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Fairy Hill Forts & Changelings

bugmum

bugmum

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Sep 10, 2003
Messages
1,419
How can you good folk expand my knowledge database?

I know that at various points in the country (UK only?) there are hillforts and/or earthworks ascribed to the little folk; that you shouldn't fall asleep in them; that at certain times in the year (when?) the forts open and the way into their land can be travelled; that changelings are the sickly faery infants which are left in exchange for a healthy human child (and if that's not some sort of genetic experiment, I'll be blowed!). Is there anything essential I've missed out or ought desperately to know?

It's just that I have the snippet of an original story in my head, and I'd rather be accurate if I ever let it out into the world!
 
There are similar things here in Ireland, no idea of the gaelige name for them, but they are called Fairty Forts, you see them all over the country side - they are apparently ancient ringforts (homesteads) that over the last millenium or two have gone back to nature, and have been left as such as they are now occupied by the little people. It's very bad luck to mess with them - people don't even walk over them!
 
There's a Fairy Hill near me called Willy Howe.

The story goes;-

A local legend tells of a horseman riding past late one night. Hearing music, he went to investigate (the fool! It's as bad as venturing into the cellar in the obviously-haunted mansion!).

On the flanks of the hill was a door. Peering inside he was astonished to see a party in full swing! For a while, who knows how long, he watched in wonder until suddenly he was seen by one of the revellers, who offered him a drink. The canny horseman knew that drinking the wine would be his downfall. He threw the drink on the floor and beat a hasty retreat to his trusty steed. He legged it, but being a Yorkshireman, kept a hold of the valuable cup!

...Or so the Bridlington monk, William of Newburgh said, who heard the story and recorded it for posterity.


The fate of the Fairy Cup?
Well, it was given to King henry the first, then to King David of Scotland then to King Henry the Second... then quietly disappeared...

Unless of course, the Little Folk took it back...


And here's a pic of said hill...
 
The fairy people that live under the mounds were traditionally known as the Sidhe in celtic/gaelic mythology - some info HERE
 
A good classic source of Irish fairy law is WB Yeats' ''Celtic Twilight''. Written at the height of his Golden Dawn involvement, it positively breathes conviction - so suspend disbelief like a helium balloon & enjoy the view :)

Actually, his poetry and short story collections of the 1880s and 1890s are a mine of authentic lore as well (on the subject of changelings, check out 'The Stolen Child':
''Come away, you human child
To the waters & the wild
With a fairy hand in hand
For the world's too full of weeping
For you to understand'' )

Great stuff & very, very odd.
 
One of the most famous stories of the abduction by the sidh is the one told in the ballad of Thomas The Rhymer which also features another staple of fairy lore in that time passes differently There. Often a character will return to find years have passed or even that centuries have gone by and when they touch the mortal earth they turn to dust ( I believe this happens to some of Finn's Fianna? )
 
I come from Westmeath, a county which probably has one of the highest number of ring forts in Ireland. Around our way there are about 2 or 3 per townland. No one seriously sees them as the homes of the fairies or any such tales, we do understand that they are bronze age homesteads. However it would be a reluctant local who would cut a tree on a ring fort, believing it would lead to bad luck.
 
Sometimes stolen human children wouldn't be replaced with a fairy child, but with a 'stock', which would usually be a lump of wood carved in the rough shape of a baby and made to seem alive by fairy magic. The magic lasted only a short time; after that it would seem like the 'baby' had simply died, leaving the parents none the wiser.

The usual method of exposing a changeling suspected of being a fairy in disguise was to throw it on the fire, with the expectation that it would fly away up the chimney. (Lots of ill or deformed babies were accused of being changelings and were killed or horribly injured well into the nineteenth century. :( )
 
Fairy Lore resources

Hello. This is my first post here; fairy lore has been one of my favorite topics of research for my entire life.

Some books I would suggest are Katherine Briggs' "Encyclopedia of Fairies," and her other volume, "The Vanishing People." Also W.Y. Evans Wentz' "Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries" is a great source for the living fairy folklore of the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

Janet Bord also wrote a book on contemporary accounts of fairy encounters in Britan called, "Fairies: Real Encounters with the Little People."

If you can get the text of Robert Kirk's "The Secret Commonwealth," it is an account of seventeenth century folkloric beliefs as well as the personal experiences of the author, a Scottish minister. He is said to have died at the foot of a fairy fort or rath, and was, and is believed that he wasn't dead at all, but had been kidnapped by the Good Folk, and taken into their underworld realm. There are some who say he lives there to this day.

R.J. Stewart came out with a modern English translation of the work a few years ago called, "Robert Kirk: Walker Between Worlds."

In America today there are a lot of very fluffy books put out on the subject of fairies--most Americans, particularly the Neo-Pagans among us, have a very sentimental view of the Good Folk. We seem to cling to the Victorian notion that they are pretty little winged-flower-bedecked playful personages, which robs them of their awesome powers. However, the Native Peoples of our lands knew of the small people, and they, too, like their British counterparts, shot folk with tiny bows, stole children and women away, and were sometimes tricksters, sometimes helpers.
 
I read an interesting short story a few years ago which posited that the "faeries" were the remnant of the Picts who were driven into the mountains by the Celts, and literally went into the mountains - living underground in communities which had to kidnap children from outside because they were threatened by inbreeding. I think the story was in one of the free PDF anthologies of cryptozoological fiction available at http://www.strangeark.com , but having just been there i couldn't find the link. :(
 
The same theme occurs in many of historical author Rosemary Sutcliffe's roman and celtic period stories. I think as a complete explanation for fairly lore it has been discredited but perhaps combined with the older gods being demoted to the pixies and sprites of a later culture and the creativity of the storytellers who blended their own and previous traditions it is a starting point.
 
I started a thread on the pixies of Hinkley point nuclear power station when I first joined the board but it rapidly declined into the sort of OT mayhem typical of the time :D
The village I lived in (just two miles from the plant), and I mean the whole village from small children to old people, were absolutely sure the power station was cursed because it was built on a 'pixie house' and any accidents or deaths (and there often were) were blamed on this. A serious accident at the plant that involved deaths, while I was living near there, was caused supposedly by the removal of a statue of a pixie from the entrance of the plant. I think the statue was some sort of guardian against the bad luck, if it existed at all.
 
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