Carolyn Turgeon - The Faerie Handbook: An Enchanting Compendium of Literature, Lore, Art, Recipes, and Projects

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

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Carolyn Turgeon: Authors personal collection

Sweet, shut your eyes,

The wild fire-flies

Dance through the fairy neem;

From the poppy-bole

For you I stole

A little lovely dream.

S AROJINI N AIDU , Cradle Song, from The Golden Threshold, 1905

Fairy Land, Gustave Dor, 1881.

The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA/Clarence Buckingham Collection/Bridgeman Images

Titania and Oberon from Midsummer Nights Dream, Walter Stanley Paget, 1890.

Private Collection/ Look and Learn/Bridgeman Images

F OLKLORISTS SAY THAT FEW PEOPLE IN HISTORY have believed in fairies themselves, but that they have always believed in a luminous, more romantic time in which others did. But I dont know: as editor in chief of Faerie Magazine, Ive met plenty of people who believe fervently in fairies or are open to the possibility of their existence. Too many of us have felt that hypnotic hush in the forest, seen a flicker of wings beating in the periphery, followed glowing lights that lure us onto another path. Maybe it doesnt really matter where the metaphor ends and the literal begins. What I do know is that fairiesin all their shimmering, gossamer, moonlit gorgeousnesstap into our deep longing for the world to be more than what we see.

Theres an old English story of a country midwife whos taken to a cottage that is seemingly normalwith a cozy fireplace, lamps, and the usual appointmentsuntil she accidentally rubs her eye with a mysterious ointment. And then the world changes. To her astonishment, the neat cottage has transformed into a massive, ancient oak tree; the fireplace, a hollow, moss-grown trunk; and the lamps, glowworms, glimmering in the dark. In the old lore, being privy to fairy glamour isnt always the best idea, but I love the notion that theres an enchanted shadow world of tremendous beauty, just out of our view.

The Faerie Handbook is for all those fairy lovers who want a delicious escape, who see that old-world oak with its moss-grown trunk, who love to read poetry and sip herbal tea on a fainting couch on a rainy afternoon in front of a fire, or walk in long dresses over dewy lawns, feeling the wet grass on their feet and watching the light break over the landscape. This is a book that is meant to stir up childhood wonders, whether its picking blueberries on a hazy summer afternoon or those countless hours spent obsessively poring over a treasured storybook filled with color-saturated illustrations youre delighted to meet again and again. This book is for all those girls (and boys). The ones who love fairy tales and full moons and whod love nothing more than to attend an extravagant tea party in the forest.

In lore, a magical ointment rubbed on the eyelids could pierce through fairy glamour and allow a human to see past our own dull world, as Yeats called it in The Land of Hearts Desireto let it fade away and the fairy world come into view.

May this book be your ointment.

C AROLYN T URGEON

The FairiesA Scene Drawn from William Shakespeare, Gustave Dor, 1873.

Art Renewal Center

WHERE FAIRIES LIVE

A girl standing under a tree surrounded by elves and goblins selling fruit, an illustration by Arthur Rackham for the 1933 edition of Christina Rossettis Goblin Market and Other Poems.

British Library, London, UK/ British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Images

T HE BEST PLACE TO FIND FAIRIES IS IN AN enchanted forest, where one might spy them reclining on velvety mats of soft mossthe woodland equivalent of a chaise loungeor darting about the silkiest, most fashionable flowers or lolling within the petals to inhale their rich perfume.

One might also discover them sprinkling dew over every blade of grass, the curved edges of foliage, and delicate blooms, as renowned fairy expert William Shakespeare noted in his revelatory report, A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Shakespeare also observed that fairy queens sleep on bank[s] where the wild thyme blows / where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, but today, some say that practice has passed out of fashion, given the proliferation of fairy houses worldwide. Still, most fairies love the wild outdoors and are, deep down, more comfortable tucking themselves into tree boughs or knolls or finding shelter under fallen leaves than in elaborately outfitted dwellings more regularly inhabited by humans.

Nonetheless, there have been reports of fairies living in ornately decorated palacesechoing with the enchanting melodies of singing birdswithin hollow hills. At night the lights from these palaces illuminate the hillsidea dazzling display akin to the glow of countless diamonds.

There are some fairies who are attracted to water, and may be proponents of island life in locales such as the Isle of Man, Tir Nan Og, Hy Breasail, and Avalon. Others live in the water, such as pools or lakes, though these aqueous bodies may sometimes be illusions to protect the palatial affluence therein from outsiders. More free-spirited types may cavort with frogs, who may or may not be princes in disguise, as the case may be, and make their homes upon satiny lily pads or among the velvet reeds.

Specific fairy types do prefer less froufrou dwellings. Trolls, for example, like to align themselves with bridges, especially those made of stone. Some dwarves and elves can be found in less-than-sunny caves. Hobgoblins and brownies are fond of crashing human dwellings and have been known to occasionally outstay their welcomes.

And then there are jet-setting fairies who travel light. They flit from place to place, visiting enchanted forests, lakes, and bridges all over the world, much to the extreme envy of their home-bound friends, who cant bear to hear one more story about that darling little toadstool I found in Paris.

Vivid orchids and wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland.