Let's Talk About Fairies and Sex

If you've read the handful of previous blogs here you might think that this one is going to be a rant about humans sexualizing fairies and turning them into nothing but male-gaze oriented nonsense.
You may be surprised.
Yes, humans have turned fairies into the stuff of pin-up posters and softcore porn, sometimes in deeply offensive ways, and modern fiction has reduced the fey folk, too often, into love interests that could play the role of Prince Charming. But the hard truth, which many people reading this may not like, is that many fairies (not all) have always been deeply sexual beings and it was only the last hundred or so years that infantilized and desexualized them.
Prior to the Victorians and their festive re-writing of fairy folklore into sanitized children's stories fairies were understood to be highly sexual beings that might seduce - and often ultimately kill or kidnap - the unwary. Chaucer mentions the old belief of elves lurking in wilder places waiting for women to father children on, and in Irish belief there is a spirit called the Gean Canach that is found in the wilder places and which seduces lone women and steals their life force. The Anglo-Saxon aelfe - all originally male by the way - were fond of trysting with human women and were equated to incubi. In Iceland there were people historically who had 'alf' as part of their name to reflect what was believed to be partially fairy parentage. The Leannán sidhe found in several different Celtic language speaking countries would take human lovers, sometimes to the humans' ultimate doom. Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a poem about a fairy woman who seduces and ultimately passively destroys human men. King Arthur's knight Lanval is the human lover of a fairy lady, eventually repudiated by her for breaking a taboo before she returns to save him and bring him with her to Fairy. And of course stories of humans stolen away into Fairyland to provide children for the fairy folk abound. There are tales - even songs - about a kelpie taking a human wife and producing a child with her - usually until she finds out his true nature and flees.
If we are going with the Scottish courts then we could say that a seelie fairy might take a human lover for the entertainment while an unseelie one wouldn't involve as much sentiment.
The older view of fairies definitely didn't see them as idealized partners or even as beings generally capable of love as humans understand it, but rather as beings existing outside the human social norms that could and would use sex as both a weapon and a means to an end. In some rare cases love may have been involved - certainly some of the kelpie tales hint at such - but generally sex is more of a game, entertainment, or even a way to feed off a partners' life force. So while its been distorted in modern understandings the idea of fairies as sexual beings and as sex partners is as old as the stories of fairies themselves.

Just remember that previous post about agency and power. And give some thought to who is truly in control in these situations. Because unless you are a ceremonial magician conjuring a fairy lover through a complex ritual and binding them to your will, the odds are the one in control isn't you.

Be Careful what You Wish For...

Speaking of disempowerment and lack of agency...so many humans out there joking about jumping into fairy rings or eating fairy food or wandering the woods waiting to be taken away. As if Fairy was a vacation park and the Good Folk existed purely for human enjoyment.
Oh no, I think not.
This is how much of the older wisdom has been forgotten by some. The idea that you should not even speak the word "fairy" lest the invisible folk passing by hear you and take offense has been replaced by the twee belief that fairies are nothing but sweet little things, harmless, fun, gentle and the word should be repeated to invoke their blessings. The idea that you should never go alone at night and should always carry iron to protect yourself from being taken has been replaced in the minds of some by the notion that being taken would be a good thing.
Why?
Oh I think its clear why. Because to some people now the fey have truly been neutered and domesticated, reduced to nothing more than a some glitter and a pleasant dream. These are people who joke that they don't fear being taken because its the fairies who would regret the situation and send the human back or be stuck catering to their selfish whims.
These people need to read some folklore or talk to people in cultures that still hold fairies in respect and fear. Listen to stories of humans forced to dance until they die of exhaustion because they stepped into a fairy ring that was in use. Listen to stories of humans blinded for seeing the Fair Folk when they did not wish to be seen. Listen to stories of humans driven mad after getting a taste of Fairy and being cast out, back into mortal earth. Remember that when fairies take humans into their world there is always a reason for it and the reason always favours the Good Neighbours not the humans: breeding stock, servants, entertainment, food. Yes there are examples of brief takings that do no harm to the human - musicians and midwives are borrowed briefly and returned safely, provided they follow the rules. But those are people of skill whose skill is needed or wanted for a time. Humans without these skills have nothing to offer but their bodies, and those will be used as the fairies desire to serve their needs.
The Good Folk do not exist to please humans and make human lives pleasurable - even the pleasure that is to be found among the fairy throng has a price to it and a pain. Those who find fairy lovers often die for longing of them, or go mad if their fairy lover abandons them. Those who experience Fairy never stop wanting more of it until it consumes them.
And humans who are rude to fairies pay a steep price for their hubris.
Fairies are utterly inhuman, foreign beings who operate on a very different moral and social system. Even those who know how to deal with them, who are canny in their ways, sometimes bear scars from missteps.

Hurl yourself into a fairy ring and almost certainly nothing will happen because you lack the knowledge to see if it is in use or old and abandoned. The fairies take only what they want anyway. But perhaps consider first who has the real power in the situation, and if you are not utterly foolish realize it isn't you. Realize there are worse fates than death.


As the saying goes - be careful what you wish for; you just may get it.

Agency and Power

Food for thought today.

If you believe that the Fair Folk exist, by whatever name and through whatever cultural lens, it is a good idea to stop and sit and really think about how much agency - how much of a capacity for independent action and power - you believe they have.

Fairies as shown in a lot of mainstream media do not have much agency. They are often either shown only responding to human actions or requiring humans to act for them. These fairies are effectively impotent and rely on humans to do what they cannot, which in some stories is nearly everything. We see this in tales of environmentally concerned fairies who are powerless to save their endangered homes but instead must get some human champion to fight for them. We see this in stories of fairies who are dependant on human kindness to save them from destruction. Even the infamous Tinkerbell could not act against Wendy directly in the Disney movie but needed to manipulate others into acting for her. This deeply ingrained idea that fairies are reliant on humans often seems to shape how humans in modern western culture are forming their understandings of fairies, to the great detriment of the fairies involved.
How mortifying to go from a nearly divine being given propitiatory offerings to ensure a good harvest to an insignificant pretty thing that needs humans to accomplish any simple task!

Magical practitioners are not exempt from this, and perhaps more than others should stop and reflect on their own assumptions. Sloppy or nonexistent training have led to those who should know better suggesting that fairies are simply thought forms created by humans, and therefore at the whim of humans. A pox on that occult book which suggests a witch may create a fairy and task it to their bidding; what you create is certainly not a fairy.
Witches today need to reflect on who and what fairies are and how much independence the witch believes they have. I see so much entitlement out there based in assumptions that fairies exist to serve humans and that all any witch needs do is ask for a thing and some fairy will rush to do it. As if fairies were the metaphysical equivalent of Siri or Alexa, existing to aid humans however they need it.
How insulting a thought for beings that were once so feared and respected that humans considered the places of the Shining Ones sacred!

It is true that there is a history of fairies being commanded through ceremonial magic, but that is based on an understanding that they do have power and agency and must therefore be properly compelled or bound to do what the mage wishes.
It is true that fairies have a long history with witches, but that is based on a very different power dynamic in which the fairy has power over the witch, or the witch owes fealty to a fairy Queen.
If humans had such firm power over the Good Folk and if fairies were indeed so powerless there would not, I don't think, be so very many stories about humans dying at the hands of the fairies or being stolen away or blinded or driven mad.

A millennia of human belief tells you that fairies are powerful beings who can bring madness, illness, death...or luck, health, and fortune. But these gifts and curses are born of the fairies' agency and their will not of human compulsion. Offend the Good Folk and they may punish you very harshly for it. Please them, even unwittingly, and they may reward you greatly for it. And as much as humans often dislike hearing this, sometimes the consequences that befall them from the Otherfolk have nothing at all to do with what the human has or hasn't done and is simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Slua Sí is random in its maliciousness as often as not, and offerings to the People of Peace do not guarantee a good harvest only reduce the chances of a bad one. Look to cultures that still have this respect and still understand who and what the fairies are and you will begin to understand.

There has been a long and deep campaign to reduce and disempower the fey folk. Some of the names that we see fairies being called - wee ones, little folk - reinforce this idea. Even the way that modern urban fantasy depicts the Unseelie court shows this, with dangerous beings who in folklore would be the death of a rude human instead being shown as misunderstood creatures seeking love and understanding; poor Unseelie prince just needs the right human to love him and he'll change, as if that has ever worked for a human relationship. It is these powerless fairies that some humans think of now and imagine interacting with, and that truly is a shame.

Humans like to believe they control their world and are the apex of all things. The modern western world raises the individual above all others and tells them that everything should revolve around them, and so we see anthropocentrism melded with the idea that any non-human being should and does exist not only for humanity but for the individual's benefit. Those that deal with the Shining Ones should reflect on this idea and how it can intersect with and warp their dealings with spirit beings.
I imagine the gods would agree with the Fair Folk on this one.

Do you believe that fairies have their own agency and power to affect you?
Or do you not believe this?
Think on that and look deeply into your own reasoning.

La Belle Dame sans Merci did not get the memo about humans being in charge

Who Am I Anyway?

I see there's some question as to who I am to say the things I'm saying. To carry messages for the  more antagonistic fairies in this medium.
It's a fair question, I suppose, but one whose answer may not satisfy you.
I'm no one of any great importance. Just a person of non-specified gender and very specified loyalties who is here to spill some (fairy) tea and say some things that need to be said. I'm looking for no renown, I'm just doing a job. Anyway it isn't the messenger that matters here it's the message, so let's not muddy the waters by focusing on inconsequential me.
I'll say what needs to be said.
 Listen or don't listen, it's doesn't matter to me.

The Painful Side of Spirit Interactions*

I hear much talk around relationships with spirits and how humans believe they are giving to and getting back from these beings. What I don't see however is any acceptance or acknowledgement of things that have been done in the past by culturally dominant forces in the West - harmful things that have been done - that must be redressed, of debts owed, or of responsibility. Especially among those who claim to work strongly and closely with the Good People there can be a disconnect between the reality and agency of fairies and the idea of these beings as allies.

The fact is there are many spirits and fairy beings that are angry with humans, particularly humans rooted in western Europe or Christianity, that do not wish them anything but ill. Actions have consequences. Widespread actions have widespread consequences, which often hit at the most vulnerable, even when they aren't the source of the problem.
When it comes to the Other there's more than a millennia of problematic actions specifically in Western cultures that go mostly unacknowledged and unmitigated. The Good Folk and spirits have been systematically attacked and driven out, literally turned into the monsters of the new religion or reduced to children's toys. The punchlines of jokes, focus of fantasies in fiction, and the playthings of gaudy imagery. Beings that were once viewed as Gods or God-adjacent, who were respected and rightfully feared, turned into glittery servants to human egos. Driven out now by ignorance and entitlement as much as iron and salted words. 

Actions have consequences. 

The fey folk move on a time scale that eludes humans and in ways that are often just as elusive. Humans live in moments and forget quickly, but the memories of the folk are long, and patience is a hallmark of those who live for millennia. Offenses are not forgotten, spirits merely bide their time to retaliate at the ideal moment. 

There are many in Western culture who are quick to claim that the current human pandemic has no connection to the spirits, perhaps because they don't like the idea that spirits would do such a thing. Or perhaps because they don't truly believe spirits can do such a thing. And I do not claim to know if the ultimate source that sparked the illness was spirit-born or the confluence of random factors; what I do know is that however it started there are spirit beings tangled up with it now. Amplifying it. Empowering it. 

While some fairies and spirits may be helping humans against this plague, others are certainly encouraging it to spread and be as deadly as possible. And others either see it as inconsequential to them or amusing. Does that offend you? To think that some fairies find human suffering and death entertaining? You should remember that humans are not the center of all things, something that some cultures and spiritualities still remember but which has been lost to others.

The problem with too many humans right now is rampant anthropocentrism. Some humans make everything about them and leave no room for anything else. Western culture is so anthropocentric they can't even conceive of spirits retaliating on this scale for widespread offenses. Some can't even conceive that all spirit beings aren't helping to fight the battles humans fight, especially around health. They have forgotten, I suppose, a thousand years of human-folk on the receiving end of elfshot and elf-stroke - even though the arrows are just as sharp as ever. And unfortunately, as has been the case across the centuries, the innocent are being hit along with those who actively act against the Good Folk, in the same ways that climate change is striking the demographics least responsible for it the hardest - because it isn't necessarily those who cause the problems who are impacted by it. 

Not all humans are the problem. There are Buddhists who understand about angered spirits and the widespread consequences that are occurring from that. They are even encouraging people to engage in appeasing practices, a kind of repayment to the offended spirits and acknowledgement of the harm caused to them. In the same way in Japan the yokai Amabie is being invoked to fight against this illness and in parts of India a goddess being called 'Corona' is being prayed to. This is the right way, the best way, to approach these things. Invoke spirits to fight spirits. Live in right relationship with the unseen world.
 For those particularly coming from that Western cultural mindset its important to acknowledge the connection you may have to what has been and is being done to the spirit-folk and do what little you can to restore balance with the spirit world.

And let me be perfectly clear: this applies equally to witches and pagans and those who claim to be close to fairies. Just because you are a witch doesn't exempt you from consequences when the spirits are angered on a large scale, not unless you yourself are actively making amends. As witches/pagans/etc not only are you not exempt from this but you're much more obligated to be aware of it and address it properly because you should know better. If you claim to work with fairies and related spirits then you should know better than to treat them like your personal vending machines and servants. You should understand their power and not reduce them any further in how you approach them.
You should respect them, and treat them with respect.

Humans must - MUST - stop thinking all spirits are just fancy nature-spirit-guardian-angels who want humans to be the best humans they can be. Implicit in that idea is that they really wouldn't hurt a human or only specific individuals who directly hurt them. No. Some human communities have done the Otherfolk great harm and humans, collectively, are seeing the result of that on several fronts. The pandemic is only one. 

Some humans believe they are in an interconnected relationship with fairies and spirits, and that is true in its own way. But connection doesn't mean only goodness for you, especially when you are doing precious little good for the Good Folk. Connection means you receive the negative consequences of your species' actions as fully as anything else. A relationship is the good and the bad, and the scale is not tipped in the favour of humans right now. Much can be learned by moving outside the Western cultural, Christian dominated view and looking at how cultures/spiritualities that try to live in balance with the spirits are approaching things around this. And try to understand why spirits in places where the Good Folk have been actively attacked, banished, diminished, and dominated - places where Christian dominionism has labeled them demons and waged war against them - try to understand why these fairy beings are angry and how that anger plays out in ways that humans will see as unfair. 

If you want to change this, look at the non-Western cultural examples: be respectful of the spirits true power, acknowledge the harm done, and make appeasement offerings. 
As the saying goes 'be the change you want to see in the world' and in this case that change means moving away from existing systems in order to return to previous non-Christian/non-western cultural paradigms of spirit engagement.

* 7/1/23 the messenger would like to add a small disclaimer here that this material is what would be referred to as 'channelled' and is presented as directly as possible; it must be understood in the context of spirits who are particularly frustrated at specific groups of humans but are lashing out at humans collectively. Is this fair? No. But just as hurt humans pass that hurt on to innocent people so hurt spirits attack those who aren't directly responsible for that hurt. Its a mess and the only way to get through it is to understand that spirits can be traumatized by human actions and that their responses can seem disproportionate to humans, and seek to personally live in a more balanced way with these beings. 

Welcome to the Dark Side

The darkness has a very underserved bad reputation. Always what people fear and try to avoid, yet such an essential part of life. Humans fear the darkness despite their deep need for it and the benefits it provides them, the balance it gives, and the rest from the relentless burning light. The demonize what they need.

In the same way the Unseelie court - those fey folk labelled as unholy or unlucky by mortals - tend to have a bad reputation. So many protections against the Unseelie, so many words of iron and salt, so many stories warning against wandering out too late or too far. But all things must be true to their own natures and it's wrong to see the Unseelie as evil; there is no evil here just hard truths and hunger. And the more dangerous fairies have as much right to exits and thrive as the popular, friendly sorts.

There's been a lot of change in how fairies are viewed over the last hundred years. Everything reduced and disempowered, everything made servile and aesthetically pleasing. Well, that is not a mould that works here no matter how many novels try to paint the Unseelie as misunderstood and full of love to give. There is no loss of power here or size, and nothing in this darkness willingly serves humanity. Strength remains and its time that strength was respected again.

Many of the beings counted among the numbers of the Unseelie are antithetical to humanity. They are not made to be gentled or domesticated. They are dangerous. They are uncanny. They are fierce. And all of those things are unchanging. Even the idea of humans labelling the Fair Folk as seelie or unseelie, as good or bad, shows a misunderstanding of what fairies are, of the shifting nature that goes between helpful and harmful. Humans rules are not fairy rules, and fairy rules are all that matter here.

You won't find any gentle messages of reconciliation here or the idea that we all just want to get along with humanity. Humanity has screwed us over for a milenia. Some of us remember that very well and are ready to speak out against it.

So here we are, speaking the hard truths into the mortal world. Maybe some of you will listen.