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Fairies, Pixies, Elves, Sprites & Other Little Folk

there's a great bit in one of Janet and Colin Bord's books... I think it's in Modern Mysteries Of Britain... where a tiny biplane was witnessed landing on a country road, with a 'little person' as the pilot who waved (I think) and took off again. And another bit in the same book (I think:confused: ) where a witness looked out of a bedroom window to see lots of 'little people' riding around the garden in little cars!

I hope David Raven sees this thread, because he has some great stuff about Yorkshire Boggarts :)
 
Daimonic Reality

Ah. Fairies. My favorite subject. If you'd like to read a book about how different fortean entities including fairies relate to one another and what it all could mean from larger, philosophical perspective, I recomend "Daimonic Reality" by Patrick Harpur. I've only just started reading it myself and am only up to Chap. 3 so I can't really give you an overview just yet - that and because my mind is too numb from reading it; many different ideas and experiences from different sources - Jung, shamanism, Greco-Roman mythology, various collected personal experiences like the kind you read about in the IHTM forum, ect.

Fairies are included under the more general category of "daimons" along with aliens, U.F.Os, angels, ghosts, etc., but fairies - thus far - have gotten a good amount of emphasis. Haven't read any of the books you mentioned, but I'd like to.

Edit: Alright, so I did give you a bit of an overview.
 
Second the recommendation for Briggs - not just the Encyclopedia, but anything she's done, including her juvenile novels - Hobb, and Kate Crackernuts. (I'm doing that from memory, since my husband is asleep in the room with the Bs and I don't have a copy of Kate; I know she novelized the story but she might have altered the title.) *The Secret Commonwealth* is a classic. Yeats's *The Celtic Twilight.* If you go to the folklore section of your university library, you should find lots of big thick books by 19th century English antiquarians, which will have fairy and giant and ghost and FOAF lore all piled together in that higgeldy-piggeldy but thorough way the Victorians did so well. That way, you can see for yourself a point Briggs emphasizes - that fairy lore crosses lots of boundaries. They are the dead. They are witches. They are shapeshifters, conceptually as well as actually, and as soon as you realize that you've met the Hedley Kow off they go laughing into the night.

They are aliens. They are us. They're Schrodinger's cat, keeping us from ever opening the box.
 
I've always wondered something: would it be so bad to be trapped in Fairyland? There was a lot of dancing, drinking, and eating of fine victuals, right? And everything was painfully beautiful?

Maybe someone better versed in the lore could clue me in and list the downside of this. I know the stuff about how the wine is sand and the food is really straw or whatever, but not while you're there enjoying it.
 
ctaylor8 said:
I've always wondered something: would it be so bad to be trapped in Fairyland? There was a lot of dancing, drinking, and eating of fine victuals, right? And everything was painfully beautiful?

Maybe someone better versed in the lore could clue me in and list the downside of this. I know the stuff about how the wine is sand and the food is really straw or whatever, but not while you're there enjoying it.

From what I know, you don't come back for a hundred plus years. When they finally boot you out, after what you think was five minutes, and entire century has passed.

I guess that could be good though because the cell phones in the future must be awesome!
 
Think of the advances in technology. Flying cars! A permanent base on the Moon!

Seriously, I thought it was the other way around. After a hundred years, if they kick you out, it turns out only 5 minutes has passed.

Or it might be an either/or thing. Dependent on where and when and which group of little people.
 
Don't you lose your soul?

and or turn out to be dinner?

Kath
 
I thought you felt as if you'd been gone a day or a night, but returned to find that 100 years or something had passed.




And you had a beard.
 
escargot said:
I thought you felt as if you'd been gone a day or a night, but returned to find that 100 years or something had passed.
Right. Personally, stories like these two, cited by James Whitehead, have always given me a case of butterflies-in-the-gut.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jacques Vallee explores the Rip van Winkle connection with abduction
tales in his 1988 book Dimensions.

He mentions especially two related tales:
1: The Chinese Taoist tale of wood-cutter Wang Chih who encounters two mysterious
chess players. They give him a date-stone which he puts to his
mouth and which relieves his hunger and thirst. One of the players tells him
it is time he went. When he turns to pick up his axe, he finds the
handle has crumbled into dust. When he returns to his valley, nothing
remains of the world as he had known it.

2: A Norwegian bride passes through the fields on her wedding day.
She encounters the wee folk who offer her a cup of wine and a dance.
When she hastens home, she finds everything changed but a very
old woman remembers a bride who disappeared a hundred years
before!
 
What did people think of Invitation to Elfland (FT 179) the author's first-person account of the Little People on a Scottish island? I thought it was pretty intriguing, personally.
 
escargot said:
I thought you felt as if you'd been gone a day or a night, but returned to find that 100 years or something had passed.




And you had a beard.

There is no way I am ingesting any fairie fodder EVER! I do NOT want a beard! UGH! :cross eye
 
anome said:
Seriously, I thought it was the other way around. After a hundred years, if they kick you out, it turns out only 5 minutes has passed.

You're thinking of Narnia.

Maybe we are to Faerie as Narnia is to us. :D

Nonny
 
Also interesting for their widespread apperance in myth and folklore are giant and ogre-like beings. They fit .

English: Etins, Giants, Ogres
Celtic: Formors/Formeans
Norse/Germanic: Jotuns(same as Etins).
Indic: Asuras
Greco-Roman: Titans
Bliblical/Hebrew: Nephilim

Tons of cognates in remote places in Asia and the Americas too. Archetypes of brutal, impersonal nature? Mythologized historical invaders? Could be noted there's often a war between them and the gods.

Looks alot like the religious equivalent to "the thing in the room that can't get you if your feet are under the covers" to me.
 
There is also a type of fairie lore here among the Indians. Nûñnë'hï are Cherokee fairies that live in the mountains. Alot of the stories about them are similar to Irish and English stories.

In researching it, I also found a local Cherokee night demon called Fire Carrier, which is a sort of phantom light, almost UFO-like.
 
lopaka said:
What did people think of Invitation to Elfland (FT 179) the author's first-person account of the Little People on a Scottish island? I thought it was pretty intriguing, personally.
Yes, I did too. Way back when, I read that Timothy Leary found that people saw the little folk while on LSD. The woman from the article used a simpler and safer technique. She said it was similar to the one used when staring at the magic eye pictures where you have to find the picture hidden within the images. Once she became skilled at it, she saw a wide variety of them. Not stationary, as in a sumulcra, but moving and interacting with her and her husband.
 
There is no way I am ingesting any fairie fodder EVER! I do NOT want a beard! UGH!
Yup, the beard aspect is a strong feature in the disfavour of this experience. ;)
 
Way back when, I read that Timothy Leary found that people saw the little folk while on LSD.

What I find REALLY interesting is the hallucinations that are brought on by DMT. Terrence McKenna was always on about this and how it made you visit a place, like an underground cavern, full of 'interdimensional machine elves'. Nearly everyone who takes it sees a variation on the exact same thing. Very interesting indeed.
 
Also interesting for their widespread apperance in myth and folklore are giant and ogre-like beings.

...

Tons of cognates in remote places in Asia and the Americas too. Archetypes of brutal, impersonal nature? Mythologized historical invaders? Could be noted there's often a war between them and the gods.

It's worth reading Heroes, Gods and Kings which explores the successions of religions across ancient britain and how that evolved into modern folklore. It covers the theme of giants as the race displaced by later gods and it's ubiquity accross different cultures in some depth.
 
GiantRobot said:
What I find REALLY interesting is the hallucinations that are brought on by DMT. Terrence McKenna was always on about this and how it made you visit a place, like an underground cavern, full of 'interdimensional machine elves'. Nearly everyone who takes it sees a variation on the exact same thing. Very interesting indeed.


Let's not forget Robert Anton Wilson reporting that he saw a little green man while tripping on mescaline (?) (peyote ?). He also said that he later started seeing him around when he wasn't tripping. And that he claimed that this was a common vision with many people.
 
Cones and fairies

Tulip Tree said:
The woman from the article used a simpler and safer technique. She said it was similar to the one used when staring at the magic eye pictures where you have to find the picture hidden within the images. Once she became skilled at it, she saw a wide variety of them. Not stationary, as in a sumulcra, but moving and interacting with her and her husband.
I have a book called "Spirits of the Earth" by Jaq D. Hawkins. In it she says that, in order to see fairies, we must veiw it out of the corner of our eyes because this is where the cones, which perceive fairies (and colors), are located. The rods perceive line and definition but are unable to perceive fairies and so interfere when we try to look at them directly.

Once when I was about five, I woke to use the potty and saw a white, furry creature with a little dog-like snout and yellow eyes doing this weird dance which I don't think it would be possible for a human to do without seriously dislocating their spine. It had luminescent hair and skin that was brighter than the sunlight coming through the window (I am reminded of it when I see "ghost" photos of anomalous wisps and some of the brighter orbs). It's hands were raised above its head, elbows bent, in an "Aargh,-I'm-gonna-get-you" fashion. It appeared to be trying to taunt my grandmother, who was asleep on the side of the bed closest to the creature, and paid no attention to me. At that moment I assumed I had sleep in my eye, which was causing my eyes to blur the light in the room into the shape of a troll. I just continued to the bathroom (I really had to go) and when I came back the creature was gone. It was only later that started to consider that maybe the creature was real and not a trick of the light. In any case, I still feel that I wouldn't have seen it if my eyes weren’t out of focus from having just woke up - whether or not it was real.
 
It might be worth mentioning Charles Bonnet syndrome in this context - a significant percentage of sufferers have hallucinations of little people (but no delusions). It seems that there's a particular part of the brain that does it.
 
Vitrius said:
There is also a type of fairie lore here among the Indians. Nûñnë'hï are Cherokee fairies that live in the mountains. Alot of the stories about them are similar to Irish and English stories.

In researching it, I also found a local Cherokee night demon called Fire Carrier, which is a sort of phantom light, almost UFO-like.

Nûñnë'hï? Is that pronounced Annunaki?
 
Well, as my sig suggests, Piskies are well reported to roam Dartmoor, along with many other strange folk and creatures.

I always find it remarkable when so many different cultures around the globe have so many similar traditions, beliefs, superstitions etc.

Does it stem from tribal memory of a long forgotten common origin?

St Nectan's Glen in North Cornwall (between Boscatle & Tintagel) is a spot where faeries are reported suprisingly frequently.

Apparently, if you stack some stones up on a riverside rock, go for a walk for a few minutes and return, the stones will always have been scattered or will have simply disappeared, with seemingly no-one else around.

I love the idea that Fairies are the natural spirits of the wild, Dryads, Nyads, Sprites, whatever - the visualisation of these entities certainly helps to keep a good relationship going with nature.
 
I used to play in St Nectan's Glen with my friends as a child but unfortunately we never encountered any fairies. I was always more afraid of the ghostly monks! I'll have to try that stone thing next time I'm down there though and let you know if anything happens.

My aunty apparently once saw a fairy in her garden as a child. There was an old air-raid shelter at the bottom of her garden that her parents had told her not to enter. One day she decided to investigate it but as she got closer she saw what she described as a small fairy, about 2 foot tall, that looked like a doll with wings. It was sitting infront of the door to the shelter and smiling at her. She was so scared she turned and ran and never thought about entering the shelter again.
 
Starting Somewhere Near the beginning (A Rough Sketch)

Old Stone Age - Hunter Gatherers
Right back, when humans started to take stock of their situation, with knowledge of a difference between them and the natural World, they started to interact with their environment in a special way.

Perhaps it was about this time that they'd first bitten into the Forbidden Fruit and swallowed and Adam had had a fruitful relationship with lillith (the original demon-woman)?

Anyway, as hunters and gatherers they didn't just chase and dig, they danced and sung and drew and carved, but with purpose. That purpose was to get under the skins and into the hearts of their quarry, to think like them and to know their ways.

Sometimes they would have significant experiences with certain plants, or animals, or materials, or places in their new conscious World which would set those plants, animals, rocks, streams, or mountains apart. They might even think that they'd had a meeting with the intrinsic Spirit of those things. This might be seen as an ancestor Spirit, that set our ancestors apart as a group. A totemic ancestor, an animal, plant, or thing, special and magical. These might even be identified as the magical, spiritual, "Ancestors" of the people, or tribe, from around the misty times of their creation.

Soon, interaction with such 'Ancestor Spirits' would be that magical warrior, the shaman's domain, although in most early societies, most young people would have to meet the ancestor spirit, or spirits, at some point along the way.

Nomads, and Mounds
So, rocket forwards a few thousand years, give, or take. Tribes of extended family units are traversing well worn paths, chasing their seasonal harvests, and meeting up at special points, cross roads, or crossing tracks at preselected and special times of the year, which can be predicted and act as a focus for the meeting up of the various tribal groups, to exchange gifts and young partners.

Perhaps, just for the sake of argument, they also bring the bodies, or bones of their recently departed and somewhere near these meeting places and crossing points they will be buried with their fellow tribe members.

Special mounds and cairns are built, where the shamen perform the ancient songs, dances and stories of their tribe, going back to the Creation and the Ancestor Spirits.

New Stoneage Farmers Versus Nomads
Some of the groups stop travelling and settle down on the best land, developing new technologies of agriculture and food processing. After a while, they start to view the still nomadic, herders and semi-hunter gatherers with growing suspicion. A split develops between the two groups.

The opportunities for a fully hunter gatherer lifestyle are becoming less bountiful as the free land becomes encroached by the new farmer settlers. The hunter-gatherer nomads try to stick to the old ways, but they are forced, more and more, to resort to what now amounts to theft and rustling. Inter-tribal wars and small, but devastating, genocides result.

The nomadic folks slowly die out, unable to compete against the technologies and entrenched strength of the neolithic farmers. However, ancient memories and beliefs, persist, knowledge of the strange and alien customs of these folks persist.

Then there are the burial mounds and the the memories of the shamanistic knowledge of the realms of the Ancestor Spirits, which some have called, "The Happy Hunting Grounds" which are also called, "Annwyn," or "Hades," or "Avalon," or "Elfland", or "Faerie."

Before there was a "Heaven," or, for that matter a separate and distinct "Hell," there was an other place. The Place of the Ancestors. Reached through magical portals, be it a hearth fire, or a sacred pool, or grove, or by interment in a stone and earthen mound (perhaps a representation of the belly of Mother Earth?).

Many of the magical laws and ways ascribed to human interaction with the Realm of Elfin, could just as easily be ascribed to Shamanistic interactions with the Realms of the Ancestors.
 
Little People

I hope this subject hasn't already been discussed in detail. If so, forgive me, I am something of a newbie :goof:. I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with the "little people", fairies and the like? Nuts as it may sound, I have and would love to hear from anyone else who's willing to share :)
 
One of my daughters swears that she played and conversed with fairies in the garden as a child. They were small, less than 10" tall, and blended into the background at will.
 
Ex and I used to go to Isle Of Man for TT Races. On the way out to the airport is a Fairy Bridge and locals say it is unlucky to go over and not acknowledge the little people. Never went by without giving them a wave.....
 
My dad spent his teenage years on the Isle of Man and he always used to tell me the story that his school (St Ninians I think) were coming back from a field-trip on three seperate coaches. Two of the drivers were locals, one was a come-over (non native) the local drivers greeted the little people while the come-over, not knowing the custom, didn't.

The third coach driven by the come-over broke down not long afterwards.
 
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