Faeries & Elementals for Beginners: Learn About & Communicate With Nature Spirits (3 page)

of the classical elements. In this chapter, we’ll examine the outliers called faeries as a whole, and then I will give some example of especially common faeries in folklore, as well as a few that are particularly elemental in nature. Some faeries fit the stereotype seen in popular culture of small winged people. Others may look not humanoid at all in their associated myths and legends. Many faeries are adorable and

friendly folk, while many others may be mischievous or

downright dangerous and mean.

In general, well-meaning faeries are lumped into the

Seelie category, while those that probably wish you harm

are called Unseelie. Think of them as a huge kingdom of

creatures. Just as you can’t characterize all animals as “nice,”

living things that would make fine pets, faeries vary widely
Getting started with Faeries • 11

depending on the culture and region that gave them life in literature and through spirituality. Nearly all faeries have been given a bad reputation at some point or another, simply because they are given to pleasures like music and dancing, feasting and drinking, playing and partying. At various points in history, all of those joys have been forbidden or enjoyed only in moderation by people who often thought

that faeries demonstrated a disgraceful lack of restraint.

Yet as unspecific as the concept of faeries may be, some

magical practitioners connect with them on a deep level.

If each of the four elemental types gives a person greater understanding and control of the building blocks of the

universe, you can think of faeries as a tangible conceptual connection with nature and the energetic force of life itself.

Even if you don’t believe in faeries in the literal sense, it can help to personify the very real powers they represent.

How you can communicate with faeries

and incorporate them into your life.

Adding faerie energies to your life can be very useful, and not just because faeries are pretty and cute. Befriending

faeries, or at least getting on their good side, can spare you from their faerie misdeeds and gain you some magical help.

Faeries might help with chores around the house and gar-

den, and even assist in finding lost objects. Some might

say that those lost objects were the very things stolen by the faeries in the first place, so I’ll leave it to you to decide whether they are doing you a favor by returning them.

Faeries are healing creatures, especially for those suffering
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emotional or spiritual afflictions, as they can bring joy back into life.

Faeries are feral creatures, so they are intimately in tune with both wild and domesticated animals. As such, faeries are naturally inclined to help animals and can be asked to help as intermediaries when you are having a problem

with an animal in your care. For example, if your dog seems depressed, ask the faeries to help you find out what’s wrong and let them be your dog’s interpreter in your dreams.

Requesting their help to heal a sick horse can help the vet-erinarian’s work bring about results more quickly. You can ask for the aid of the faeries when dealing with wild animals as well, asking them to keep dangerous or annoying

animals away from your home.

As much as faeries are ministers to animals, they are

even more in tune with plants, allowing gardens, orchards

and crops to grow and thrive with abundance. Consider

inviting faeries into your life by designing a garden just for them. A faerie garden should be mostly flowering plants,

arranged closely together to create a lush and natural looking field of color. Faeries especially enjoy bell-shaped flowers, which they can play with by tapping them as if ringing a real bell. You’ll need to garden organically, because chemically treated plants are said to be avoided by faeries. You may, however, enhance your garden with man-made art.

Decorate with faerie statues, faerie furniture or water features. If you play music in your garden, you will also find faeries flocking to its pleasant ambiance. Attracting local animals by planting butterfly flowers and putting up bird

Getting started with Faeries • 13

baths and feeders will bring cheerful faeries who love to be around their animal friends.

I don’t know about you, but I am a terrible gardener

and tend to kill the plants I try to keep. If you can’t keep a faerie garden, for whatever reason, but you still want to set something up to attract outdoor faeries, consider building a faerie grotto. If you can build a faerie grotto on your property, start with natural rock features and crystals. If you can, add a fountain, but otherwise you can use a birdbath or

an offering bowl of water as a water source. Showing the

faeries that the grotto is just for them with statues, faerie furniture, or other art may help. You can make offerings of food or drink nightly to the faeries in the grotto. Since you won’t be cultivating plants there, you can still benefit from the faerie-attracting powers of flowers by offering flowers in a vase or strung into a garland.

Evidence of Faeries

How can you tell if faeries have graced your home or gar-

den? The best way to tell that there are faeries making your life more magical is that the space will feel more peaceful and welcoming to you than before you started inviting

their presence. In the garden, flowers should bloom more

frequently, for a longer duration, and be larger and more

colorful when faeries are around. Likewise, you’ll see the presence of natural wildlife increase, with more sightings of beautiful birds, butterflies, frogs, dragonflies, lizards, squirrels and deer or other local fauna. In your home, your housecleaning efforts will seem to last for a longer period of
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time before the smudges and dust bunnies return. You may

even catch the scent of faeries working their magic in your home with the aromas of flowers or sweet baked goods.

Faerie rings are my favorite evidence of their presence.

A faerie ring is a circle of toadstools. Some say that faerie rings are portals for faeries to jump between dimensions.

Others say that faerie rings are like a circle of chairs used for faerie council meetings or dance parties. I’ve seen many a faerie ring of white toadstools in my front yard when I

was a child growing up. Every year, I would find one nearly in the same spot as the spring or fall before, and I would sit in the middle of the three to six foot circle of toadstools, feeling nature’s magic. Last year I was delighted to find a faerie ring had appeared in my yard, which awakened old

feelings of childhood delight and my early connection with the Little people.

Seeing Faeries

Some people see faeries in their mind’s eye, in dreams, or in the corners of their actual field of vision. They might appear as the classic winged creatures of faerie tales, or they may be tiny sparkling lights or fleeting shadows caught only for an instant in your mental picture. You may have heard

of phenomena like ghosts being caught on camera, and it

has been said that faeries might also allow themselves to

appear as light effects on photographs. So, if you have never been able to see a faerie, try creating a faerie garden and then take plenty of pictures around your most beautiful

flowers and visiting wildlife.

Getting started with Faeries • 15

Finding a rock that has a natural hole in the middle is

considered a gift from the faeries, a “holey stone.” Hold up a holy stone and look through the hole. You may be able

to see faeries with your real eyes for the first time. A holey stone has also been said to give people visions of the future, so such a gift from the faeries should be treated with reverence. Keep a holey stone on your elemental altar in the

north, or make it into a pendant and wear it as a protective amulet from the faeries.

Of course, there are also magical ways to give yourself

faerie sight. Traditionally, magic potions smeared on the

eyelids were used in order to see faeries. There are no surviving recipes of ancient magic potions for faerie sight. It may be that such potions were actually tinctures of hallucinogenic plants. After all, potentially hallucinogenic drinks such as absinthe have always been associated with seeing

green faeries. Modern faerie lovers have made countless

attempts at the potion using plants that are associated with faeries. For example, it is said that if you find a four leaf clover and blend it with faerie flowers like hollyhock, mari-gold, thyme, elecampane, and hazel, that the resulting dried flowers steeped in an oil such as grapeseed will make a good substitute. Store the oil in a dark bottle in a cool place.

When you want to see faeries, take yourself out in nature

at dawn, noon, dusk, or midnight. Smear a bit of the oil on each eyelid, and keep a watchful eye on a field of flowers. If you think you see a faerie, hold your eyes still without moving them and especially without blinking. Allow the faerie to choose to move into your field of vision, otherwise he or she will disappear with a blink.

16 • Chapter One

If you are of the proper age, constitution, and mind-

set to drink alcohol, using a bit of absinthe is the traditional method for bringing you in touch with the green

faerie that is an artistic muse. Grab a friend and a bottle of absinthe that contains real grand wormwood (
Artemisia
absinthium
), along with a couple of glasses, some ice, water, sugar cubes, and an absinthe spoon. An absinthe spoon is

usually a piece of decorated silverware featuring large, flat triangle with holes in it at the top. If you can’t acquire an absinthe spoon, a large fork or a serving spoon with holes in it will do in a pinch.

Again, go out in nature at dawn, noon, dusk or mid-

night. Start by pouring an ounce of absinthe into a serving glass. Mix a little bit of water with your ice so that the ice water slurry is thick with ice. Place a sugar cube on top of the slotted spoon, and hold it over a serving glass. Slowly pour the ice water mixture over the sugar cube until it is completely dissolved. When done correctly, you should see

the absinthe become cloudy. Go outside and take a sip. Use the same method of watching for faeries as with the faerie sight potion.

Getting on their good side

Although different faerie types have varying lore as to how they are best appeased, in general faeries are more likely to be on friendly terms with you if you treat them with

respect. Treating faeries with respect means offering them food and drink as you would honored guests, but especially entails treating the environment well. Don’t litter, do your
Getting started with Faeries • 17

part to conserve natural resources and energy, recycle, and leave a small carbon footprint. Remember that your home

is your environment as well, so pick up things that are left scattered about on the floor. Be sure to dust, sweep, mop, or vacuum.

How to talk to faeries

Get out in the natural world and talk aloud to the faeries.

The best times of day to get their attention are at dawn,

noon, dusk, and midnight, when they are most active. A

full moon may get more night faeries flitting about. May

and October are the best months to try to first get in touch with faeries. Midsummer, the summer solstice, has traditionally been associated with faerie gatherings. At the end of October, it is said that the veil between worlds becomes thin, so perhaps faeries from other realms can more easily pay a visit to ours.

Get their attention with an offering of something shiny

or some sweet food. You can even find a sparkly rock and

leave it for the faeries. Remove any non-biodegradable

packaging from candy before leaving it outdoors, of course, or they may feel more slighted than treated. Leaving an

offering is absolutely vital, or else the light-fingered faeries will simply take an offering that you may not have intended to give. For example, if the faeries desired a shiny trinket, and you did not leave them a sparkly piece of rock candy

from your pantry, they might steal your car keys instead,

leaving you to look high and low for them.

18 • Chapter One

If you feel moved to do so, faeries respond better if

you put your words into song. You can also write a letter

and leave it for the faeries, if you’re shy about talking out loud to things that you can’t see. Faeries love children, so if you have kids, invite them to come and talk to the faeries with you, and the faeries may listen to your kids’ request more than your own. You could tell your children to put in a good word for you. In turn, perhaps you can offer to put in a good word with
your
close personal friend, the Tooth Faerie.

How to Get Rid of Faeries

If you find that your home is infested with the nasty and

troublesome sort of faerie that is frightening your family, ruining food, or stealing your belongings, you may wish to encourage them to take their leave. This is called “laying”

a faerie. Start by simply asking the faeries to leave. Make sure to refer to them as faeries, since some types of faeries disappear when their true nature is called out. If the faeries try to offer you a parting gift, do not accept it. The gift may be a trick to put you in their debt and thus allow them to demand to stay. If the faeries speak to you, whether it be in your dreams or simply in your mind’s fancy, always reply

in rhyme, since that can banish a faerie, almost like you are having a poetry battle. For faeries that don’t speak English, ring a bell around the house, snap your fingers, and clap

your hands to frighten them away.

If asking the faeries to leave doesn’t work, you should

lay a faerie by offering them an entire outfit of clothes.

Getting started with Faeries • 19