Away With the Faery
Exploring the Irish Gentry
by Paula Vaughan
The Irish Gentry or The Good People are a distinct, invisible race of beings who inhabit, haunt and guard the bogs, hills, forests, and tombs of Ireland. The Good People or Irish faeries hold seductive power that envelops the senses, enrapts reason and intoxicates the imagination. A real and serious peril, the Faery - both dream state and physical plane - is considered by natives to be the liminal dimension of in-betweens where careless, naive wanderers find themselves prisoners. Tales and stories shared by pastoral folk living off and with the land tell of men and women, fooled into imprisonment by Faery glamour and human ignorance, encased in sepulchers of growing vines and decaying soil, shackled and frozen within sidhes (pronounced shee, meaning Faery mound or hill), as life above churns forward.
Considered life altering, if not endangering, being away with the faery mocks temporal aging, stealing the chance to form normal human connections and is avoided by locals through a series of name, place and behavioral taboos; food appeasement; and lucky charms that are the backbone of many contemporary Irish social and religious customs. Compared to the supernatural otherworld or shamanic unconscious, Faery imposes fatal risk to the health and well-being of the human soul and if foolhardily sought, the journey is rarely survived. The spellbound become objects of Faery amusement and need, lost in deceptive visions of grandeur, seeing what they want to see rather than what truly exists.
The Irish Gentry come is various shapes, forms and sizes. The Tuatha De Danaan are the giant, ancestral underworld gods credited with settling Ireland who retired into subterranean palaces beneath lakes, menhirs and hills. Luminous and holy, the Tuatha De Danaan glisten among sparkling earth gems, twining branches and rich soil, all representing their royal, hallowed, fecund status in Irish faith and antiquity. Immortal spirits of earth and air, the Tuatha De Danaan rule the shadows as unparalleled masters of adaptation and change, epitomized by their ferocity, courage, soundless movement and clairvoyance. The protectors of Irish culture and ancestry, the Tuatha De Danaan impart the regal majesty and allure of Faery.
Popularized in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Elizabethan faeries have become the American standard: tiny, winged, child-like creatures akin to benign poltergeists, absolutely distinct and unreal from Celtic Irish description and experience. A treacherous night when the veil concealing Faery drops and humans become playthings, Midsummer's Eve marks a time of whirring movement and wanton mischief suffered by helpless human quarry that destroys rationale and entices the heedless into a land of forbidden magic and mystery. Dangerous, frightening and unpredictable, Midsummer's Eve is marked by Irish revelers who light the night with bonfires, feigning a never-ending day that will keep Faery at bay.
A sudden, tornadic blast of wind, cacaphonic sound and blurred rush of unearthly green herald the Faery choosing to briefly, yet indelibly, come forth, showing themselves as what William Butler Yeats describes as part of our "invisible skin." An aspect of Nature shrouding us in an almost imperceptible blanket of life and mobility, the Faery enthralls the passions of mortals, making ravaged, hungry shades out of human men and women who forfeit their lives futilely attempting to satisfy their devotion. Feared, respected and craved, the incomprehensible beauty and deadly magnetism of the Faery has made them a timeless subject of Arthurian romance and Welsh epic.
Sought for centuries by those wishing to enhance or evade the realities of mortality and normalcy, Faery survives hidden between the clay and ether, living and dead. Revealing themselves through vivid, startling dreams; the rustle in the oaks; slight brush against a cheek; or eerily felt change in the wind, the eternal Faery perpetually seek "the boundaries, imperfections and chaos of humanity." Paradoxical and complex, faeries' desperate dependence upon the foyson or essence within human food, paramours, mothers, midwives and infants has created a symbiotic relationship between man and Faery that has birthed some of the most enraptured yet melancholic poetry, art and literature in the Western Hemisphere. Regarded as historical and psychological truth by many in rural Irish villages, the avoidance and respect for Faery continue to guide the spiritual, ethical and environmental mores of the Celtic people. A global phenomenon, the threatening, living role of faeries extends beyond the mythological or spiritual into the factual, eye-witness accounts of varied peoples.
Briggs, Katherine, Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library), Pantheon Books: New York, 1976, pp. 336-337. Briggs explains the derivation of Shakespeare’s Puck as the Celtic hobgoblin Robin Goodfellow who is good humored, helpful and compassionate toward scornful lovers but full of practical jokes. Additionally Shakespeare seems to have borrowed some of the characteristics from the Welsh pooka a more malevolent and solitary fairy who leads “benighted wanderers” up narrow paths to the edge of a ravine then leaps over, blowing out the candle and leaving the traveler alone in the dark. Briggs is respected as one of the premier scholars of fairy tradition and lore and has written other well-documented books about the subject.
Evans-Wentz, W.Y., Ph.D., The Faery Faith in Celtic Countries, Carol Publishing Books: New York, 1994, p. 347-348. Evans-Wentz explains that in addition to Faery romance, Faery adventures or imrams are undertaken by heroic men to enter the sidhe. The sidhe, or Faery underworld, legends are then separated into two classes: Tir Innambeo or Tir na nOg -Land of the Living- beautiful, peaceful land of everlasting life located in the West under the ocean; Hades-type place of strife where heroic mortals are induced to aid in Faery troubles. Evans-Wentz's book is the most intensive, elaborate and philosophical book on Faery and includes unparalleled anthropological, ethnographic study.
Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages : An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Philosophy, Penguin Group: New York, 2003, pp. 328-341. Hall provides in-depth explanation of sylphs as air elementals in the hierarchy of the spirit world.
Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages : An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Philosophy, Penguin Group: New York, 2003, pp. 328-341.
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Compared to the supernatural otherworld or shamanic unconscious, Faery imposes fatal risk to the health and well-being of the human soul and if foolhardily sought, the journey is rarely survived.
Paula Vaughan
, Holt, Rinehart and Winston: New York, 1972, pp. 28-43. McHargue offers the view that the Faery are a "proud people on the brink of starvation." As a "conquered people" from the Celtic invasions Faery are compelled to kidnap and interfere with humans in order to survive.
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