. That is the core of the term and the core of the beings it describes. 

I see that makes many people uncomfortable. 
Too bad. 

The unseelie are what they are, and that is generally malicious and opposed to humanity. Of course there are exceptions - most kelpies trick, kill, and eat humans but the odd one every now and then does fall in love with a human. The exception doesn't make the rule though and the bulk of beings within the unseelie ranks are more likely to have humans on the menu than anything else. There are countless stories over centuries of these beings and the harm they can and do cause - the very reason they were labelled 'unseelie' is precisely because of the harm they cause humans. Its a descriptive term, and an apt one. 

And all that lip flapping about the bad rep the unseelie have just being Christian propaganda or anti-fae prejudice? That's nonsense of course. There are always spirits that help humans and spirits who harm them, spirits who guide and spirits who consume. The seelie and the unseelie. Its essential to have both, to maintain balance. This is true for the Good Folk as much as it is for any spirits in any culture around the world, and any culture you look at will have both the so-called good spirits and the so-called bad spirits. Nature abhors imbalance and there is nothing more imbalanced than an ecosystem without predators. Predators are necessary and healthy for any population, even humans. Maybe especially humans and maybe especially spiritually and definitely especially at a time like now where anthropocentricism is so rampant. 

Kelpies drown and eat humans
Hags drown and eat children
Will'o'the'wisps lead travellers astray, sometimes to their deaths
Baobhan Sìthe drain men of blood and rip their hearts out
Keats' La Bell Dame sans Merci drains the life from men the way Yeats' Ganconagh does for women. 
This is their nature. This is how they survive and what they do, like wolves taking down deer. 

Not naughty. Not cheeky. Not mischievous.
Dangerous. Malevolent. 

Respect that, because they deserve respect. They don't deserve to be infantilized and turned into some sort of  discount Edge Lord guide who dresses in vegan leather and dispenses wisdom about living your genuine life. 

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Frank Cadogan Cowper

Consent - Not Just For Humans

 Let's talk about consent. Its quite a big deal for humans, as it should be. You don't force your will on another unless they've agreed to it, its an emergency, or I suppose if we are discussing children who need medicine. Consent matters and its usually agreed that to force a person to do something without consent is a bad thing. 

And yet. 
And yet so much of the magic that's out there to do with the Fair Folk completely ignores the idea of consent. Books on witchcraft that teach a human how to 'make' their own fairy, how to charge a fairy with a task like guarding a home, or a pet. Spells to summon fairies, to force them against their own will to appear. To take the magician as a lover. Expected from the old grimoire material to be honest because that was written at a time when consent among humans wasn't a thing either and many humans were forced against their will too. But today, in a world that speaks of bodily autonomy and sovereignty of will, to see witches and magicians treating fairies as if they had no independence and no ability to choose for themselves...is disappointing. You would be a witch who engages with the Good Folk yet you approach the Other as something to be ordered and forced with sorcerous names and bindings. 

Now I admit that the fairy concept of consent is a bit different from the human one. Once consent is given it can't be withdrawn which is unlike human consent which changes and can be withdrawn. And consent in Fairy isn't always freely given because all's fair in magic and mayhem. But still consent is a necessary thing, a prerequisite to what follows. Even the each uisce waits until the human consents to ride it before rushing off and devouring them after all. 

Are fairies not beings with their own will and agency? Do fairies not deserve to be treated as well as one would treat a fellow human? Perhaps it is time for humans that seek the Good Folk out to reflect on this, and to consider whether a being forced against its will into a relationship can ever be any kind of ally or friend to the one forcing them.
Obviously the answer is no, and the Fair Folk have very long memories indeed and a great deal of time to wait and plan. 
Brush up on some selkie folklore if you don't believe me that fairy/human relationships born from lack of consent never end well, and you will see that as soon as the one being forced is freed she flees, not even love of her own half-human children can hold her. Perhaps think of how you would feel if the positions were reversed. 

So much focus on the superiority of humans out there, so many who would treat fairies as pets or clever animals rather than beings equal to or superior to humans. If your worldview is predicated on the Fair Folk as twee little sprites, even then, do they not deserve to have their will respected? Why are they treated like toys, or inferior things that must be protected or controlled? And if you do believe in the more powerful, dangerous fairies then why would you believe humans are better than they are, or more powerful?

Where does fairy consent fit in to your witchcraft? These are important questions.

If you seek fairy amity, seek it with an understanding that the Othercrowd are independent, sentient beings who owe humans nothing. Seek those that would willingly aid you and respect those that want no part of you or your magic. 

* Obviously if something is trying to kill you or eat you do what you must to defend yourself, just as you would against another human. Consent ends were mortal harm or threat thereof begins. 

Rackham's 'Goblin Market'
Even the goblins couldn't work their wasting magic unless the girl consented to eat the fruit

Fairy Rings and Wishful Things

 The current new hobby here on the Unseelie Side is to get a drink and a bag of crisps and watch humans fruitlessly hurling themselves into fairy rings, walking away disappointed when nothing happens. 

Did you really think it worked that way? That you could just find some hapless mycelium, jump, and poof! you're in Fairy?
Mmmmmm. We think not. 
As with all things Fairy its both more complicated and less straightforward than that. 

It is true, of course, that fairy rings have a long association with the fae folk through the history of several cultures. Step into a fairy ring and be caught up in the dancing for a night, only to walk away in the morning and find that a hundred years have passed. Sit outside and watch fairies dancing in a fairy ring and it might cost you a few years too. What can I say? Even the so-called good fairies guard their privacy. Offend the dancers in a ring and you might find yourself forced to dance to exhaustion or death. So many fun possibilities really. But you may perhaps have noticed that in every case the key is that the circle is in use when you stumble into it. An empty fairy ring is a sign of fairy activity but not necessarily of current fairy presence. Which means 99% of the time when you jump in, its to an empty abandoned space. 
Luckily for you.

What really amuses the fairies who have taken up this pass time, this new hobby, though is the sheer hubris of it. Humans believing that all they have to do is find a mushroom ring and leap in and that for some unknown, unknowable, reason the fairies would have to take the human back to Fairy, to a life that is better than the one they have now. As if all the power and control was with the human.
Hahahahahaha.
No.
The power is and always was with the fair folk, to choose who is taken for sundry uses and who is ignored.
The best outcome in many stories is being pulled out of your mortal life for a night of fun only to wake in the morning to find that everyone you knew and loved has died in the hundred years you've been gone. then crumbling to dust and ash after a few minutes to contemplate how truly alone you are. The worst case, as mentioned, is dancing yourself to death. Although perhaps best and worst here are a matter of perspective.
You know the real irony of this? If what you want most is to be taken away to Fairy than the cruelest thing that can be done is leave you standing cold on mortal ground. 

Oh yes, we've heard the excuses and explanations, the humans loudly declaring life as a chamber pot scrubber in Fairy is better than what they have now, while secretly believing they'd wed a Queen or King or Elfin Knight. So many humans saying they don't care about terrible fates because their world is already terrible - as if being hunted through a tangled nightmare wood, your shape twisted to a deer, by hunters without mercy or pity who will kill you, eat you, and raise you up the next day to do it all over again, forever, is worse than angst and ennui and a pervasive sense of impending Doom. 
Of course the human world in many places is terrible and bleak and dangerous right now. But - gentle suggestion - there are much worse things than living in a world that needs major improvements. Even one confronting generational racism, political corruption, and a plague. 

If you find your world so unbearable then perhaps study some history and current events in other parts of the human world and see what unbearable can be.  See what 'worse' in a human context can be. Syria for example. Then do what you can to change things where you are. Make it better instead of wishing for rescue from beings that do not mean you well anyway. Not a one-size-fits all solution but fit in whatever bits you can apply to yourself. Vote. Sign petitions. Speak out against injustices (if you can safely). Don't tolerate hate. Do tolerate humans who are different. Teach love. Buy local, support local businesses. Be kind. Reduce your impact on earth's environment in Every. Single. Little. way you can. Make art. Make beauty - and try to see beauty wherever you can find it. Fight for the world you want to live in by doing whatever wholesome thing you can to create it. 
Also, we've heard self-care is nice. 

We'd like to say we stole this image off the wilds of the internet, because it seems more on brand, but it was made by a friend of a friend who released it into the public domain.