Adventures in Faeryland

What we now call the ‘Fairy Faith’ refers to a large body of traditional and folkloric practices that is a living tradition. Most cultures across the world have their versions of this, and indeed the belief in the existence of non-human beings that share our world is found across time and place. The Irish (and British) Fairy Faith is our focus here, and the term itself is usually used to refer to practices in Britain and Ireland; other countries and cultures will have their own words for it.

In spite of the term ‘Faith’ this is not a dogmatic religion with unified beliefs and practices but rather an umbrella term for the simple belief in fairies, and the various stories and traditions associated with this belief. The Fairy Faith, despite romanticisation in some circles, is not an unbroken strand of paganism or pagan witchcraft existing unchanged across time; it co-exists with all religions and lack of religion. Most believers in fairies in the West have historically been Christian, especially in Ireland, and this is still true in many cases. With the rise of neopaganism, many modern day pagans now incorporate the Fairy Faith into their practices, and practitioners of Irish polytheism in particular once again worship/honor the Tuatha de Danann as deities. Historically however, much of the ‘Fairy Faith’ consisted of ways to seek protection from the fairies, rather than connect with them. I have family members (all lapsed Catholics and otherwise atheist) who practice the Fairy Faith (although they would not call it this) and indeed it is something that is often kept quite secretive, and mostly consists of warnings around these beings and ways to avoid them ‘playing their tricks.’ One close family member claims they are sometimes able to see them (and describes them as ‘little and ugly,’) and has built something of a relationship with them, but would not recognise most neopagan practices and workings at all. They also claim to possess some psychic power, (I say that as someone who is naturally skeptical.) Interestingly in light of this, there is a tradition of cunning folk (what we would likely now call witches) and wise women (bean feasa in Irish) being popularly perceived as being taught by the fairies or having a closer connection with them than most. Biddy Early, for example, was a famous Irish wise woman and healer in the nineteenth century who was said to be able to intercede with the fairy folk and had been given a magical bottle by them which they took back after her death.

Tuatha de Danann

The Tuatha de Danann (usually translated as ‘people of the goddess Danu’) are a people prominent in the Irish mythological cycle, and in the popular imagination have been perceived in a variety of ways; as pagan enchanters, fallen angels, gods, and fairy nobility, also called the Sidhe. They live inside the fairy hills (the si) of Ireland after being defeated by the sons of Mil, mortals who invaded Ireland. Many of the names of the Tuatha are known to us; the father god, the Dagda, the war goddesses the Morrigan, Macha and Badb, the silver armed Nuada and Lugh, the god of many skills, Dian Ceht the healer god and his daughter Airmid, Aengus, Ogma and the sea god Manannan, and of course the goddess Brigid who later became St. Brigit, now a patron saint of Ireland along with Patrick. They are clearly very different from other beings who fall under the umbrella term of ‘fairy’ such as leprechauns, goblins, brownies etc, and are often depicted similarly to Tolkien’s elves such as Galadriel.

Although most of the Tuatha aren’t directly referred to as gods in the texts, they are clearly Otherworldly beings with supernatural powers, and although they are described as being slain in battle, they clearly do not die in the mortal sense as they are described as fleeing to the si, or fairy hills, which is where we now get the concept of the Sidhe, or Aos Si. They became the ‘nobility’ of the fairies, fairy kings and queens, inhabiting an Otherworld that runs parallel to and sometimes overlaps with our own. The general consensus seems to be that the stories of the Tuatha refer to the deities of Ireland prior to the coming of Christianity, and although there are plenty of scholars who challenge this, they have certainly become deities to the neopagans of today.

When we think of fairies today, then, we may indeed think of those shining, noble god-figures, or alternatively the twee little flower fairies of Victorian times, but historically the Fairy Faith, as mentioned above, was more likely to conceive of much weirder and less benign beings, and was much more about protection than worship or reverence or attempts to contact divine beings or channel archetypes. Today’s New Age depictions of fairy faiths tend to owe more to the Celtic Revivalists such as W. B. Yeats than to the actual living tradition and folklore.

The Celtic Revivalists and the Folkloric Record

The nineteenth century saw the beginning of the Celtic Revival, a surge of interest in the history, mythology and folklore of the ‘Celtic’ lands of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man. In Ireland, writers such as Lady Wilde (the mother of Oscar Wilde) Lady Augusta Gregory, George Russell and W.B Yeats, among others, wrote accounts of Irish folklore and fairy tales, both reviving the myths of the Tuatha de Danann and popularizing folklore and accounts of the Irish Fairy Faith. In many ways the Revival was a reaction to growing industrialization and modernization; it also reflected a growing interest in national movements and identities and the stories of the Fianna in particular later fed into the Irish nationalist movements of the early twentieth century. While in many ways the Revival led to a growth of interest in Irish folklore and appreciation for its history and mythology, it also sometimes fed into both romanticization and racist narratives of the ‘noble savage,’ literally referring to the rural Irish as the ‘peasantry’ and their practices as quaint and archaic, even as the authors sought to collect and translate the anecdotes and stories of the Irish population. As a result, while these works are often cited as authoritative sources on Irish folklore (and indeed I quote from some of them below) it should be remembered they are not wholly reliable narrators. Often, as with Yeats, they were searching for proof that Irish tradition could be used as evidence for their own spiritual beliefs and worldviews, which often stemmed from the earlier Romanticism movement and nineteenth century occult movements such as Theosophy. Yeats in particular had an overwhelming influence and helped reshape the gods of the Tuatha in the public imagination. According to scholar Mark Williams, Yeats was attempting to fit the gods of the Tuatha into his own symbolic system, and he also popularized the idea that the fairies of the si were indeed the old gods. Unfortunately, he also fed Revivalist (and false) ideas of rural pagan survivals (which in turn fed the early neopagan movements) and popularized the idea that;

‘Ireland’s rural, Catholic poor could thus be made out to be atavistic semi-pagans in a world still thronged with beings that their ancestors had once worshiped, beings whose divine status was continually on the point of reasserting itself. Unsurprisingly, considerable offense was taken in Catholic quarters at this skewed vision of rural piety.’

While, as discussed below, the Fairy Faith certainly represents an animist worldview and has existed, it seems, in some form for as far back as we have records for, nineteenth century adherents to it did not see themselves as worshiping pagan gods, never mind following an occult tradition that just happened to illuminate Yeats’ own pre-existing beliefs.

The Revival did however help pave the way for later folklorists and folklore societies to begin collecting and transcribing further indigenous accounts of Irish practice, and collections such as the Schools Collection, collected from pupils and teachers in the 1930s, can now be found available online for researchers and scholars, providing a large primary source for Irish folklore without needing to look through the secondary lens of the Revivalists.

There are of course, gaps in the folklore records and no doubt some stories and experiences will be lost to the mists of time. One particular gap, which personally irks me, is the voices of Irish Travellers.

Irish Travellers, like my own grandparents, are a traditionally nomadic, indigenous Irish people. Recent genetic research has shown that Travellers are a distinct ethnic minority and likely became a distinct people from at least the time of Cromwell, when many Irish people had their lands and homes seized and were forced onto the road. There is evidence however of a Traveller presence in Ireland from the twelfth century. While indigenously Irish, Travellers developed their own distinct cultural practices and their own dialects, such as Shelta, which is linguistically very close to Old Irish. (To give you an example of the difference, the Irish word for woman is ‘bean,’ whereas the word I grew up hearing was ‘byor.’) Often outcast and persecuted by other Irish people, Travellers still face severe racism and discrimination today, in both Ireland and the countries we have emigrated to - most notably the UK.

Irish Travellers therefore have a unique relationship to Ireland and Irish culture, as well as the wider Irish diaspora. We don’t tend to think of ourselves as ‘diaspora’ but simply as Travellers, even long after we may have stopped being nomadic. In my family, my paternal grandfather was the last to be nomadic, eventually settling in Dublin. The urge to assimilate in order to give my mother a better life (especially given low infant mortality rates) led to much of our culture and stories being, not ‘lost’ but certainly covered over and not passed down.

Irish Travellers were historically known for traditional crafts, especially tinsmithing, storytelling and healing ‘cures’ both herbal and magical, and many did and do ‘keep the Fairy Faith.’ As a result, Travellers are often romanticized by neopagan practitioners, including Irish ones, seen both as ‘keeping the old ways alive’ and, particularly if still nomadic, as somehow primitive, as some kind of ‘pagan remnant’ much as the Victorian and Edwardian folklorists viewed the rural Irish. They/we are not. Travellers are historically as Catholic as the rest of Ireland, with their Catholicism woven through folk magic practices such as protection charms and healing cures (where these are practiced - Travellers are often in fact less superstitious than settled rural people, something also noted in the folklore record alongside the competing belief that Travellers had healing powers and conversed with fairies.)

So, I have a cultural interest in - and experience of - the Fairy Faith as an ancestral, living tradition, and as it fascinates me, I’ve decided to devote the occasional post on this blog to researching and writing about it. I should make something clear however.

I don’t actually believe in fairies (sorry, Tinkerbell.)

I’m a naturalist, and while I share my ancestors’ fascination with fairies and land spirits and plant spirits and ghosts, etc, I don’t share their belief. I respect them - and anyone else who is a believer - but I don’t share them. It’s just how my neurodivergent brain works these days - if I haven’t got both firsthand experience of and a ton of peer reviewed evidence for something, I can’t help but be skeptical. Skeptical does not mean disrespectful however, and I strongly feel that naturalist and supernatural perspectives can both learn deeply from one another. I think of belief as a spectrum rather than a binary and I think it’s always a bad idea to assume that belief or lack of it constitutes knowledge. If you can’t prove fairies exist, then I can’t prove they don’t, either.

My interest in these beings stems from two, intertwined places. Firstly, the wish to reclaim and connect with my heritage and culture, and two, the growing realisation that indigenous and nomadic perspectives have deep wisdom contained within. I’ve already written a post on the dark side of fairy belief and how superstition can become dogma can become danger, but there is much to be said about the positive, wiser side of these perspectives also.

An area I believe exploring fairy belief can highlight is that of a new engagement with animistic thinking.

Animism and Fairy Belief

Animism, one of the oldest and most widespread religious beliefs in human history, continues to shape the spiritual and cultural practices of various indigenous peoples around the world. Rooted in the idea that the natural world is alive with spirit, consciousness, and power, animism suggests that non-human entities, such as animals, plants, rocks, and natural forces, possess their own form of agency. This belief system is far more than a simple mythology; it is a worldview that influences how individuals and communities interact with the environment, one another, and the cosmos.

Animism is not a single, unified belief system but rather a broad term used to describe the foundational idea that the world is inhabited by spiritual beings or forces. This belief is often traced back to early human societies, long before the advent of organized religions or written traditions. However, recent scholarship has moved beyond these early, reductionist theories. It is now understood that animism, far from being a mere stepping stone to more complex belief systems, represents a sophisticated worldview in its own right. At the heart of animism lies the concept of spirit or soul in all things. Unlike dualistic religions that distinguish sharply between human and non-human entities, animism sees a continuity of life across all beings, suggesting that all things, whether they be human, animal, plant, rock, river, or the wind, share a common spiritual essence. This understanding has a counterpart in modern science as panpsychism, the idea that mind or consciousness is a fundamental feature of all matter.

A critical element of animism is the idea that humans do not occupy a privileged position in the universe, but are one part of a larger, interdependent ecological system. This perspective emphasizes relationality, the belief that all beings are interconnected, and that the welfare of one depends on the welfare of others. The relationships between humans and the natural world, and between humans and other-than-human beings, are understood to be reciprocal. For example, in many animistic cultures, humans must engage in ritual practices to honor, appease, or ask permission from the spirits of the land, the animals they hunt, or the plants they harvest. These acts are seen as necessary for maintaining balance and harmony in the world. Another key concept in animism is agency. Non-human entities are not passive objects in the world, but active participants with their own wills and intentions. Animals, trees, rivers, and even the land itself are understood to have their own desires and powers. This perspective fosters a sense of humility and respect, as human beings are seen as sharing the world with other powerful agents, each deserving of respect and consideration. I explored how this idea is actually true on many levels, including increasingly the scientific, in my review of Robert MacFarlanes latest book.

Within this context, the beings referred to as “fairies” are best understood not as whimsical creatures of children’s stories or even as mythological deities, but as expressions of an animistic cosmology. These beings were often associated with specific places in the landscape such as hills, mounds, forests, and waterways and were treated with a mixture of reverence, caution, and reciprocity. Offerings of milk, bread, or butter might be left to maintain good relations, and certain places were and still are, especially in rural Ireland, avoided or approached with ritual awareness.

An oral tradition still exists, both among Travellers and rural folk, that keeps old stories about fairies and the land alive, and encoded within these stories are glimpses of this more connected, panpsychist worldview. This is one of the things I want to explore more deeply on this blog, because the oral traditions that have been preserved may offer us wisdom that we have forgotten. As Irish researchers Anne Marie Kavanagh and Catriona Ni Cassaithe state:

historically, indigenous people “always knew to take only what they needed” and replace what they could. A similar profound respect for nature and close relationship to the land is found in Mincéir (Traveller) culture in Ireland, particularly in regard to the healing qualities of herbs and plants.

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