Faeries powers
Life time
Faeries are known to live longer than men. Some even says they are eternal but we do not even know if immortality is the privilege of the gods. The length of time may vary between 100 and 3000 years according to the various species. The Goblins for instance live between 300 and 400 years. Again, time is different in Faerieland and we should assume that these figures only qualify Faeries who live on Earthland.
Faeries and witches
The Church, trying to eradicate the old pagan cults, has relentlessly “demonized” the many creatures that populated the local mythologies.
These creatures that were neither (or both) good and evil were brutally associated with all the pain, grievances, sufferings that fall on us.
According to King James I in his Daemonologie, Diana was both the goddess of witches and the Queen of Faerie. Oberon was both the Kind of Faerie and a demon summoned by magicians.
Both faeries and witches were believed to create fairy rings. Fairy rings are circles of inedible mushrooms that grow in grassy areas in North America, Europe, and Britain. Also called hag tracks in Britain, they are believed to be created by witches' dancing feet. According to folklore, fairy rings are magical circles in which witches and faeries meet to sing and dance at night.
In a similar fashion, many similarities exist between the so called “powers” and activities of witches and faeries : ·
- cast and broke spells
- healed people
- divined the future and the location of lost objects
- danced and sang beneath the full moon
- trafficked with the Devil
- metamorphosized, levitated, or caused others to fly or change shape
- stole unbaptized children
- poisoned people
- stole horses and rode them to exhaustion during the night
- avoided salt
- were repelled by iron
Nevertheless there are some slight differences between these two races. Both Faeries and witches are said to be shapeshifter but while witches became mice, hares, cats, gulls, or black sheep, Fairy women prefered to assume the shape of deer. A running stream could not be crossed by evil spirits, ghosts, and apparitions, but made no difference to the Fairies. Witches took the milk from cows; the Fairies took away the cows themselves, i.e. the cow in appearance remained, but its benefit (the real cow) was gone.
Invisibility
The silent people as they are called are not only noiseless but almost invisible. They conceal from our sight through the use of charms and potions. Men know the Fairies have visited their houses only by the mysterious disappearance of the substance of their goods, or the sudden and unaccountable death of any of the inmates or of the cattle. When driven away they do not go off with tramp and noise, and sounds of walking such as men make, or melt into thin air, as spirits do, but fly away noiselessly like birds or hunted deer. They seem to glide and float along rather than to walk. Sometimes indeed the elves make a rustling noise like that of a gust of wind, or a silk gown, or a sword drawn sharply through the air, and their coming and going has been even indicated by frightful and unearthly shrieks, a pattering as of a flock of sheep, or the louder trampling of a troop of horses. Generally, however, their presence is indicated at most by the cloud of dust raised by the eddy wind, or by some other curious natural phenomenon, by the illumination of their music instruments, songs, or speech.
Eddy Wind
When Faeries leave home in companies, they travel in eddies of wind. On calm summer days, if one sees a kind of cloud of dust that moves in the sky without any breath of air then it should be assumed that a pack of Fairies with their takings is going back to Fairyland.
By throwing one's left shoe at it, the Fairies are made to drop whatever they may be taking away, men, women, children, or animals. The same result is attained by throwing one's bonnet, saying, `this is yours, that's mine' or a naked knife, or earth from a mole-hill.
People that have been `lifted', and embarked in these eddies usually do not remember any detail about their journey. Some have been carried to some inaccessible place to which they could never have made their way alone, on the top of a distant hill or from one island to another.
Power over plants and animals
Faeries, wether they live underwater, in the forest or ontop of mountains have sustained long relationships with the wild animals of their realm. They talk the language of animals which obey straightforward and help them in various tasks. There are many reports of lutins riding a fox or a dear across the forest. In the air, the elves may ask any bird to transport them across long distances.
The Defects of Fairies
Generally the Faerie carry some personal defect, by which they become known to be of no mortal race. Vampires, witches and werewolves were also afflicted in their human form by some sign that allow to recognize them. Melusine, the famous fay had several children with Raymond Lusignan, a mortal nobleman. All became kings but had some monstrous sign on their face. Geoffroy was called “the big tooth”.
The Bean Shiih was detected by her extraordinary voracity (a cow at a meal), a frightful front tooth, the entire want of a nostril, a web foot, praternaturally long breasts, etc. She is also said to be unable to suckle her own children, and hence the Fairy desire to steal nursing women.
|
