Midsummer Night's Dream

Throughout history, there have been many people who have known and worked with the spirits that we now call fairies or feys. Here in Britain, both the ancient Celts and Anglo-Saxons believed in such beings, a faith that has had a lasting legacy up until the present day.  The Celtic name for fairies is sidhe, a word that means a burial mound, hill or earth barrow, since this is where many fairies live. It is said that when the Celts invaded Ireland, the resident people, the Tuatha Dé Danaan who had supernatural powers, were forced to retreat into the hollow hills and were only occasionally seen after that, though people left offerings of meat and milk on their mounds.  Feys can assume a human form, either male or female, for good or evil, to meddle in the affairs of mortal.

They are very tall and thin, eternally young and beautiful in appearance, and generally dressed in white. The Anglo-Saxon term for similar spirits is elf or aelf, a word meaning something like 'white spirit', or 'shining spirit'. They are tall and beautiful and shine with a kind of inner light. They also live in mounds, and people left offerings, called elf blots, of meat and milk on the mounds for them.

Although fairies are represented as mischievous, capricious, and even demonic, they could also be loving and bountiful. Sometimes fairies entered into love affairs with mortals, but usually such liaisons involved some restriction or compact and frequently ended in calamity, as did those of Melusine and Undine. Because feys are so intelligent, they are one of the most powerful creatures of their kind. In fact, they may even become wizards because they are so gifted. One of their most powerful and useful spells is Charm. But their weakness is iron. If someone pours salt or sugar in front of them, they have to stop to count each grain one by one. They also love cream, which, like alcohol, intoxicates them.

Feys are most likely found in forests, meadowlands, near streams and brooks, caves, jungles, and parks. Feys reside in a kingdom of their own—which might be underground: gnomes; in the sea: merpeople; in an enchanted part of the forest; or in some far land. They are ruled by a king or queen. Feys inhabit a kingdom called Fairyland, Elphame, or the Otherworld. This realm is not separate from ours, but overlays it, unseen except in special circumstances. Fairies are occasionally glimpsed in our world, but usually only in the blink of an eye or on the edge of dreams. However, there are places where the two worlds sometimes meet; natural power spots, bridges between the worlds where people have occasionally slipped from the everyday world into Fairyland, perhaps walking into the mist between two old stones, or stepping accidentally into a fairy ring, only to find themselves in a kingdom where it is always summer, where the orchards bear apples and flowers at the same time, and where death and old age are unknown.

Signs that a fairy may be near include the following: feeling as if someone is watching you when you see no one there, feeling as if an insect is touching you when it appears that there isn't one there, a wonderful fragrance, hushed giggling, distant glowing objects to name a few.

Faerie rings usually consist of mushrooms or rocks in a circle. Faerie rings are places where faeries rejoice and dance in circles when no one else is around. It is said that if a human steps into their circle, he or she will be forced to dance with the faeries. It will only seem like minutes have passed by, but in human years the enslavement has taken place for three to seven years. A friend can able to help you if they reach in and pull the person out without stepping into the circle.
But would being surround by fairies is a bad thing?

Fairies away !!