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Richard Dadd's Puck 1841

As W.Y. Evans-Wentz said in his introduction to The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries:

“At all events, and equally for the unbeliever and for the believer, the study of the Fairy-Faith is of vast importance historically, philosophically, religiously, and scientifically. In it lie the germs of much of our European religions and philosophies, customs, and institutions. And it is one of the chief keys to unlock the mysteries of Celtic Mythology. We believe that a greater age is coming soon, when all the ancient mythologies will be carefully studies and interpreted, and when the mythology of the Celts will be held in very high esteem. But already an age has come when things purely Celtic have begun to be studied; and the close observer can see the awakening genius of the modern Celt manifesting itself in the realm of scholarship, of literature, and even of art – throughout Continental Europe, especially France and Germany, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and throughout the new Celtic world of America, as far west as San Francisco on the great calm ocean of the future facing Japan and China. In truth the Celtic empire is greater than it ever was before Caesar destroyed its political unity; and its citizens have not forgotten the ancient faith of their ancestors in a world invisible.”

Faerie is an important part of our Craft. There is a call to our blood that leads us upon any of the three roads of Thomas the Rhymer — the braid, braid road, level and even that runs straight on across the sand, so that no one travelling by  it can lose their way; or,  the narrow, winding and long road, beset thick with thorn-hedge and briar-hedge, so wild and tangled, that those who travel it have difficulty in persevering on their journey; or, for those most determined of folk, the bonnie, bonnie road that winds up the hillside among brackens and heather and golden-yellow whins…

That third road – the bonnie road – that runs up the brae among the ferns, and leadeth no mortal kens whither — leads to fair Elf-land…and that road take we.1

This section includes several faerie poems and songs from a collection that a friend found on the internet, and forwarded a zipped archive to me; however, they failed to include the URL of the original site. During one of our site revisions, several of these pages had code duplicated, rendering them garbled. With the present revision, the section has been largely taken offline and each page is being reviewed and cleaned up for reposting. Those which have been reviewed are listed in the sidebar menu under Fairy Lore; if the piece you are seeking is not shown, rest assured that it will make a reappearance with time.

A few places elsewhere to look:

R.J. Stewart has been kind enough to provide the text of the 1692 book The Secret Commonwealth of Elves Fauns and Faeries by Robert Kirk on-line for free at http://www.dreampower.com/texts.html, while R J Stewart’s workshop calendar and other materials is available at www.dreampower.com. Both websites are heartily recommended. The Secret Commonwealth of Elves Fauns and Faeries is the journey of the Reverend Robert Kirk, who, according to credible witnesses, spent several years in Faerie, returned to the Land of Man, and then disappeared again — some say he still lives on, in Faerie;

The Tam Lin Pages

Dalriada Celtic Heritage Trust
website offline as of June 12 2007; link goes to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

We will be adding more faerie lore to this site in the near future.


Sources and notes:

1. Scottish Fairy Tales, 1994 by Senate, an imprint of Tiger Books International; “Thomas the Rhymer”


Notices and corrections:

The collection of “Fairy Poems” associated with this website in the past have been removed, in part to mistakes in author attribution, lack of relevance to what we do, or by request of an author. Some may be restored at a future date.