Cassandra Eason - The Magick of Faeries: Working with the Spirits of Nature

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

The Magick of Faeries: Working with the Spirits of Nature 2013 by Cassandra Eason.

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First e-book edition 2013

E-book ISBN: 9780738735917

Book design by Bob Gaul
Cover illustration by Aaron Pocock

Cover design by Ellen Lawson
Editing by Amy E. Quale

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Manufactured in the United States of America

With thanks to my literary editor and mentor, John Gold, and his wife, Kornelia, my beloved friend who inspired and encouraged me throughout this project. This book is also dedicated to my granddaughters Freya and Holly, and to Ebony and Star, the magical younger generation who confirm daily that magick is real and make me smile even through the darkest of days.

Contents

: The Hidden Magick of Faeries and Nature Spirits

: Getting to Know Faeries and Nature Spirits

: Identifying Your Local Nature Spirits

: Working Magically with the Protectors of our Home and Workplace

: Magick with Traditional Faeries, Faery Courts, and Faery Godmothers

: Nature Spirits of the Air

: Nature Spirits of the Earth

: Nature Spirits of the Fire

: Nature Spirits of the Water

: The Fierce Creatures

: The Treasury of Faery Wisdom

Introduction

The hidden magick of Faeries and nature spirits

Faery Magick

Faeries and nature spirits can be fun, feisty, helpful, tiny silver-winged, gossamer light, and ethereal creatures of faery tales who grant wishes and ensure a happy ending to our current dramas. You may also encounter mischievous tricksters who offer food or gold that turns into dust in your hand as they dart away laughing, or black, hairy scary orcs with glowing coal eyes who chase you through the bushes and laugh as you scratch yourself to pieces.

Do Faeries Exist?

Of course they do, and what can be more exciting than having an entire world, parallel to our own, sharing the same space, whose inhabitants fly and float and flit and dance in and out of view, delighting little children and perplexing our pets?

It would seem an arrogant, blinkered idea that we alone exist in the known universe. Not that nature beings care whether we believe in them. In their view, it is usthe great clodhopping humanswho share their space, pick their flowers and put them in vases to wither, and leave messy houses and outbuildings for the sturdy no-nonsense, overworked, and sometimes bad-tempered brownies to clear up. Indeed, try to cut the grass in a faery garden; little darts and arrows will poke at your ankles and arms (faeries love stealing silver pins to act as swords), and you will remember too late that you forgot to explain and ask permission to prune the roses.

Because faeries and nature spirits are lighter in substance than humans, they can only be seen by children or those with clairvoyant sightunless they choose to appear. In this case, they appear to be as solid as you or me. A giant, however, will appear to be the size of a double-decker bus and about as dainty. Some tree spirits are excellent at camouflaging themselves so they can hardly be seen in a forest, and you may only hear chattering in the leaves or a voice on the windon a good day, helping you to find your way when your mobile phone tracker is out of range. On a feys bad-hair day, they may lure you farther and farther off track into marshy land, where you panic and drop all your treasures to be added to a faery hoard. With hope, your clairvoyant sight will be so developed by the end of this book that you will be falling over faeries even in the supermarket plant section.

If you go faerie-hunting for that purpose, you can guarantee the forest will fall silent and you will be pelted with acorns and nuts from every tree. Those who need proof of faeries rely mainly on anecdotal evidence for fey folk, often carefully gathered and analysed by scholars. One of these scholars is W. Y. Evans-Wentz of Oxford University, whose research The Faery Faith in Celtic Countries , first published in 1890, is still a bestseller. There are occasionally intriguing historical accounts witnessed by a number of people at the same time that do suggest fey folk are objectively real. One of the most intriguing accounts of actual fey people came from the twelfth century, in a place called Woolpit in Suffolk, England. It is recorded that two green-coloured children who could not speak the language suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They would eat nothing but beans and were very distressed. The boy died. It is not known what happened to the girl. Gillian Tindall, the UK author who described the incident, believes that it is possible that old races of small people might have lived in the United Kingdom until the end of the Middle Ages when the vast forests were cut down and the marshlands drained.