Halloween: Time of the Fae

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So you think Halloween’s all ghosts and witches, goblins and ghouls do you?  It is, I suppose. But what about fairies? This is the time of year they’ll get ye, you know; restless souls aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the thinning veil between here and the Otherworld. Not so long ago people had the wisdom to remember that and kept an especially watchful eye for spritely shenanigans around now. These days, though, the autumnal power of the fae folk tends to get overlooked in favour of imported pumpkins and sugar-coated candy.

Speaking of, what ever happened to carving turnips and bobbing for apples? And I bet no one gives trick-or-treaters monkey nuts and mandarins at the doors anymore. Poor parents nowadays with their buzzed up kids. When I was little we came home with bags of fruit and nuts; you were doing well if you got a couple of chocolate bars or a toffee apple. No one decorated their houses then either, and people told ghost stories instead of partying. It was spookier!

It’s funny to think of the cycle of Halloween as a holiday over the past couple of centuries: first the Irish took it with them on their coffin ships to America. There it was adapted to fit with the harvest of the new land (e.g lots of pumpkins, not so many turnips), as well as being mingled in with similar traditions from other cultures (the Mexican Day of the Dead, for example). Then you Yanks, being the grandmasters of capitalism that you are, sold the whole thing back to us via Mars bars and movies. Don’t get me wrong, this new version of Halloween is as much fun in its own way, probably more so. I just can’t help mourning how many of the Irish traditions we’ve lost even since I was a child in the late 80s. Like the fairy stories! Image source

Yes, I did remember about the fairies. The whole point of this post was to not forget the fairies! They don’t have blogs of their own, you see, and need someone to draw attention to their plight as an underappreciated spirit race at this most important time of year, when their influence on the human world is at its strongest.  After all, the fae can be as scary as any other spooky spectre abroad on a Samhain eve. Just look at the most terrifying vision of them all- the Banshee, whose name is actually only the anglicised form of ‘Ban Sidhe’, literally meaning ‘woman fairy’. You wouldn’t want one of those things showing up at your door on a dark night, believe me. Image by Norma Peters

She gets them a bad press though, in my opinion. Fae come in many forms and not all their influence is to be feared. In fact, most of the time if you do them a good turn they’ll repay you straight back, like in the wee anecdote below. Taken from a lovely little set fairy and ghost stories collected from around my local area by the good people over at movilleinishowen.com, it’s a great example of why we should embrace the little folk and their mischievous ways. And be on the lookout for them this festive season!

 

 Image by cambiodefractal

To the mind of the older generation the world of spirits was all around. The souls of the dead did their Purgatory in the area in which they lived during life; fairies lived in every hill and dell and were constantly in touch with human beings, and the devil and his assistants were all the time on the watch. In the daytime nothing was visible but at night the whole spirit world became fully active. The lonely road and the empty house were spots to be avoided. Only the rash and the foolhardy went to such places.

Some fairies were good. Donall O Gallchoir and Sean O Gormain of Gortlesk in Ballygorman were making poteen at a wild and lonely spot at the bottom of the Bengorms. It was midnight when the stilling was completed the two men sat quietly sampling the whiskey. Suddenly a small, red-haired woman appeared with a small tin pan in her hand. The two men regarded her, without fear, as a spirit. She asked for some whiskey, which was given to her. As she turned to leave she thanked them in Irish and told them that the police were coming. Then she disappeared.

The men hurriedly hid all the apparatus and, each with a keg of whiskey on his shoulder, went in haste up the bens by a devious route. At the top they secreted themselves for a while. Soon they saw a party of police go directly towards where they had been stilling. The men quietly went their way in safety to Gortlesk.

© movilleinishowen.com