Becfola in Faery

Becfola by Arthur Rackham

She left the palace with one maid, and as she crossed the doorway something happened to her, but by what means it happened would be hard to tell; for in the one pace she passed out of the palace and out of the world, and the second step she trod was in Faery, but she did not know this. Her intention was to go to Cluain da chaillech to meet Crimthann, but when she left the palace she did not remember Crimthann any more. To her eye and to the eye of her maid the world was as it always had been, and the landmarks they knew were about them. But the object for which they were travelling was different, although unknown, and the people they passed on the roads were unknown, and were yet people that they knew. They set out southwards from Tara into the Duffry of Leinster, and after some time they came into wild country and went astray. At last Becfola halted, saying: "I do not know where we are." The maid replied that she also did not know.

James Stephens from Irish Fairy Tales

The Washer at the Ford

Who sits by the ford, wringing her hands as she wrings the rags of the old year? She is old and weary and her lament is an eerie background rattle against the sounds of the rushing stream and the whine of the wind through the trees as their leaves fall onto chill waters or drift away on the back of the wind.

Would you cross the ford? Will you meet her in the swirling waters? She may ask you a riddle. She may ask for a rhyme. Or require you to wring out a rag for her.

"Where are you going my pretty one?"

What will you answer?

"I bring you a gift old Elder Mother. I bring you some wine from the berries of your tree. I pour it here now your leaves are fled and carried away on the wind with your sighs."

"Pour your wine then", she may reply, out of her emptiness, out of the cave of her endless night. And her plaintive voice say:
"Shall you pass?"

Why is it you that should answer that question?

"O Wraith of the Night, what I have brought thee is truly offered and comes from my heart. It is but a token of what I can offer, out of becoming when nothing is."

"Then pass, o neophyte of the Night, pass with the winter that is upon us. When that has passed and you have crossed over, the way shall be open and the deed is done."

And the deed is done.

The Witch of Ben-y-Gloe

Two scottish deer poachers were caught in a storm in the mountains and went astray. They spent the night in the best shelter they could find but the next day was little better and their provisions were running out. The lands they thought they knew so well were strange to them as they tried to find a way home. As darkness fell, and they feared another night in the open, they saw a bothy up ahead. They approached it, not expecting anyone to be using it so late in the season, but as they reached it an old woman, wild and haggard looking, beckoned them inside. She told them she had been expecting them, and their supper and beds were ready. She stirred soup in a bubbling cauldon as she crooned a song in an unfamiliar language. The men sat terrified, unable to eat as the old woman held up a rope with three knots in it and told them of her power over the weather:

“If I loosen the first knot there shall blaw a fair wind, such as any deer stalker may wish; if I loosen the second, a stronger blast shall sweep o’er the hills; and if I loosen the third, such a storm will brake out, as neither man nor beast can suffer; and the blast shall yowl down the corries and the glens, and the pines shall fall crashin into the torrents, and this bare arm shall guide the course o the storm, as I sit on my throne of Cairn-Gower, on the peak o Ben-y-Gloe. Well did ye ken my power the day, when the wind was cauld and deadly, and all was dimmed with snow - and ye see that ye was expectit here, and ye have brought no venison; but if ye mean to thrive, ye must place a fat hart, or a barren hind in the Braes o’ Atholl, by Fraser’s cairn, at midnight, the first Monday in every month, while the season lasts. If ye neglect my bidding, foul will befall ye, and the fate of Walter o Rhuairm shall overtake ye; ye shall surely perish in the waste; the raven shall croak yer dirge; and yer bones shall be picked by the eagle.”

The poachers gave their word to do as the old woman asked, ate her food and fell into a deep sleep.  When they awoke the bothy was deserted and there was no sign of the old woman. The storm had abated and the men were able to find their way home. It is assumed that they kept their word and left the offerings of deer as instructed.

[adapted from] William Scrope The Art of Deer Stalking (1839) also referred to in Visions of the Cailleach David Rankine and Sorita d'Este (2009)

Arthur's Stone

Arthur's Stone - Herefordshire, near the border with Wales

Joseph Gwynne told me that when he was a boy the great stone called Arthur's Stone was much longer than it is now. A hundred sheep could lie under the shadow of it. Also the stone stood much higher on the supporting pillars than it does at present, so high indeed that an ordinary sized man could walk under it. Across the green lane and opposite the stone was a rock lying flat on the ground on which were imprinted the marks of a man's knees and fingers. These marks were believed to have been made by King Arthur when he heaved the stone up on his back and set it on the pillars.

Kilvert's Diary 1878

***

"Arthur and his huntsmen to hunt the Twrch Trwyth. He is a man of great power, but he will not help you, for he is one of mine."

The giant Ysbaddaden Pencawr
in Culhwch and Olwen (11th cent.)

Nocturnal companies known as the Herlethingus were fairly well-known in England until the time of our present King Henry II. They were troops engaged in endless wandering, in an aimless round, keeping an awe-struck silence, and in them many persons known to have died were seen alive. This household of Herlethingus was last seen in the marches of Wales and Hereford in the first year of the reign of King Henry. They travelled as we do, with wagons and sumpter horses, pack-saddles and panniers, hawks and hounds, and a concourse of men and women. Those who first saw them raised the whole country against them, with horns and shouts … but they rose into the air and vanished suddenly.

Walter Map (12th Century)

Welsh Faerie Lore

In the Welsh tradition Gwyn ap Nudd is the King of Annwn and it is possible to enter his faerie realm through certain caves or holes in the ground, often by removing a heavy stone by speaking some special words. Sometimes it is possible to get there through lakes or pools or through underground passages and hidden streams.

There is a particular race of Welsh faeries called Plant Rhys Ddwfn who live on islands off the coast of Cardigan Bay. But they emerge on land through an invisible portal which is protected by certain herbs which grow around the place. This is a small area of land which is located in the same space as that inhabited by humans but which cannot be seen or experienced by them unless they are given the faerie sight.

There is no connection between this land and the land of the dead for its inhabitants are ever-living. It is a land of plenty and many tales of people being taken into it tell of them sleeping in beds of silk only to awake in the morning among rushes and ferns. Time passes differently there, and sometimes it is possible to go there without going through a physical gateway, but by being enchanted, as this story illustrates:

Siôn ap Siencyn was one afternoon walking in the woods when a bird began to sing so sweetly that he was spellbound and he sat down to listen to the song. While the bird sang he was in a state of bliss. Eventually the bird stopped singing and Siôn stood up and noticed that the leafy tree he had sat beneath was now all dry and withered. He went home. But the house looked very different although it was the same house. A man in the doorway asked him what he wanted. "This is where I live", he replied. In conversation it turned out that the man was Siôn's great grandson. There was a family legend that Siôn had been carried off to the Otherworld and would only return, according to a conjuror who had been called in to explain his disappearance, when the last drop of sap had withered from the tree. He entered the house but it was like walking through empty air. To his great-grandson he seemed to crumble to dust before him.

{Adapted from Welsh Folklore and Custom by T. Gwynn Jones}

May and Midsummer

"Lady Smocks all silver-white / Do paint the meadows with delight" (Shakespeare)

A Pagan Movement Archive item from Tony Kelly:

Maytime is a time of brightening days, of flowers and insects and new green leaves. All life seems to be bursting out anew, birdsong is exuberant and we're abundantly aware of the fertility of it all. It's a feeling of joy in your soul which won't be gainsaid.

Yet, it can also be approached in a quantitative scientific way. Some years ago, when we were touring the whole land here every week and noting each new species of flower to appear, we were able, at the end of the year, to construct a graph showing week by week the number of new species of flower appearing for the first time that year. The graph was down at zero in Yule and for a month or two thereafter; the first flowers began to appear in their ones and twos, and gradually the pace increased. As the weeks went by, each new week brought a greater abundance of new species into bloom to add to those already in flower. After a time, these increments began to become smaller again. They still added to the flowers already in bloom, making them even more abundant, but the actual increases began to get smaller. When we drew the curve, the peak was in Midsummer, but the steepest slope was in Mid-May; it was in Mid-May that the Goddess was unfolding all her finery the fastest. And May in the modern Gregorian calendar is very close indeed to Mayday in the old Julian reckoning.

We did the same thing for the appearance of each new species of moth at our windows, and again we got a curve of the same kind, and again the steepest slope was in Mid-May (and we used a book to confirm the picture for the beetles). May is the month of acceleration as Midsummer is the season of abundance. In May the flowers, the moths and butterflies and the other insects and the green leaves are arriving fastest; in Midsummer they're most abundant.