#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/07/26 -- On the Origins of the Fair Folk

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 39: July 26, 2023

 

 

On the Origins of the Fair Folk

 

Editorial Introduction

                In response to the enthusiastic reception that my annual Midsummer Eve feature on the Fair Folk always generates, I’ve decided to share some not-so-well-known lore about these Otherworldly people who populate our imagination (and who knows – perhaps a parallel dimension?!). Specifically, where did they come from, and how did they originate? Many answers have been proposed to these questions, both by folklorists and philosophers, but in medieval Europe, some intriguing tales of Fair Folk origins had begun to circulate among Keltik Christian theologians after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and these legends eventually spread to Continental Europe during the High Middle Ages. Here is what these medieval loremasters had to say about the origins of the Fair Folk – followed by a trio of faery poems by Madison Julius Cawein, one of my great-grandparents’ favorite poets!

 

“The Longaevi: Rational Nonhuman Beings in the Medieval Worldview”

Adapted from a Presentation by the Editor at the Lutheran Campus Center in September 2013

                Since late antiquity, Christian theologians have been thinking about how humans might interact with nonhuman sentient beings. Creatures of this type were believed to exist midway between angels and humans on the Great Chain of Being; to the Latin-speaking scholars of medieval Europe, these “midwayers” were known as the Longaevi (the “Long-lived Ones”), and they came in many shapes and sizes. Some were thought to be human in appearance; others might be smaller in stature (like the Hobbits of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth legendarium) or taller in stature (like the High Elves of Norse mythology). There were also non-humanoid Longaevi, such as the centaurs and satyrs that were said to have interacted with St. Antony (251-356 CE) on his travels through the Egyptian desert.

                According to both oral folklore and written chronicles, the Longaevi could – and often did – interact with humans, who struggled to understand their Fair Folk neighbors’ place in the grand scheme of things. Most sources also were in agreement that the Longaevi were extremely long-lived (or perhaps even immortal) and that they tended to dwell in out-of-the-way places where humans couldn’t easily disturb them (such as beneath hollow hills or in unexplored underground caverns). Like humans, the Longaevi practiced various arts and crafts, enjoyed music and storytelling, and formed social groups based on kinship.

 

The Origins of the Fair Folk

                There were many theories about the origins of the Longaevi among medieval scholars and theologians. One of the most popular ideas was that the Longaevi were “neutral angels” who took neither side in the primeval conflict between the forces of good (order) and evil (chaos). (A summary of this narrative is depicted in the opening verses of Revelation 12, although it is firmly rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, which contain numerous references to it that are scattered throughout the sacred books of poetry and prophecy.)

The notion of “neutral angels” is expounded in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Middle High German epic poem, Parzival, which he composed in the early 13^th century. In Book 9 of the epic poem, Sir Parzival learns about the neutral angels and their relationship to the Holy Grail from his uncle, the hermit Trevrizent. In Wolfram’s version, the neutral angels – now dwelling on Earth as Fair Folk – are assigned to guard the Holy Grail.

The legend of the neutral angels is also present in the various redactions of the Voyage of St. Brendan (written in the 9^th century) in which the intrepid Irish saint encountered neutral angels (in birdlike forms) on an island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The South English Legendary (a Middle English compendium of saints’ lives from the 13^th century), under the entry for September 29 (Michaelmas), includes a versified retelling of the legend, which portrays the Fair Folk (here called “elves”) in a way that strongly resembles the High Elves of Tolkien’s legendarium.

 

“The Trooping Faeries” by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Excerpted from Faery and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888)

                The Irish word for faery is sheehogue [sidheóg], a diminutive of "shee" in banshee. Faeries are deenee shee [daoine sidhe] (faery people).

                Who are they? "Fallen angels who were not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost," say the peasantry. "The gods of the earth," says the Book of Armagh. "The gods of pagan Ireland," say the Irish antiquarians, "the Tuatha De Danān, who, when no longer worshipped and fed with offerings, dwindled away in the popular imagination, and now are only a few spans high."

                And they will tell you, in proof, that the names of faery chiefs are the names of old Danān heroes, and the places where they especially gather together, Danān burying-places, and that the Tuatha De Danān used also to be called the slooa-shee [sheagh sidhe] (the faery host), or Marcra shee (the faery cavalcade).

                On the other hand, there is much evidence to prove them fallen angels. Witness the nature of the creatures, their caprice, their way of being good to the good and evil to the evil, having every charm but conscience – consistency. Beings so quickly offended that you must not speak much about them at all, and never call them anything but the "gentry," or else daoine maithe, which in English means good people, yet so easily pleased, they will do their best to keep misfortune away from you, if you leave a little milk for them on the window-sill overnight. On the whole, the popular belief tells us most about them, telling us how they fell, and yet were not lost, because their evil was wholly without malice.

                Are they "the gods of the earth"? Perhaps! Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the earth, who have no inherent form but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The visible world is merely their skin. In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them. They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible – these creatures of whim.

                Do not think the faeries are always little. Everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one industrious person amongst them, the leprechaun--the shoemaker. Perhaps they wear their shoes out with dancing. Near the village of Ballisodare is a little woman who lived amongst them seven years. When she came home she had no toes – she had danced them off.

                They have three great festivals in the year--May Eve, Midsummer Eve, November Eve. On May Eve, every seventh year, they fight all round, but mostly on the "Plain-a-Bawn" (wherever that is), for the harvest, for the best ears of grain belong to them. An old man told me he saw them fight once; they tore the thatch off a house in the midst of it all. Had anyone else been near they would merely have seen a great wind whirling everything into the air as it passed. When the wind makes the straws and leaves whirl as it passes, that is the faeries, and the peasantry take off their hats and say, "God bless them."

                On Midsummer Eve, when the bonfires are lighted on every hill in honor of St. John, the faeries are at their gayest, and sometimes steal away beautiful mortals to be their brides.

                On November Eve they are at their gloomiest, for according to the old Gaelic reckoning, this is the first night of winter. This night they dance with the ghosts, and the pooka is abroad, and witches make their spells, and girls set a table with food in the name of the devil, that the fetch of their future lover may come through the window and eat of the food. After November Eve the blackberries are no longer wholesome, for the pooka has spoiled them.

                When they are angry they paralyze men and cattle with their faery darts.

                When they are gay they sing. Many a poor girl has heard them, and pined away and died, for love of that singing. Plenty of the old beautiful tunes of Ireland are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers. No wise peasant would hum "The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow" near a faery rath, for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips. Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, slept on a rath, and ever after the faery tunes ran in his head, and made him the great man he was.

                Do they die? Blake saw a faery's funeral; but in Ireland we say they are immortal.

 

Rhiannon, a queen of the Fair Folk, rides her horse through the Welsh countryside, sometime during the 1^st century BCE. Her story appears in the first and third branches of the Mabinogion (translated by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1877). (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Summary and Speculation

                So what do these stories tell us about the Fair Folk, and how humans related to them? Since they were supposed to be “neutral angels” who fell from heaven (but not too far!) and resided here on Earth, then they might be more similar to ourselves than we realize. If humans treat the Fair Folk well, then mortals can expect good treatment in return from their Otherworldly neighbors. Perhaps the same could be said of ETIs – because they share the same Universe with us, we might share more in common with them than we may at first suppose. The point here is not to prove or disprove the existence of the Longaevi; rather, by retelling these tales from long ago and far away, we can better understand how we might relate to other sentient, nonhuman beings in the future.

 

A Trio of Faery Poems by Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914)

The Editor wishes to dedicate this trio of faery poems to R.L.P., an unforgettable friend from my childhood days:

“Always together, never apart,

Maybe in distance, but never at heart.”

 

“Faeries”

 

I. On the tremulous coppice,

From her plenteous hair,

Large golden-rayed poppies

Of moon-litten air

The Night hath flung there.

 

II. In the fern-favored hollow

The fire-flies fleet

Uncertainly follow

Pale phantoms of heat,

Druid shadows that meet.

 

III. Hidden flowers are fragrant;

The night hazes furl

O'er the solitudes vagrant

In purple and pearl,

Sway-swinging and curl.

 

IV. From moss-cushioned valley

Where the red sunlight fails,

Rocks where musically

The hollow spring wails,

And the limber fern trails,

 

V. With a ripple and twinkle

Of luminous arms,

Of voices that tinkle,

And feet that are storms

Of chaste, naked charms,

 

VI. Like echoes that revel

On hills, where the brier

Vaults roofs of dishevel

And green, greedy fire,

They come as a choir.

 

VII. At the root of the mountain

Where the dim forest lies,

By the spar-spouting fountain

Where the low lily dies,

With their star-stinging eyes.

 

VIII. They gather sweet singing

In voices that seem

Faint ringing and clinging

In dreams that we dream,

In visions that gleam.

 

IX. Sweet lisping of kisses,

Dry rustle of hair;

A footfall that hisses

Like a leaf in the air

When the brown boughs are bare.

 

X. The music that scatters

From love-litten eyes;

The music that flatters

In words and low sighs,

In laughter that dies:

 

XI. "Come hither, come hither,

In the million-eyed night,

Ere the moon-flowers wither

And the harvester white,

Morning reaps them with light.

 

XII. "Come hither, where singing

Is pleasant as tears,

Or dead kisses, clinging

To the murdering years,

In memory's ears.

 

XIII. "Come hither where kisses

Are waiting for you,

For lips and long tresses,

As for wildflowers blue

The moon-heated dew.

 

XIV. "Come hither from coppice

And violet dale,

The mountain whose top is

In vapors that sail

With pearly hail pale.

 

XV. "Why tarry? come hither

While the molten moon beams,

Ere the golden spark wither

Of the glow-worm that gleams

Like a star in still streams!"

 

“The Faery Rade”

 

I. Ai me! why stood I on the bent

When Summer wept o'er dying June!

I saw the Faery Folk ride faint

Aneath the moon.

 

II. The haw-trees hedged the russet lea

Where cuckoo-buds waxed rich with gold;

The wealthy corn rose yellowly

Endlong the wold.

 

III. Betwixt the haw-trees and the mead

"The Faery Rade" came glimmering on;

A creamy cavalcade did speed

O'er the green lawn.

 

IV. The night was ringing with their reins;

Loud laughed they till the cricket hushed;

The whistles on their coursers' manes

Shrill music gushed.

 

V. The whistles tagged their horses' manes

All crystal clear; on these a wind

Forever played, and waked the plains

Before, behind.

 

VI. These flute-notes and the Faery song

Took the dim holts with many a qualm,

And eke their silver bridles rung

A far-off psalm.

 

VII. All rid upon pale ouphen steeds

With flying tails, uncouthly seen;

Each wore a scarf athwart his weeds

Of freshest green.

 

VIII. And aye a beam of silver light

Fairer than moonshine danced aboon,

And shook their locks--a glimmering white

Not of the moon.

 

IX. Small were they that the hare-bell's blue

Had helmeted each tiny head;

Save one damsel, who, tall as two,

The Faeries led.

 

X. Long tresses floated from a tire

Of diamond sparks, which cast a light,

And o'er her white sark shook, in fire

Rippling the night.

 

XI. I would have thrown me 'neath her feet,

And told her all my dole and pain,

There while her rein was jingling sweet

O'er all the plain.

 

XII. Alas! a black and thwarting cock

Crew from the thatch with long-necked cry--

The Elfin queen and her wee flock

In the night did die.

 

“The World of Faery”

 

I. When in the pansy-purpled stain

Of sunset one far star is seen,

Like some bright drop of rain,

Out of the forest, deep and green,

O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,

The fairest of her train.

 

II. The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth,

Of Lay and Legend, young as when,

Close to her side, in sooth,

She led me from the marts of men,

A child, into her world, which then

To me was true as truth.

 

III. Her hair is like the silken husk

That holds the corn, and glints and glows;

Her brow is white as tusk;

Her body like a wilding rose,

And through her gossamer raiment shows

Like starlight closed in musk.

 

IV. She smiles at me; she nods at me;

And by her looks I am beguiled

Into the mystery

Of ways I knew when, as a child,

She led me 'mid her blossoms wild

Of faery fantasy.

 

V. The blossoms that, when night is here,

Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales;

Or, each, a jeweled ear

Leaned to the elfin dance that trails

Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales

To cricket song and cheer.

 

VI. The blossoms that, shut fast all day,

Primrose and poppy, darkness opes,

Slowly, to free a fay,

Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes

With rain each web that, starlit, slopes

Between each grassy spray.

 

VII. The blossoms from which elves are born,

Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,

Whose deeps are cool as morn;

Wherein I oft have heard them blow

Their pixy trumpets, silvery low

As some bee's drowsy horn.

 

VIII. So was it when my childhood roamed

The woodland's dim enchanted ground,

Where every mushroom domed

Its disc for them to revel 'round;

Each glow-worm forged its flame, green drowned

In hollow snow that foamed

 

IX. Of lilies, for their lantern light,

To lamp their dance beneath the moon;

Each insect of the night,

That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,

And owl that raised its sleepy croon,

Made music for their flight.

 

X. So is it still when twilight fills

My soul with childhood's memories

That haunt the far-off hills,

And people with dim things the trees,

With faery forms that no man sees,

And dreams that no man kills.

 

XI. Then all around me sway and swing

The Puck-lights of their firefly train,

Their elfin reveling;

And in the bursting pods, that rain

Their seeds around my steps, again

I hear their footsteps ring;

 

XII. Their faery feet that fall once more

Within my way; and then I see,

As oft I saw before,

Her Spirit rise, who shimmeringly

Fills all my world with poetry,

The Loveliness of Yore.

 

Thomas the Rhymer (a Scottish bard from the 13^th century CE) meets the Queen of Elfland in this illustration by Katherine Cameron from 1908. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Related Links of Interest

·         The Secret Commonwealth (1692) by Robert Kirk (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm) is a fascinating description of the “Fair Folk” and their society, based on the then-current folk beliefs of the Scots-Irish Highlanders.

·         The Faery Mythology (1870) by Thomas Keightley (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/index.htm) contains a vast sampling of faerie lore from around the world.

·         Faery and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), edited, selected, and translated by William Butler Yeats (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/fip/index.htm), is a classic collection of Irish faerie tales from the Celtic Renaissance during the Victorian Era.

·         The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis (1964) contains a chapter on the Longaevi that has become a classic overview of the subject.

·         The Green Children of Woolpit (http://brian-haughton.com/articles/green-children-of-woolpit/) is an English faery tale from the 12^th century about two nonhuman children who were discovered in the village of Woolpit.

·         Elidyr and the Little People (http://emryscambrensis.com/2012/03/28/the-tale-of-elidyr-and-the-little-people/) is a medieval Welsh faery tale recorded by the antiquarian Gerald of Wales around 1200.

·         “Elves” (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elves) is an article about the Longaevi as they appear in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth legendarium.

·         Irish Monks and the Voyage of St. Brendan (https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/st-brendan-voyage.php) summarizes this popular medieval narrative and speculates on its historical basis.

·         The Early South English Legendary (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AHA2708.0001.001/1:1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext) is available to read online from the University of Michigan Library.

·         Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Parzivalhome.php) discusses the neutral angels in Book 9.

·         The Life of St. Anthony of Egypt by Athanasius of Alexandra (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo2;idno=A26121.0001.001) contains descriptions of non-humanoid Longaevi that were highly influential in later centuries.