Do you believe in Faeries?
Fairies are pagan in origin and are found amoung all branches of the Celtic families. Once known as pagan gods and goddesses, the tradition to worship these little beings spread to France, Germany, and the British Isles. The Welsh worshipped The Mother Goddess, and they called fairies The Mothers. Hence, Fairyland was always the Land of Women and fairies are often depicted as such.
The Irish still say fairies live in the pagan sidh (burial mounds and barrow graves), several hundred of which still stand in the Irish countryside today. Fairies are thought to have a connection to the deadlands as well as to heaven. They have the ability to freely weave in and out of the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. Fairies are still thought to come out of their hills (fairy hills) at Samhain or Halloween.
Fairies are also often found in wooded groves. Whether in hills or woods, they all reside in the land of "Tir na nog" which is the "Land of Eternal Youth". Mortals cannot often see fairies because of the division of the worlds, but every now and again they get a precious glimpse of them. This often will happen at twilight when the veil of the worlds is briefly parted. Travelers must be wary, however. Entering Tir na nog can be very dangerous as few mortals have been known to escape alive.
Mischievous fairies have been known to lure travelers into Tir na nog, and the few travelers that did return often described a dreamlike state in which they spent most of their time in a curious fog. Sometimes a traveler would come back decades later only to find his loved ones had passed away, while the traveler himself was still as young as the day he entered the grove. Will o' Wisps are illuminated fairies, pretty lights, which lead unwary travelers into this strange land, and can be avoided by refusing to follow them.
Fairy peoples are thought to have descended from the race of Elves. Elves are an ancient race of magical, slender creatures with pointed ears thought to be extinct. Unlike fairies, they lack the ability to fly, which may have made the fairies a more adaptable race. Elves were once very closely associated with the land and with nature and fairies took over many of their roles in this tradition. Fairies are now air, water, fire and tree spirits. These are also the four points that make up a pagan pentagram (air, water, fire and earth) and the fifth point is spirit, which the fairies incarnate represent.
Throughout most of the former celtic nations : Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany and Germany, the fairies are becoming things of the past. Even though fairies are commonly believed to exist today, from the eighteenth century and on they have been seen less and less. Once firmly ensconced in the minds of men, the fairies may now be in decline. That people do not often see them any more makes some argue that the fairies will eventually disappear as men stop believing in them.
There are many other ideas about the origins of fairies:-
One popular belief was that they were a class of "demoted" angels. That when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils, and those caught in between became fairies. Others held that they had been thrown out of heaven, not being good enough, but they were not evil enough for hell.
Another view of the birth of Fairies, comes from, J. M. Barrie novel, The Little White Bird in 1902, where he states, "...when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."
A less common belief was held that fairies were dead children. Children are said to be 'Bundles of Joy' and when a child dies, that joy is believed to form a fairy. The fairy is kept alive by the memory of a child so as long as the dead child is remembered, the fairy stays alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment