Fantasy and the Faeryfolk (1 February 2025)

[Originally 1 September 2019; revised and expanded]

“Fantasy is a natural human activity.  It certainly does not destroy or even insult reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity.  On the contrary.  The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make.” (370)

- J. R. R. Tolkien “On Fairy Stories” in 

Tales from the Perilous Realm (2008)

I have been asked a number of times over the years why Fairies and the Fairy-otherworld so often appear in the poems and stories that I write.  Any response to that question cannot help but stir the cauldron of deep memory, tapping into (1) my early engagement with Neo-Pagan spirituality in the 1970’s and then (2) the touchstones and runes of my own development as a poet-mystic and an earthen naturalist through the 1980’s and into the 90’s.  This blog arises out of the confluence of these two streams in my spiritual and poetic development, driven by the runic question, “Am I one the Way to Wisdom?”

I want to explore the role of Fairies in my creative work by presenting a few of the traditional themes of Fairy lore that have inspired me over the years, and what they have meant for my poetics and aesthetic faith in life-itself.  For this to come to fruition, I will first explore the nature of Fantasy, for the Fairy world comes to presence though the marvelous wordings and worldings of that ‘genre’ – that state of mind; that praxis – making possible the fairy-touched Mind and Heart.

A note on terminology: When I refer to my own experience and to how I learned about the Faery world in my adolescence, I will tend to use to the “ae” spelling.  When I am referring to historical and literary Fairy lore, I will use the “ai” spelling.  I will always capitalize “Faery” and “Fairy” in this blog out of respect for them; however they may ‘exist’_ or ‘not.’

Simply put, fantasy is a mode of the Creative Imagination; by the use of which we engage in making things ‘appear’ that are not ‘here’ in our ‘normal’ – that is, normalized and normalizing – everyday worlds.  To engage in fantasy is to imagine and then experience ‘another world;’ entering into it in any number of ways; poetic and aesthetic, intellectual, intuitive and sensual—in any combination.  A fantasy world, so imagined, is different from our ordinary lived-in worlds, but capable of speaking to our lives in potentially significant ways; from over the hills and (sometimes, not so) far away.  Those fantasy stories and worlds to which we tend to return, over and over again, are those that have spoken to us; existentially and spiritually, metaphorically and by way of analogy.  When we read a fantasy story or watch a fantasy film or play, we are presented with possible gateways into alternate realities that may act to mirror our own here-and-now; showing us things we have not before seen.

Fantasy thus has the potential to contribute to a widening perspective on the world, leading to a better -- i.e., wisening -- understanding of ourselves and others.  To encounter otherworldly beings; to be imaginatively in their company—has the potential to open the doors of perception.  To imaginatively travel and adventure with them may help us to delve a deeper, more compassionate well of understanding with regard to ourselves and others.  In fantasy, the horizons of our consciousness are expanded, as we experience other worlds and their inhabitants.  Returning home, the practice of fantasy may therefore help us toward an openness – and love of – otherness in the actual world.

The ordinary rounds of our life will never seem quite so narrow once we are practiced at fantasy; which provides us with pathways by which to step out of the often narrow confines set for us by our socialization and that are often enforced by those with the power to define them as ‘normal.’  While this liberation through particular flights of fantasy is temporary, the practice of fantasy can create an Innerland; our Imagination's Realm--which persists and underlies our day-to-day consciousness even when not engaged in fantasy.  Having such an Innerland can be inspiring, sustaining and empowering.

An old friend of mine used to say that fantasy is like rising, flying or being lifted by Inspiration up above the trees of a Great Forest and from there – from that new vantage point – seeing broader, often far-off horizons within which a life could be lived more fully; more humanely--differently than we have heretofore lived.  The ‘Forest’ in this simile represents our actual world and then those worlds – cultural, social and historical – that establish the very horizons into which we are thrown by being born.  While ‘good’ in an ordinary sense; grounding us in practical ways of living while orienting us to our culture’s rules and parameters, these circumscribed horizons can and often can be transcended as we grow and mature; as they are merely ‘ours’ – if we are to achieve a wider, deeper, broader perspective for living these brief lives with which we are gifted. [1]

For me, the Faeryfolk have been a long-standing and important element of authentic fantasy.  My fascination with Fairies no doubt arose from my first introduction to their lore during my teenage years.  That period of time was a positive influence in my spiritual, mystical and imaginative development.  There was a definite dimension of Faery mysticism in the way in which we celebrated the seasons of the Earth, communed with Nature, practiced the Arts & Craefts and engaged with the ‘spirit world.’  An entry in Doreen Valiente’s An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present (1973) – a book I read and loved reading – contained some of my earliest touchstones of Faërie.  I remember underlining these two sentences in my first copy of the book:

“The Realm of Faërie is often conceived of as being a beautiful but uncanny place which is underground, actually in the earth.” (120)

“[T]hey had two characteristics which their Celtic neighbors found strange and disconcerting.  They were people of the night, who would move and work in darkness, or by moonlight; and they preferred to wear little or no clothing, or the least that the climate would permit.” (118)

Such ideas were among the earliest intimations I had of a Faery-poetics.  My aesthetic and spiritual fascination with the night, and with darkness and the Moon was surely encouraged by such texts.  As anyone who has read my blogs knows, I am one who loves walking in the night and being out under the Moon's gaze, reveling in her light!

Later, in my early to mid-twenties, my reading of 19^th century British and Irish literatures deepened my understanding of the Fairies, and expanded my comprehension of the themes, customs, and narrative motifs associated with them.  Reading W. B Yeats’ The Celtic Twilight (1905) and Lady Gregory’s Gods and Fighting Men, for instance, drew me into the realms of Celtic myth and legend, in which was bodied-forth many elements of Fairy folklore.

I was deeply drawn to Celtic spirituality, mysticism and mythology in the 1990’s, and found the stories of Fairies to be integral to Celtic myth and legend.  The Fairies always seemed to ‘be there,’ whether present in the story or not, and I often found myself ‘Faery-haunted;’ albeit in an imaginative and poetic, rather than ‘superstitious,’ sense—whenever engaged with Celtic Faery stories.

As I learned more about the Fairies, it became apparent that they were (and are) associated with the Moon, which is referred to in Fairy lore as “the Sun at Night,” and “The Lamp of the Faeryfolk.”  The Moon is often a presiding ‘deity’ as well as a natural influence in much Fairy lore.  Under the inspiration of the Moon, I have often experienced a ‘flight of fantasy,’ imagining things that are beyond the usual scope of our lived-experience and that travel me into other-worlds; other 'places' – refreshing the soul and the mind in potentially revelatory scenes and vistas; great olde forests and majestic mountains, and many other scenes. 

Fairy fantasy allows us to step back from the ordinary world in which we live, day-to-day, and find time for resourcement in refreshing dreams.  This is a kind of escape that has the potential to revitalize one's whole being, without having needed to abandon our ordinary lives.  An ‘escape’ into Fantasy and the Fairy otherworld is not a desertion of the actual world.  Rather it involves going on an imaginative  journey,’ ‘adventure’ or ‘quest,’ from which we eventually return to face another day [2].  We may come home from a Fairy-fantasy with hope renewed to some degree; inspired by the fantastic experiences we have had – with a sense that we might be able to change and live a better, wiser life; one mirroring the fantastic, even if only in minute ways, at first; working to make our day-to-day existence a more humane place to be—for ourselves and others.  

That Fairies are often ‘hidden’ and yet ‘present’ in one’s ordinary timespace is a primary aspect connecting them to Mystery; i.e., all that is beyond our cognitive and existential ‘reach’ in Earth & Cosmos.  This theme intrigued me from the first time I first became aware of it!  The Fairyfolk were said to live in caves, under lakes, behind waterfalls and in the great earthen mounds scattered across the various Celtic landscapes; these iconic places emerging in our dreaming under the influence of a Fairy fantasy.  The Fairyfolk cannot normally be plainly seen; there is a sense of mysterious presence in their being near us—'known’ to us or ‘not.’  They might be – and are often said to be – ‘right beside us,’ in a world just ‘beyond’ what is invisible to most of us_ most of the time.

By the time I was in my thirties I was beginning to write poems and stories employing what had evolved into a ‘Fairy poetics’ over the years.  I was exploring the mysteriousness of the Fairy world via symbols, icons, metaphors and themes drawn from their lore.  I pondered the nature of their existence, studying various theories as to their reality; the primary quest concerning whether there was anything 'real' beyond our creative imaginings of the Fairies—for instance, that they might be a memory of some historical people?  Some writers have suggested that they might be the earliest human inhabitants of what are now Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, and I allow that there may be some historical basis to this idea; though it is quite scant.

I was introduced to the Faeryfolk, however, under this idea; the euhemerist hypothesis as it is called by historical scholars and folklorists—that the Faeries were a mythologized memory of the prehistoric peoples of the lands later inhabited by Celts, then the Anglo-Saxons and finally by the Norman invaders of Britain.  Suggesting this, the Old Irish myths contain a story that the Fairyfolk made an agreement with the first incomers – i.e., the Celts in the Iron Age [3] – to live ‘beyond the sídhe (pronounced “shay”), while the Celts settled and occupied the above ground world; the ordinary, naturalistic world in which we all live and have our dwelling.  In the myths it is Amairgin – the Poet of the people called the Milesians; the first ‘invaders’ of Ireland – who strikes this deal with the indigenous inhabitants.  I long pondered whether this story could be a trace-memory of that early time; a myth that ‘remembers’ an ‘event’ of the past?  Or perhaps, as I later accepted, it is the ur-story; an archaic ‘origins myth’ – of the Fairyfolk.

As I studied Irish mythology I became familiar with the Old Irish name for them: Sluagh-Sídhe (pronounced “slew-ah-shay;”) which means “People of the Sídhe; (i.e., ‘mounds and hillocks, etc., in which they were said to live).  In Ireland they were often associated – if not identified – with the Tuatha Dé Danaan (pronounced “too-ha jay don-awn”), which means “People of the Goddess Danu;” She being one of the “All-Mother” figures in the Irish myths; i.e., “The Great Goddess.”   These mythic peoples – those granted the underground realm as their home by Amairgin – are said to have been of slightly smaller stature than the people amongst whom they lived, but definitely ‘small humanoid’ peoples; not ‘insect sized’ and able to hide under flowers in the garden! [4]   Of this ‘reduction in size’ theme that is so prominent in the Fairy stories of the last couple centuries, Caitlín & John Matthews lamented, in their Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom (1994), that:

“The name ‘Faery’ has acquired unfortunate connotations, evoking images of butterfly winged and saccharine creatures slightly bigger than insects.  If we are to have any understanding of the people of the sídhe in Celtic tradition, we must erase such connotations and understand that they have a far greater stature and power than we can conceive.  Immortal, able to pass between the worlds at will, with resources that seem magical to humans, they appear as major protagonists in Celtic tradition, both then and now.” (388)

The Matthews here touch upon a number of key elements in the lore, opening us to mystery and strange experience.  First, that the Fairyfolk are “immortal” and, secondly, that they have magical abilities.  These elements were among the many facets of the Faery-faith as I was first introduced to it.  The sum of this is that to experience the Fairyfolk is to encounter – and be encountered by – something more than our own kind of being; which as such will inspire both wonder and awe in our mortal souls.

The Sluagh-Sídhe are one fictional, imaginative cypher for what is beyond what we comprehend and understand as the mortal animals that we are.  They stand for what transcends what we have discovered – via the arts and sciences – about Earth & Cosmos and ourselves as a manifestation of the physical processes of Nature.  When Faery appear in a story or poem I’ve read or written, it usually leads to an epiphanic experience; those sudden moments of being lifted ‘out of ourselves’ or into a ‘higher’ understanding, if only – usually – for a twinkling of time; after which we return to our actual worlds, somewhat wisened or at least a bit more 'awake,' spiritually and existentially.  Their presence in our creative dreaming points to the limits even of the imagination!  Fantasy paves the way to the Fairy-world.  Their presence in a story may ignite us into moments of vivid self-transcendence.

Whether or not the Fairyfolk are a memory of actual historical peoples, the lore that has come to surround them has heft and girth, pointing as it does to the unknown and (probably, in the final analysis) unknowable in Earth & Cosmos.  Some of the themes that have inspired my poetic thinking and expression over the years are grounded in the mythic ‘fact’ of their living in an ‘otherworld’ into which humans can pass and sometimes return from, by stepping on a “stray sod” [5] or passing through a “thin place” between our world and theirs.[6]  Dwelling in hillsides and under mounds, in tunnels [7] and caves, as well as at stone circles, crossroads, sacred springs and wells, the Sluagh-Sídhe are found to exist in a world parallel to our own, into which we may sometimes ‘see’ and even have experiences, especially at the end-of-year harvest festival of Samhain (31 October; pronounced “sow-en”), when the veil between the worlds becomes ‘thin’ for a night. [8]

This crossing-over and back between worlds – the Fairies coming into our world; and we possibly stepping into theirs in waking fantasy – can and does happen at any time of the year.  When Fairies are nearby -- stories, myths and legends indicate -- mortals may get a sense of their presence experienced as that primal ‘eerie-ness’ or ‘uncanniness’ so often still found expressed in our gothic and ghost lore.  I knew that feeling by the time I was 12, and still experience it today in the presence of the Mysterious; whether expressed as a Fairy encounter or as a ‘divine’ encounter—both being poetic and imaginative ways of metaphoring strange-experiences carrying us beyond the ordinary realm. 

Other poetic themes that have inspired me include the fact of the Fairies having special trees and crags, groves and other places that are sacred to them, and at which they may occasionally be encountered.  Of their sacred trees, Dairmuid Mac Manus noted, in his classic book, Irish Earth Folk (1959), that “The Fairy folk are quite discriminating in their choice of trees, and the site of each tree is an important matter.” (48)  The lore almost universally bears witness to their deep love trees and sylvan places.  They favor Oak, Ash, and Thorn trees, the Rowan and the Hazelnut; the latter being featured in those mysterious tales of haunted pools where sacred salmon lived under the overhanging boughs of a magical Hazelnut Tree.  At such a pool, one could gather the sacred Hazelnuts of Wisdom!   Regarding both the Hazelnut and the Blackthorn – another favorite of the Faery – Dairmuid Mac Manus said:

“The Hazel, one of the most important of all, goes back in Irish mythology to an honoured place in the dim mists of the past.  Then the hazel nut was the repository of all knowledge, as was the apple in Eden.  No wonder the ancient gods and the spirits of today are reputed to revere and care for it.  Of the other trees, Fairies do well in cherishing the Blackthorn, for it is one of the loveliest trees in the Irish countryside, especially in early spring when its masses of bright, white flowers contrast so strongly with its leafless black twigs; and the toughness of its branches is proverbial.” (46-47)

 Trees have long been respected and protected in countries of Celtic ancestry in part because they were sacred to the Fairyfolk.  This tradition still survives today.  Strange encounters were often had at trees that were ‘Fairy-haunted,’ for good or ill.  

Fairies were sometimes called “the Gentle Folk” or "the Gentry" as a term of respect and dignity.  They were – and are – known to be able to be great friends to those mortals befriended by them, though, if crossed, they could be quite nasty; playing tricks on those who offended them—all such antics aiming, however, at calling attention to how they had been misused or betrayed.  The resolution of this tricksiness is a recompense being ‘paid’ – symbolically or literally – in order to re-establish a just relationship with their friends on this side of the sidhe.

Another key theme in the folklore of the Fairyfolk that made them at home in my Creative Imagination is their close association with music.  They are said to be expert musicians and singers, the harp and later the fiddle being their favorites, though they play a wide variety of instruments.  Their presence is often associated with a mystical music; the coel-sidhe – (“kay-ole-shay;” the “music of the sidhe").  Tom Cowan said of the role of music in Fairy-lore, in his fascinating book Fire in the Head (1993), that:

“For the Celts, both Pagan and Christian, the encounter with faerie is often heralded by ethereal music, usually described as “the most beautiful music” ever heard, or “like no human music.”  Indeed, sweet Fairy music is an essential component of the Otherworld.  It can lull mortals into an enchanted sleep or a shamanic state of consciousness.  …  the music is often heard on lonely roads, late at night, or in the forests, emerging from the Hollow Hills or from deep within the earth.” (72)

It is the coel-sidhe that I was suggesting the characters in my story “Foundations at Ross Falls (20 March 1997) heard, [9] while leaving a rustic waterfall at night; though in the story the characters think the music sounds like that of monks chanting an office in Latin down at the base of the secluded, lonesome waterfall.  Another story of an encounter with a Fairy band by mortals is in my book Tales from the Seasons, and is called “The Elfin Tree Porch” (pp. 388-402).

One old Fairy theme that has long haunted me is that of a mortal being carried away into the otherworld and kept in thrall to one of the Fairyfolk – e.g., often a Faery Queen or Princess – and then, after a time, being returned to this world, perhaps with magical powers or creative gifts; enabled by their encounter in Faërie to become great poets, healers or wise advisors to their communities. [10]   This theme is expressive of the transformational nature of a Fairy encounter.  Stories with this theme were said to explain the origin of the genius and creativity of a particular musician or poet – e.g. Thomas the Rhymer – who were thereafter said to be ‘Fairy Gifted.’  Tom Cowan (1993) tells the story of this poet and his experience, saying:

“One day a young poet and harper named Thomas was sitting under the Eildon tree when a beautiful woman rode up on horseback.  She was the Queen of Elfland, and She enchanted Thomas with her beauty, luring him into the Faery Realm where he remained for seven years, enjoying her sexual favours but always longing to return to mortal life.  In time she released him and he returned to ordinary reality, but the queen’s farewell to him was a gift that would render him forever a stranger among mortals: the inability to speak anything but the truth.  For the rest of his life Thomas the Rhymer lived with the burden of truth; he could neither utter a falsehood, nor overlook deception.” (73)

Being transported into the Fairy-realm may also have an element of testing to it; the Fairies seeking to determine if you are worthy of such a calling as Poet, Mystic, Magician, Druid, et cetera.

For myself, such tales played into my evolving experience of “The Muse;” [11] i.e., the ‘source of inspiration and creativity’ in us—and the poetics that have been generated out of that experience.  The ‘Faery Queen’ in such stories as the one above I always see as a metaphor for this ‘source.’  She ‘abducts’ us; most usually on Moonlit nights—and then returns us to the mortal world more inspired than we were before we were ‘abducted.’  The ‘abduction’ here is a metaphor for ascent into fantasy and the broadening of one’s vision of Faerie characteristic of such a state of self-transcendence.

Many of the story elements that resonate with me most in Fairy-lore allude to the processes and experiences of entering a creative state and therein being inspired.  That you can step on a ‘stray sod’ and slip into the Fairy-world metaphors my experience of wakening into an imaginative state of mind and then – by way of poetic belief; which is a function of being actively engaged in fantasy – being inspired to write and compose something with that ‘weird’ quality to it that is so characteristic of Fairy-touched arts and craefts.

Fairies are also said to often be encountered in strange, abandoned places—another theme that inspired me when I was young and that keeps me open to the mysteries of our mortal existence.  Places of once-human-habitation that are now lonesome and in various stages of decay, speak to the way of all things in a universe wherein time is determined by entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – and are thus haunted by their past; which is embodied in the present of their decayed state.  They are haunted by the memory of human presence and, by extension, by present ghosts, Fairies and other spectral ‘critters;’ all such beings evanescent of the liminal dimensions of our existence.  Ruins are places passing into non-existence; just as we all are; once-upon-a-time—yet to come.  To encounter Fairies or other mythic beings in a creative fantasy at ruins enables us to explore the presencing of mortality in all that is around us.  I have long found ruins [12] to be among the favorite haunts of Faeries! 

A Fantasy-guided Creative Imagination at-play with any one of these themes will oft be taken to the limits of their known lived-in mindscapes, opening the practiced dreamer-imaginer to fantastic visions, ideals, possibilities and transformative conceptions.  For me, the strangeness that emerges as a story waxes Fairy oft begins with someone saying—

     “I was at x and there was this interesting, strange ‘presence’ there, and …”
     “I found an abandoned house off-trail from where I usually walk, and …”
     “I was looking out my window, and the mist and streetlight made me feel so strange, that …”

All such experiences evoke, for me, what can be called ‘Faery consciousness;’ – a ‘state’ in which I am open(ed) to Mystery; to the mysterious—that which is ‘beyond knowing,’ whether or not we will ever come to understand it.  It is, in naturalistic terms, a neurological, psychological and bio-physical state; though it may have preternatural ‘elements’ as well—grounded in the organic chemistry that makes us what we are as evolved physical and evolving spiritual beings with a deep history in the planetary biosphere.  It is a psychological and emotional ‘mood.’  It is a spiritual state of communion with otherness.  Faery consciousness is that state in which I am imaginatively prone to experiencing the ordinary world as ‘haunted’ by a presence that I best en-word in the kinds of themes discussed above; fantasying my way toward deep awareness of self and others, reconciliation with the Earth & Cosmos, and the discovery of new touchstones of authenticity in my mortal being-in-becoming.  Such consciousness gives rise to a mythic way of speaking about our Fairy experiences that is characterized by Wonder and Awe.

When I am reading or writing a story or poem, and the Fairies make a sudden appearance, I feel lifted out of the ordinary rounds of the day and invited to move toward_ then into_ something extra-ordinary!  Their appearance is a potential moment of wakening to the Wonder and Awe that it is always possible for us as human animals to experience.

Wonder is that grounding state of openness to the what-is; [13] often awakening us – waking us up in the midst of the everyday – in the presence of something beautiful, curious, breath-taking; simply beyond our current comprehension.  That experience of being ‘stopped in our tracks;’ stunned by a beautiful sunset or by the intricacies of a wildflower, a sea star, or the thoughts given rise to by something we have just read or something a friend, lover or mentor has just said, are among the many various impetuses to the state of Wonder.  Awe is a complementary state; more associated with experiences in which there is some threat to our mortal existence.  As Wonder is to the Beautiful, so Awe is to the Sublime.  When caught out in a thunder & lightning storm, for instance – as I have oft been – hiking some woodland trail, one’s consciousness can be transfigured by Awe!  It is a sublime – not simply beautiful – experience.  While there is a certain beauty in the storm, there is also real danger.  It therefore awakens us to the sublime dimension in our reality.  To experience the Fairies via our creative Fantasy and dreaming oft inspires me to- and beyond- the thresholds of both Wonder and Awe.

I have mentioned here only a few of the many interesting and engaging Fantasy themes and ideas – poetic and mystical – associated with the Fairyfolk, some others being stories of “Faery Forts,” “Faery Doctors,” “Faery Paths,” “Faery Islands” and much, much more.  Overall, the folklore of the Fairies constitutes a deep story-world, accessed via fantasy – in which we may participate on a variety of levels; existential, literary, spiritual and mystical.  While the Faeryfolk have been ‘believed in’ for centuries as ‘real, existing’ beings, I have come to relate to them as ‘real imaginary’ beings.  They exist, inhabiting my imagination and coming to the fore when I am telling stories about ‘liminal;’ i.e., ‘border' – experiences.

In almost fifty years I have found no evidence of their existence outside my imagination, beyond the journeying in fantasy that allows me to participate in their liminal reality. Tales of the Fairyfolk are of that fictional mode in which fantasy is at work in our consciousness; transforming us – and as such evoke in me a powerful sense of what lies beyond our comprehension, but which is still weirdly illuminating of our lives in-world.  The Faery World is a Fantasy World, stories about it contributing in many cases to the hope for a better life in this-world wherein suffering and hatred have been diminished – if not transcended, having been eliminated – and where abundance and wellness prevail for all who live there.  As such, it is no wonder that the Faery World is so often conflated with the idea of ‘Paradise.’  Whether the Fairyfolk ‘actually exist’ – outside the Creative Imagination – I leave to others to debate.

Faery Stories and Poems—

Here are a few of the more recent stories and poems at this blog that have Faery themes:

“Patrick and the Faery” (17 March 2018) – in this poem, Saint Patrick and the Faeryfolk are dancing and celebrating the Vernal Equinox together; something they probably would not have done when Patrick was alive.  The idea here is that in the Otherworld we get over our provincialism and narrow-minded conceptions of what it is to be human, holy, etc. – and can embrace those we might have demonized, despised or mistrusted in this life.  Would that we could more often attain to this level of wisdom in this life!

“Old Nicholas at Ross Falls” (6 December 2018) – here Saint Nicholas appears as one of the Faeryfolk as he and his Americanized complement ‘Santa Claus’ often did in the 19^th century.  The poem is a visionary fairy fantasy at “Ross Falls” – at the opening of the Winter Solstice Season.

“A Winter Wakening” (20 December 2018) – this blog, which provides an intro to the story of “Nicholas and the Elves” that I have been developing and writing about for 30 years, presents the story of Runa Luna, the Mistress of Tara Lough, who comes to the mythic ‘top of the world’ – “Tara Lough” being the home of Nicholas and the Elves in the tale – as the parallel in my stories to the ‘Mrs. Claus’ character in our modern secular ‘holiday’ stories.  Runa Luna is a Faery Mistress, and her advent at Tara Lough have been significant to my ongoing story-building around Nicholas and the Faeryfolk; being fellow collaborators in the Dream of the Winter Solstice and the "Thirteen Nights and Dayes of Yule."

“Gone Faerying at Ross Falls” (23 June 2019) – this poem is the third of four set at “Ross Falls” to have a Faery theme.  This is another dreamed vision-quest poem, ending with an invitation to sing along with the Faeryfolk: “twindle-too-le-ley-hey-nune.”

“To Faery Gone (1 September 2020) – a poem about slipping away into Faërie.

“A Faery Wood Carol” (27 November 2021) – A poem treating the association of the Faeryfolk with the Yule—Winter Solstice—Christmas Season.

 

A Brief Bibliography of Sources

Here are a few of the many sources that have informed my Faery poetics over the years.  The first list are the best of the texts I was aware of in the 1970’s to 1980’s.  The second list includes the best of the texts I’ve read since this blog was first published in 2019.

I.

Evans‑Wentz, Walter Y.  The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1978)

Gantz, J. (ed. and trans.)  Mabinogion (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976; 1965)

Gregory, Lady  Cúchulainn of Luirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe, 1970)

Gregory, Lady  Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fiana of Ireland (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe, 1976)

MacManus, Dairmaid  Irish Earth Folk (New York: Devon‑Adair, 1959)

MacManus, Dairmuid A. The Middle Kingdom: The Faery World of Ireland (London: 1960)

Yeats, William Bulter  Irish Faery and Folk Tales (Dorset Press, 1987)

 II.

Harries, Elisabeth Wanning  Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale (Princeton University Press, 2001)

Silver, Carole G  Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Tolkien, J. R. R. Tales from the Perilous Realm  (Boston & New York: William Marrow; and imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, 2008)

Zipes, Jack Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves (New York and London: Routledge, 1987)

---

Endnotes--

[1] By this analogy, a genre like the 19^th century ‘social novel’ describes life in the Forest.  It deals with the social constructs, cultural mores, values and everything else inscribed by our horizons in the Forest.  The social novel tells stories about the ‘realistic’ adventures, conflicts and experiences to be had as well as the decisions to be made in the ordinary world that potentially lead the characters to some degree of self-realization.  It explores our struggle to live – beyond just surviving – within the Forest.  Perhaps a ‘fantasy novel,’ by contrast, taking place in a ‘different lived world,’ can perhaps be understood as happening in ‘another level of the Forest’ – perhaps half-way up in the boughs of the trees? – that we do not see until the ‘jump’ makes it possible to envision.  Both genres give us insight into our lives and the living out of our aspirations, dreams and hopes.

[2] J. R. R. Tolkien, in his essay “On Faery Stories” critiqued the notion that all fantasy is ‘escapist’ while also defending the need to have a means of ‘escape,' e.g., when we are enmired in dehumanizing situations and living in repressive conditions in the world.  (see the essay in a number of volumes, including Tales from the Perilous Realm [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008; p 335 – 374])

[3] See Dairmuid Mac Manus Irish Earth Folk (1959), pp. 144-145 and Tom Cowan Fire in the Head (1993; p 15) for allusions to this idea.

[4] This ‘diminution’ – making the Faery small, which reached its culmination in the late 19^th and early 20^th century; and which is reflected in modern Fairy stories (e.g., the various versions of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell) is the end result of the transition of one mythology to another; in this case, from Pagan to Christian mythology.  The good spirits and supernatural helpers of an older mythology often become the downsized (literally!) tricksters and evil spirits in the new mythology.  In the case of the Faeryfolk, it is a diminution caused by their mythology being superseded by that of Christianity.

[5] Stray Sod” – Tom Cowan said in Fire in the Head (1993) that “Sometimes a person stumbles into Faery by making a wrong turn on a well-known path or, as the Irish say, stepping upon a “stray sod.” (15)

[6] For a reference to “thin places” see Edward Sellner’s Wisdom of the Celtic Saints (1993, p 11)

[7] When I was a teenager I imagined that the coffin holes in the sides of a railroad tunnel outside my hometown were ‘doorways’ into the Faery World!  I would often go there to have imagined meetings with them.

[8] Samhain – often misunderstood, this is the “Night of the Dead” in the Celtic calendar; 31 October, when the Sídhe open up.  Far from being a night filled with ‘black magic’ and ‘devil-worship’ (as it is still often hijacked into representing in pop culture media) it was a night for remembering and communing with the dead; Pagan peoples oft believing it possible to meet-up with the souls of people and animals you have known in this life who are now gone across the sídhe into the Otherworld.

I was taught that – as a night for remembrance of the dead -- those of your family and friends who had died in the previous yea could come and visit mortals between the end of the old year (at dusk on 31 October) and the beginning of a New Year (at dawn on 1 November).  It is understood as a night for making restitution and paying debts. You could seek forgiveness from and offer it to those with whom you had not been able to reconcile while in life; they could be given offerings of food and written confessions, taken up to the bonfires on the hills and burned.  This is the historical touchstone of our commercialized practice of “Trick or Treat.”  It was a practice encouraging reconciliation with one's enemies; then seeking the runes of a “new start” or perhaps some degree of personal transfiguration, as 1 November was “New Years’ Day” in the traditions of the Olde Ones.

[9] See pp. 464 – 478 in Tales from the Seasons (Authorhouse, 2008).  This experience – which is based on something that actually happened to friends of mine and I while out hiking years ago – is also alluded to in “The Calling of Ross Falls” (22 September 2018).  Three of the four poems about Ross Falls (so far) are Faery-themed.

[10] Tom Cowan, in Fire in the Head 1993, relates one of these stories; that of the Poet Thomas the Rhymer (p 73)

[11] See my blog “A Musing Life” (2 February 2018) at this site for reflections on my ‘life with the Muse;’ the quest to become a mature, creative person.

[12] On my own fascination with ruins, see my blog “Ruins and the Harvest: Autumn Themes” (23 September 2011).

[13] I see the realms of the imagination as an integral part of the ‘what is.’

 

Reading Shirley III: Shirley & the Fairy (29 April 2024)

“In different forms, the fairies have always been among us.  They have inhabited the British Isles for at least fifteen hundred years; though sometimes forced underground, they have always re-emerged.” (9)

- Carole G. Silver  Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness (1999)    

 “Charlotte invites the reader to put on his spectacles and look for a moral; but she precedes this with an account of ‘the last fairish that was seen on this country side.’  The implication is that the reader should look for the ‘fairishes;’ i.e., the metaphysical dimension, using his or her imagination.”  (180)

-        Elisabeth Imlay Charlotte Brontë and the Mysteries of Love: Myth and Allegory in Jane Eyre (1989)

I admit to wanting to read Charlotte Brontë’s last two novels in part because of the role of the fairyfolk in Jane Eyre.  As I read Shirley this month I have been fascinated, once again, with all of the references to fairies, though it has become apparent to me that how the fairy theme functions in this novel is quite different from how it functioned in Jane Eyre.  My analysis of the narrative in this blog will be guided by long interest in fairy lore – in both (1) Pagan myth and mysticism and in (2) literature; including 19^th century novels, folklore studies, collections of fairy stories – as well as by my reading in recent months of the two books referenced in the epigraphs above.  [Both are excellent sources, well written and thought provoking].

The second epigraph refers to the last reference to fairies in the novel, appearing on the last page of the text, describing the disappearance of the fairies from the Hollow where Robert Moore’s mill was built.   In what follows, I hope to lead you on an interesting journey through the text, stopping at all of the most important references to fairy or fairy-associated phenomena (solitary places, lonesome woods or roads, Oak, Ash or Thorn trees, old ruins, etc), ending with a suggestion as to how I find the fairy and their posited existence functioning in the story taken as a whole; as a view of life-as-lived by the characters to which it introduces us.

 I was not disappointed when the first reference to fairy comes in the very first chapter – called “Levitical” – wherein the three curates are introduced.  The housekeeper where the curates have gathered and are carrying on in their usual style fears Mr Malone, as he is strong and tall, and has a bearing which reminds her of “a certain class of the Irish gentry.” (6).[1]  If a reader is not aware that ‘Gentry’ is a term of inverted respect for the fairyfolk, they might not pick-up on this bivalent reference.  Mrs Gale could be simply saying Mr Malone is akin to the Irish Gentry class; those who lorded their power over the Irish people, but this could also be a reference to the fairyfolk.

Later in the same chapter a vision of Michael Hartley – described paradoxically as a mad Calvinist (Chapter VII) and here as an Antinomian (someone who denies the authority of moral law; at least as interpreted by hose in power over others), a violent Jacobin (a French political group dedicated to extreme egalitarianism and violence) and Leveller (someone who seeks the reduction or elimination of disparity between the upper and lower realms of society; in the 19^th century it would also refer to those who attempt to destroy the means-of-production as a way of liberating people from the machines) – is related in which he:

 “… heard what he thought was a band at a distance, bugles, fifes, and the sound of a trumpet: it came from the forest, and he wondered that there should be music there.” (15)

As this vision unfolds, he sees small soldiers coming from the wood and marching to Nunnely Common, where he watched them parading in formation.  He witnessed this apparition for over half-an-hour, and when they marched away, they headed for Briarfield.  It is quite possible to interpret this vision as an apparition of fairies trooping through Nunnely Wood, playing their music and ‘performing’ secret rituals, observed by a mortal who happened to be in the ‘right place at the right time.’ Fortunately, no harm apparently comes to him as it might have, given other stories of this kind of fairy apparition.

I said Hartley was described ‘paradoxically’ because, on the one hand, a Calvinist is usually someone very obedient to the Law of God and by extension to the legitimate laws of earthly kingdoms.  That he is “mad” adds another dimension, and what Charlotte intended by describing him as a “mad Calvinist” is not apparent to me, but in juxtaposition with the other descriptors, and with the fact of his having visions and is often inebriated, opens for me the possibility that he is fairy-touched, and that he may have been ‘away’ at some point.[2]  Everything he stands for, as an Antinomian, a Jacobin and a Leveller, identifies him as having values similar to those oft ascribed to the fairyfolk.

Though Michael’s values are more extreme, the fairyfolk were seen as people of Nature, identified with the green natural world, lovers of their goddess; the Earth—and associated with the Moon, often described as “Lamp of the Faeryfolk” as the fairy are often associated with Night and nighttime scenes, as in Michael’s vision.  As such the fairyfolk were opposed to laws, customs and practices that endangered or polluted Nature; their home and a manifestation of their goddess.  Someone who is faery-touched is often left unable to function well in their own society; possibly having visited the fairy world and come back ‘changed.’  While the text never indicates that Michael Hartley was ever ‘away,’ as the term goes for someone who had visited or been taken into fairyland, his being fairy-touched might help explain why he was not harmed or attacked when he saw the fairy trooping out of the woods.  It is also interesting that whenever Michael appears in the story, it is in a nighttime scene.

After these opening references in the first chapter, it somewhat perplexed me that neither in Chapter II – where Robert Moore is introduced – nor Chapter III – where the Rev Helstone; Caroline’s uncle, is introduced – are there any references to fairy.  But then, the Mill in the Hollow is not a place where fairies would deem to haunt and call their own, as they are said to be opposed to industrialism, especially when it disrupts Nature and paves over its beauty and power.  A rectory would not usually be frequented by the fairyfolk, either, as they are oft said to be in opposition to religions that oppress their adherents, repress human nature and deny the powers of Nature.  Chapter IV, which continues to introduce Mr Hiram Yorke – also contains no fairy references.  This may be because of Mr Yorke’s character, however, for Charlotte says of him: “He believed in God and heaven; but his God and heaven were those of a man in whom awe, imagination, and tenderness lack.” (47)

As it takes an active and creative imagination to have fairy-faith – not to mention an authentic faith in ‘God’ – this in-itself may have been all that it took for Mr Yorke to be blocked from having fairy experiences.  The common prejudice against imagination is clearly expressed in relation to Mr Yorke’s character, when the text says:  “[W]ho cares for imagination? Who does not think it a rather dangerous, senseless, attribute—akin to weakness—perhaps partaking of frenzy – a disease rather than a gift of the mind?” (48)  Creative people – including genuinely spiritual people – care for the imagination and curate it, often using it to liberate themselves from the shackles of mere conformity.  Yes, it can be seen by the establishment as dangerous, and the bias that people of imaginative abilities are ‘weak’ gives the status quo a way of dismissing the imaginative person’s gift and the truths which may arise from its employment.

It is significant that immediately after this diatribe against the imagination, Charlotte Brontë – via her narrator – offers one of the most powerful descriptions of the Poet in this novel.   Referring to the ‘true poet,’ we are told:

“[T]he true poet, quiet externally though he [sic] may be, has often a truculent spirit under his placidity, and is full of shrewdness in his meekness, and can measure the whole stature of those who look down on him, and correctly ascertain the weight and value of the pursuits they disdain him for not having followed.  It is happy that he can have his own bliss, his own society with his great friend and goddess, Nature, quite independently of those who find little pleasure in him, and in whom he finds no pleasure at all.”  (49)

 As a Poet I find this description, and the whole rest of the paragraph that follows, to ably reference the Poet’s relationship to Imaginative Visioning and Re-Visioning of the world in which (s)he finds him/herself.  This text also points to another theme associated with the fairyfolk: their love of music, poetry and dancing.  Throughout this novel, characters talk about poetry and literature, and in Charlotte’s and her character’s descriptors of these arts, one can hear a fairy familiarity.  Nature often functions as a Goddess for Poets – in the aspects of the Moon or the Earth herself – and those who embrace Nature as their creative Muse are less likely to willingly exploit and abuse the natural world.

In Chapter V, which introduces Robert’s home-life with his sister Hortense, it is said that in the night “Mr Moore haunted his mill, his mill-yard, his dye-house, and his warehouse, till the sickly dawn strengthened into day.” (63)   It could be asked how you can ‘haunt’ – in one sense – without being a ghost yourself, or in part somehow ‘dead’ – perhaps in one’s soul or spirit?  And there is not a single reference to fairies in the whole chapter.

The next five chapters read very much as a social novel, introducing Caroline Helstone, the Methodist ‘dissenters’ in Briarfield, the residents of Briarmains; the home of the Yorkes – and other aspects of the world.  It is not until Chapter XI that we get another reference to anything related to fairy. That is the Chapter in which the titular character of the novel – Shirley Keeldar – is introduced.  During Mr Helstone’s and Caroline’s first visit with the “heiress of Fieldhead” and the “Lord of Briarfield Manor,” Shirley professes that she thinks the Hollow with the mill within it to be Romantic. (209)  At the end of the chapter, as her company is leaving, Shirley is seen “waving her hand, white as a lily and fine as a fairy’s” (209), after which she “vanished within the porch” while Mr Helstone and Caroline leave the Manor house.  This is the first reference to fairy in relation to Shirley Keeldar.  While metaphorical, the fact that she ‘vanishes’ from the porch, could reference the fairy ability to become invisible, or to transport oneself to another location by an act of will.

At the beginning of Chapter XII, which is full of significant references, is where Shirley is listening to the birds and chirruping to them (see my reference to this in “Reading Shirley I”); which seems like an attempted communication, or even a ‘dialogue,’ and is one of many signifiers of her love of Nature’s creatures.  It may imply an identification with Nature as a goddess; something Shirley will affirm as the story unfolds.  Later in the chapter, Caroline and Shirley go walking together in the Nunnwood; a remnant stand of ancient woodland wherein there is a ruined nunnery.  There, the two women, becoming friends, spend part of an afternoon, drawing and discussing life, men and marriage.  They aver that their time together would be diminished if men were with them; it would dispel the charm of the place.  The Wood is thus a locus of feminine power and empowerment.  They allude to the place having been a haunt of Robin Hood; whose mythic predecessor, before he was reimagined as an actual historical human being – was Robin Goodfellow—a fairy ‘gentleman.’  And before that, he was Puck of the Forest.  The two new friends speak of worshipping Nature, and how it would be sufficient for life; it alone would fill the human heart sufficiently!  The trees of the forest – Oak, Ash, Birch and Beech – are often associated with the fairyfolk.  Only Thorn is not mentioned of that mystical triad – Oak-Ash-Thorn – that is indicative of fairy magic and the presence or nearness of the fairy world.  Though Caroline protests, “I disdain to be a Pagan,” (220) there is much of naturalistic Paganism in this chapter!

There is an evening described later in this same chapter in which a fairy consciousness; an enchantment – overtook Caroline and Shirley.  The description of Shirley’s state is consistent with that ‘kind’ of consciousness in which the fairyfolk can be encountered:

“Shirley sat at the window, watching the rack in heaven, the mist on earth, listening to certain notes of the gale that plained like restless spirits – notes which, had she not been so young, gay, and healthy, might have swept her trembling nerves like some omen, some anticipatory dirge: in this her prime of existence and bloom of beauty, they but subdued vivacity to pensiveness.  Snatches of sweet ballads haunted her ear’ now and then she sang a stanza: her accents obeyed the fitful impulse of the wind; they swelled as its gusts rushed on, and died as they wandered away.” (227)

She is falling into an enchantment, in harmony with manifestations of Nature and with the Night.  As this was happening to Shirley, Caroline was pacing and murmuring poetic fragments to herself “withdrawn to the farthest and darkest end of the room.” (227)

I know this state; the kind of consciousness being described—and it is consonant with what is known as fairy consciousness.  It is often melancholy; not in the modern usage of ‘depressed’ but in the older sense of ‘knowing and understanding the pain and suffering of life, yet being willing to pursue life, embrace and live it, affirming its worth despite the pain and suffering that may come.’  What Caroline sings is a song – “The Castaway” by William Cowper – which tells of a crewman washed overboard at sea during a story, his crewmates watching helplessly hoping, as he drowns.  It is narrated by the fated seaman who dies in the end as well.  [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44027/the-castaway]  Together, the two enchanted women discuss how the poet was affected by the story, how Cowper was broken-hearted when he wrote it, and how they pity the drowning seaman.  Caroline attributes Cowper with the gift of poetry, describing it as “the most divine” gift bestowed on humankind.  She then speaks of poetry, expressing a Romanticist ideal of feeling and experience over against mere reason. (228)

This augments the description of the true poet in Chapter IV, giving poetry its essential nature as auguring “real feeling.”  Here, she is not disparaging learning as such – as she herself is a reader of books and cares for knowledge – but only expressing the ideal of poetry as relating genuine feeling.  It is an implicit critique of the Classicist poetry of the 18^th century; which was all too often a display of intellect and attainment, a vaunting of reason up over the other human faculties – especially intuition and authentic emotion.  Fairies, being often associated with passion, eros and intuition, might very well relate to this idea of poetry!  The fact that these two women have been enchanted by the weather intimates a possible fairy-inspiration behind their dialogue, which continues in a discussion of Cowper and Rouseau.

It is in the next chapter where Shirley relates to Robert how her nurse used to tell her stories of the fairies being in the Hollow, before the mill was built (239; for my account, see “Reading Shirley II: The End of Shirley”).  After Shirley mentions Michael Hartley in the way of warning Robert about wandering late in the woods, Robert tells her he has already met up with the man, at night, and in the woods, and that he liked the encounter!  Shirley is unnerved, and when she asks Robert where he met Hartley, he says:

 "In the deepest, shadiest spot in the glen, where the water runs low, under brushwood.  We sat down near that plank bridge.  It was moonlight, but clouded, and very windy.  We had a talk.” (240)

This setting is a characteristically fairy meeting-place.  Robert has gone to the heart-of-the-wood, near flowing water – always something in which fairy voices are said to be sometimes heard by the attendant – and in the moonlight; the Moon being the “Lamp of the Faeryfolk” – is listening to the man he has met there.  Is this man, Michael Hartley – human or fairy?  Is he influenced by the fairyfolk in his ravings which, while dressed in Christian terms, are in sympathy, as I suggested in my previous blog, with fairy values.  The wind is also blowing – just as it was on the night when Shirley & Caroline were enchanted.   A strong wind is often associated with the fairyfolk in their “wild ride” across the sky, bringing devastation and even death in its wake, as the folklore and fairyfaith of the time oft asserts.

Michael Hartley, while clearly a human being, is also termed a “madman” who has visions and who raves against those in power!  Robert allows that “There is a wild interest in his ravings.” (240).  Robert professes that “The man would be half a poet, if he were not wholly a maniac; and perhaps a prophet, if he were not a profligate.” (240)  Michael prophecies that Robert is damned and will be in Hell; as the visionary sees the Mark of the Beast on Robert’s brow!  Though Christian in its terminology, the prophecy could well suffice as a fairy condemnation on the man who is running the mill – which is being mechanized to help improve profits – in a place that was once a fairy vale.  Michael, too, may here be under the influence of the fairyfolk, as he is also in the moonlight, experiencing the high winds, and hearing the whispering of the water of the brook beneath the bridge on which they are sitting!

Later in the same chapter, Shirley and her companion Mrs Pryor offer to take Caroline on a sea-trip to the North Atlantic, where they hope to see seals, and also mermaids.  While not fairy, mer-maids are another kind of preternatural creature associated with the liminal horizons of our actual, day-to-day worlds.  That Shirley is inspired by the possibly of seeing mermaids, and describes an imagined night on deck when she and Caroline would witness one alongside the ship, speaks to her mythic imagination; which is revealed at other points in the narrative as well—she being the kind of dreamer who, if not of fairy descent herself – has a fairy-like spirit.

Even later in the same chapter, Robert arrives at Fieldhead – Shirley’s home – having some official papers for them to mull over and discuss together.  Caroline, who would like nothing better than to sit with Robert and talk, as they used to do, yearns to go home and be away from the scene of Robert and Shirley talking business.   As she waits to go, she thinks of Robert’s house; the flowers in the garden there being dear to her, and how the parlor – where she and Robert might sit together again one day – is like an earthly paradise.  She makes an analogy between herself and “the First Woman” and how Eve must have yearned to return to the Garden.  This passage is interesting as it further expresses Caroline’s mythic sense of place and an imaginative mind open to cosmic significances.  The Garden of Eden is in some sense interchangeable in this narrative with the ‘Garden of Nature,’ wherein fairy dwell.  At least, so it seems to me.

Caroline has to wait to leave until 9 PM – as her maid Fanny would be coming for her at that pre-determined time – and when Fanny does come, Robert decides to leave with Caroline, telling the maid to go on ahead of them.  They walk together in converse, during which Robert laments how long it has been since Caroline was at the cottage – the house Caroline was just earlier alluding to as like the Garden of Eden to her – to which Caroline responds that while she has not been there, she has been near it.  She admits that she walks along the ridge above the Mill – tarrying under a lone Thorn tree –from there looking down on the scene in the Hollow; waiting to see Robert’s form in the window after he lights his candle (for an instance of this, see p. 235).  Robert muses how odd it is that he has never encountered her, as he often takes evening walks along the same pathways.  Caroline admits that he has passed by her quite near, twice, and each time in company with another.  One of Robert’s companions had been Mr Yorke.  The other, she refers to as “that fairy shadow” – which epithet Caroline uses to reference Shirley!

Robert is surprised by these near-but-non-encounters with Caroline on his night walks, and teases that the ring on her finger might well be the Ring of Gyges.  This is a magic ring mentioned in Plato’s Republic (Book II), which gives the bearer the gift of invisibility.  It is the device used to facilitate the philosophers’ discussion of justice; i.e., whether a person who could walk around invisible might do things – unseen and undetected – that he or she might not do, were they not in possession of the ring.  Invisibility is also a talent of the fairyfolk, who can move about amongst ordinary mortals without being detected and listen-in on their conversations; just as Caroline could have done with regard to Robert in her seclusion near him in the Night.  Caroline, however, avers that she never eavesdrops on Robert and his fellow walkers, at which confession Robert waxes into the mysterious and exclaims how Caroline’s watchfulness now haunts him.  He says:

“When I walk out along the hedgerows in the evening after the mill is shut – or at night, when I take the watchman’s place – I shall fancy the flutter of every little bird over its nest, the rustle of every leaf, a movement made by you; tree-shadows will take your shape; in white sprays of hawthorn, I shall imagine glimpses of you, Lina, you will haunt me.” (257)

Robert is here experiencing what it is like to be fairy-visited; haunted by the invisible inhabitant in the night – Caroline herself now clearly being likened to a fairy!  Hawthorne is a faery-tree, long associated with visions or visitations from the Otherworld wherein the faeryfolk dwell.  He will think of every small movement of foliage caused by her invisible presence.  Her being near will cause the birds to flutter.  The “white-sprays” are the blossoms of the Hawthorne, metaphoring Caroline as dressed in white; the White Lady – which may imply the Lady of the Moon; the Goddess of Inspiration and the “Lamp of the Faeryfolk.”

This interchange between them opens Robert to confession of two apparitions he has had of Caroline.  One in the mill and another at his house.  In the first, he thought he saw Caroline’s form amongst the girls working at the other end of one of the long rooms, and attributes the apparition to an effect of sunbeams; a play of shadow and light.  Yet when he attempted to draw nearer to her, as he did, he saw what he thought had been Caroline ‘glide away’ (258).  Caroline asserts that she would not come into Robert’s mill unless he had invited her!  Robert then relates another apparition of her; in his cottage, this time, after he came home late one night.  Instead of finding his sister sitting up and waiting for him, he says he thought he saw Caroline sitting near a window, with “broad moonbeams” pouring in through the panes.  The description of the apparition is riveting:

“For half a second, your fresh, living face seemed turned towards me, looking at me; for half a second, my idea was to go and take your hand, to chide you for your long absence, and welcome your present visit.  Two steps forward broke the spell: the drapery of the dress changed outline; the tints of the complexion dissolved, and were formless: positively, as I reached the spot, there was nothing left but the sweep of a white muslin curtain, and a balsam plant in a flower plot, covered with a flush of bloom – “sic transit,”^[3] et cetera.” (258)

The description sent a chill down my back, as I realized I had just read an account of a haunting and then, to my continued surprise (and pleasure), Caroline says “It was not my wraith, then?  I almost thought it was.”

Robert does not dispel the idea that Caroline might have ‘sent forth her wraith,’ as witches and fairy are known to do, but concludes by saying all was normal and natural enough in the room, after the apparition was concluded.  There is a clear resonance here that amplifies the identification of Caroline with the fairyfolk.  For it is they – as well as occult practitioners – who could visit a cottage – or any location – in spectral form; to ‘haunt’ those in residence.  At this point in the novel, I began to accept that both Shirley and Caroline were those in whom the “fairish” – as the narrator’s housekeeper called the fairyfolk on the last page of the novel – were still being “heard” in the Hollow.

After Robert leaves Caroline go into her house, Caroline met the memory of Robert in a vivid presencing; in and enchanting way—causing her to sit up, wakeful, for most of the rest of the night.  In fairy terms, I see in this a continued communion with Robert; one in which she was experiencing him present with her, rather than sending forth her fetch to him.  While this can be understood in naturalistic, psychological terms; having a vivid impression of someone else via memory – it is tinctured, for me, with possible fairy potentialities.

The next fairy-reference comes in Chapter XVII “The School Feast.”  After the parade and festivities are concluded, Shirley entices Caroline to walk out across a field to intercept Robert who has left without bidding them goodbye.  Playfully miffed, they go out to meet him along his way.  Getting to a section of road where they expected Robert to come along in time, they entered “a narrow shady spot, embowered above by hawthorns, and enamelled underfoot by daisies” (321).  Once again, the scene is associated with one of the traditional fairy trees.  There they wait for Robert to come up the road.  As he approaches, the “long sprays of the hawthorns” kept the two women concealed from his sight.  Shirley steps out and says, “You omitted to bid us good-bye,” to which Robert responds:

“Omitted to bid you goodbye!  Where did you come from?  Are you fairies?  I left two like you, one in purple and one in white, standing at the top of a bank, four fields off, but a minute ago!” (321)

Being in two places at once, bi-locating – is another talent of the fairyfolk.  Purple and white are associated with certain kinds of fairy; being the colours of their regal clothing.

In the next chapter – wittily titled “Which the Genteel Reader is Recommended to Skip, Low Persons Being Here Introduced” (lol) – we find Shirley and Caroline, after leaving Robert on the road, coming to the church were the after-festival service is being held – but not going in.  What follows is Shirley’s vision out of her creative imagination of Nature and her Titaness_ Eve.  Shirley hesitates going into the church when she begins to see this vision of Nature; which is prefaced with a reference to the church and the tombs around it having a divine look; that is, with the fading day’s “crimson gleam” on them.  This speaks of that faery melancholy I mentioned earlier; the connection between life and inevitable death represented by the graveyard, as well as the juxtaposition of the church – which represents life – sitting amidst a yard of tombs and graves.  This existential situation then inspires Shirley in a vivid visioning.  She says:

“Nature is now at her evening prayers; she is kneeling before those red hills.  I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for lambs on the moors, and unfledged birds in woods.  Caroline, I see her!  And I will tell you what she is like; she is like what Eve was when she and Adam stood alone on earth.” (325-6)

Caroline protests that what Shirley is describing is not “Milton’s Eve,” to which Shirley avers that Milton, for all his genius, could not ‘see’ the real Eve; for he could not see past his own cook!  She then argues, envisioning, that the real Eve was a “woman-Titan,” giving a description of her that may remind the reader of both Isis and the Virgin Mary.  She is the biblical “First Woman” re-clothed in classical mythic garb.  When Caroline says she wishes to go into the church, Shirley protests that she will not go in, but stay outside with her mother Eve, professing her love for her, and calling her a “mighty being.” (327)

This is a startling and refreshing passage.  Caroline asserts that she cannot grasp it; that Shirley has got “such a hash of Scripture and mythology into her head” (327) that she cannot make sense of it.  Yet she is curious about what Shirley has ‘seen’ kneeling up on the hills at their horizon.  Shirley’s vision of the Titaness-Eve has themes drawn from esoteric and apocryphal traditions, as well as undertones that connect it to fairylore, in which these kinds of paganized versions of Biblical myth are often present.  Nature is praying; to whom?  God or Goddess?  The Titaness Eve is kneeling and interceding for mortals, animal and human.  Shirley avers that she sees Eve.  Michael Hartley is not the only visionary in this novel!

The next reference to fairy comes at the beginning of the next chapter (XIX, A Summer Night).  Shirley is about to leave the Rectory after a visit with Caroline, claiming there to be just enough light to guide her safely to Fieldhead. Caroline objects, and is willing to ask Fanny to accompany Shirley, to which Shirley responds that she has no fear of walking about in her own parish, and that she would make the trek any fine night, even later in the evening that it is.  And why?  “for the mere pleasure of seeing the stars, and the chance of meeting a fairy.” (338)  Shirley need not be afraid of such an encounter, at one level, because she is fairylike herself and perhaps even fairy-graced?   

There is the ordinary sense in which she is not afraid in her own parish as she is the “Lord of the Manor of Briarfield” – and who would really dare attack her?  But that is flimsy self-confidence as well as perhaps legitimate confidence in the people in Briarfield and surrounding areas—whom she has gotten to know.  But the reference to “the chance of meeting a fairy,” I think, skews the meaning of her resolve toward being fairy and even fairy-graced.  Being fairy-like – she wants to meet another of her ‘kind?’  And has she not contemplated the possibility of Michael Hartley being out afoot in the woods at night?

In the next chapter, (XXI, Mrs Pryor) there is a natural scene depicted that evokes a sense of fairyland; a rich place of solitude and old trees at the narrowing end of the Hollow.  It is described as a “wooded ravine” with the millstream running through it.  Caroline and Mrs Pryor have taken a walk together, and come to this place of potential enchantment:

“Here, when you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep solitude: found it in the shade of unmolested trees; received it in the singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home.  This was no trodden way: the freshness of the woodflowers attested that foot of man seldom pressed them: the abounding wild-roses looked as if they budded, bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude … Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, an humble type of some star-lit spot in space.”  (379)

There is so much to unpack in these sentences!  In folklore, the fairyfolk are fond of – and dwell in – unspoiled Nature; the more ‘developed’ a field or wood is, the less they feel at-home in it.  That few people travel through this ravine makes it lonesome, and therefore a place where fairyfolk might visit and frolick, potentially presencing to mortals.  The fact that no human eye sees the budding, blooming and passing of the wildflowers likewise makes it attractive to fairy.  They favour the lonesome places in Nature.  And that it is so close to the mill – just half-a-mile away – suggests the possibility that while the fairyfolk may have evacuated from the Hollow itself, because of industrialization and the attendant noise and pollution, they might still haunt this nearby locale.  The comparison of the white blossoms in the grass with the stars in the heavens brings to mind the theme of the fairyfolk walking by starlight and not in the bright light of the sun.  The Moon is their Mistress.  Though Mrs Pryor and Caroline do not have an encounter with fairies, the very fact that Caroline is there makes them, in some sense, present_ if not presencing.

While the secluded ravine is a perfect place for a fairy-encounter, Mrs Pryor engages with it in a rational way as they walk through it.  She names the flowers and the birds for Caroline, and I gathered the sense from this that her connection with the woodland is not intuitive or mystical, but practical and rational, her motives educative where Caroline is concerned.  I wonder if this is correct?  Does this characterize Mrs Pryor’s character throughout the novel?  Perhaps with good reason.  As a governess she was charged with teaching and educating, and so her relationship to nature as to the world may be more rational than that of the Poet, Musician or Artist, whose reason – when rightly employed – serves and guides their intuition, emotion and creative imagination.  While not alienating the fairy that might be in the place, she is – like Mr Yorke mentioned earlier, though in a less unnatural way – not able to experience the fairy nature of the locale, though she clearly experiences its natural beauty?

The next episode I would like to focus attention on is from Chapter XXII (Two Lives), which takes place after the mill has been attacked and Robert has left the area, seeking the leaders of the rioters.  Shirley’s life-at-home becomes the focus of much of the chapter and, after a description of a day at Fieldhead – during which she tries to sew but cannot focus on it.  She goes out to feed fowl at her door, checks on her horses and then looks in on the sheep and cows – finally settling in to read a book.  Though we don’t know what book it is, it clearly has the effect upon the reader of refreshing her, ‘refilling’ and “re-warming her heart.” (394)

As the moon rises, casting its light over the page she is reading, the mood of the narrative changes, once again, being interrupted by something transcendence-inducing.  The physical environment of the room in which she had been reading takes on a new cast.  The twilight affects her, making “earth an Eden,” and “life a poem” (394).  She enters into an uplifted state, which has a “genie” quality to it, and is soon raised to a level that can be understood in mystical terms as communion-in-transcendence.  Charlotte describes this experience in terms familiar to mystics and poets alike, who are sometimes gifted with such experiences, saying:

“A still, deep, inborn delight grows in her young veins; unmingled – untroubled; not to be reached or ravished by human agency, because by no human agency bestowed.” (394)

Charlotte calls this a “Gift of God” and also “the free dower of Nature to her child,” seeming to equate – as often in Jane Eyre as well – ‘God’ and ‘Nature.’  Next, she says, “This joy gives her experience of a genii-life.”  While this passage contains no literal reference to fairies, this reference to genies can be understood as a symbolic and mythic cognate.  The genie was a mythological creature, like the fairy, originating in Islamic culture, the genii having characteristics comparable to the fairyfolk.  Charlotte would have been most familiar with them from The Thousand and One Nights – a book of Arabian tales – first published in English in 1704-1712.  Though a genie oft becomes a servant of mortals – as in the tale of Alladin’s lamp – they are also protectors of places, people and sacred sites.  They were associated with springs, hills, caves and other natural sites, wherein they could be encountered.  If they were dis-respected, they would revenge themselves upon those who hurt or abused them.  All these characteristics were likewise attributed to fairies in European lore.

As such, the “experience of a genii life” that Shirley is having is another way of speaking of her being identified as a fairy; even perhaps fairy-graced?  The experience she then has, which lifts her into a state of self-transcendence can be read in mystical terms as her being out-of-herself; in ek-stasis.   Here is the narrator’s description of Shirley’s experience; the “genii-life” given to her by Nature and/as God:

“Buoyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels looked down on the dreamer of Beth-El, and her eye seeks, and her soul possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it.  No – not as she wishes it; she has not time to wish; the swift glory spreads out, sweeping and kindling, and multiplies its splendours faster than Thought can effect his combinations, faster than Aspiration can utter her longings. Shirley says nothing while the trance is upon her – she is quite mute; but if Mrs Pryor speaks to her now, she goes out quietly, and continues her walk up-stairs in the dim gallery.” (394-5)

Note that in this trance she is going by “green steps” – these are touched with Nature; she is still on the ground.  Going to “glad hills” – a place where genii as well as fairy might be found, being “all verdure and light,” she would seem to be entering into a fantasy-land.  “Verdure” is a word describing the lush, fecund green of Nature.  And then, she is ‘transported’ to a place near the realms of angels!   “The Dreamer of Beth-El” refers to Jacob in the Bible (Genesis 28:10 – 28:22), where the patriarch has a vision of Yahweh.  Jacob dreams of a “Stairway to Heaven” and sees angels ascending and descending upon it.  Jacob also experienced Yahweh standing next to him and speaking to him!  Then note the transience of time during the vision-trance!  Shirley doesn’t see life as she wishes it, because she is not in ordinary time.  There is no-time.  Not that there isn’t enough of it, but it doesn’t flow in same way as it does normally to a mortal consciousness. 

“Glory” may refer to seeing a saint’s halo or rainbow; it may also refer to a translucent circle of water vapour illuminated around the Moon or a star.  This glory is spreading out in wondrous ways, faster than Thought!  Though she might want to speak, she cannot; she is in fairy time (or divine time, depending on whether you want to read this text in Christian or Pagan terms).  She is mute, and then the last couple phrases are quite intriguing!  In what sense – in which ‘reality’ – does she continue her walk “up-stairs” in the “dim gallery?”  Is she simply leaving the parlor where Mrs Pryor has spoken to her, or is she ascending the stairway to heaven in the Beth-El reference; ascending into a ‘higher reality’ – into Fairyland? The text leaves me wondering!

This episode ends with the narrator criticizing Shirley for being “indolent,” suggesting that if she would just pick up pen and paper when she has these experiences and record “the story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her” (395), she might realize that “her dreams are rare” and her “feelings peculiar.”  Charlotte says, “she does not know, has never known, and will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green.” (395)   How sad!  The narrator – once again speaking from a not-to-distant future – is affirming that there is value in these kinds of experiences, and that they would be worth recording; they might be of benefit to others—describing access to states and experiences of transcendent realities of which we are capable of having, simply because we are the human beings that we are.  Such states and experiences provide refreshments to the human spirit and nourishment for the soul, and to know that they are possible allows us to be more open to them whenever they might transpire, often spontaneously and without intent on our part.

In chapter XXIII - “An Evening Out,” Caroline is invited by Hortense to visit her at the house where she and Robert live.   Hoping Robert might be there, she goes, only to find Robert not yet at home and Hortense enduring a visit by Mrs Yorke and her children.  One of the Yorke children is said to start up “like some fairy” (404) from where she had been sitting by her mother.  The element of surprise in a fairy appearance is suggested by this phrase.  Rose – another of the Miss Yorke’s – is sitting by a bookshelf, reading.  Caroline engages her, finding she’s reading Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian.  They discuss happiness, Rose averring that she wants to travel and experience the world.  When Caroline asks Rose if she should be as happy as Rose intimates if she were to take to “wandering alone in strange countries,” (406) Rose replies:

 "Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander.  Remember, however, that I have an object in view: but if you only went on and on, like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now.  In a day’s wandering, you would pass many a hill, wood and watercourse, each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright.” (407)

 What Rose is describing here – and what she may well be imagining without realizing it – is the Fairy World.  The references to hill, wood and watercourse stand out to me as fairy locales, and that they are “perpetually altering in aspect,” while given a naturalistic reason, also suggests the Otherworld, in which scenes are not always what they seem to mortal eyes, and where one can pass from one locale or environment into another without much effort_ or even intent!

In Chapter XXVII, Henry Sympson – a cousin of Shirley’s and student of Louis Moore – Robert’s brother – finds a copy-book (such as students used for their exams and etc.) that had been Shirley’s back in the day when she was Louis’ student.  Louis comes in, to find his current and old student having taken the copy-book out and are looking at it.  His is surprised but not angered.  Shirley has to go and receive guests.  After she leaves, the 15-year-old Henry Sympson exclaims, of Shirley “Is she not a kind of white witch?” (472)  Witches and fairy are often confuted in the lore; attributes of one also being used of the other.  As Doreen Valiente once said in An ABC of Witchcraft:

 "The relationship between the world of witchcraft and the world of Fairie has always been close; so close, indeed, that it is not easy to draw a precise boundary in these enchanted lands, and to say where one world ends and another begins.” (118, 1973, 2022)[4]

In the next chapter – Chapter XXVII, The First Blue Stocking – after an altercation between herself and her uncle Mr Sympson over whom Shirley was going to marry; a theme very much on Mr Sympson’s mind – we come to the second great mythic story from Shirley!  She comes to visit Louis’ in his room after he had been ill with a fever.  Earlier she had brought him grapes for his refreshment, which he refused, after which she offered to read to him, which Louis also declined.  After his nearly full recovery, Louis sends for Shirley, and when she comes to his study, he calls in the favor of her reading to him.  They read together from the works of St. Pièrre [i.e., Jacques-Henri-Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814); French writer and botanist], Louis tutoring Shirley on her pronunciation and accent once again, as in her student days, until she is reading fluently.  After this, Louis asks her if she still remembered a composition from her school days: La Première Savante “The First Scholar”, which Louis calls a “devoir;” an expression of respect toward something or someone.  Shirley deflects that she cannot remember it, to which Louis avers that he can, word for word.  Shirley challenges him to do so, which he does, from memory!

The story begins with a quote from Genesis which tells how the Sons of God saw the daughters of men and took them as their wives. (6:1-4).   It focuses on a woman – bereft of parents and living from hand-to-mouth – who has a divine encounter in the wilds.  The setting imagined is one akin to that in which biblical prophets were later to encounter the Divine Mystery, as well as scenes in which fairy might well presence to mortals:  “A crag, overspread by a tree, was her station: the oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat: the oak-boughs, thick weaved, wove a canopy.” (489)  Again, the Oak is a fairy tree.  Roots reach down into the earth and by them Pagan mystics can communicate with the underground realm where the fairy live, beyond the sídhe.  The boughs of the tree over-cover her, giving her protection from the sun and weathers.  

 As the girl sat in this place, the text says her body was “still,” yet her soul was “astir.”  She experienced herself as “the centre” and in this state she debates her fate; whether she shall live or perish.  She is ‘centered,’ in western mystical terminology, and thus focused.  This is how you might describe – and experience – a meditative state of Solitude.  As she considers which fate is to be hers, a small “atom” or “spark” of life seems to be emitted, inadvertently, from “the great creative source,” (490); a mystical name for the Divine—and in that presence she beseeches whomever or whatever will listen for “Guidance – help – comfort” (490) and bids it “come!”  She kneels and waits.  And then:

“At last, one over-stretched chord of her agony slacked: she thought Something above relented: she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only a tone.” (490)

That “her agony slacked” would signify a physical response to being meditatively centered.  A person oft lets-go of stress in the opening phase of meditation, and once stilled, presence may come to presence in or around the meditator.  Here, “Something above relented.”  That is, the Transcendent Whatever – by whichever strange name you wish to call it – opened toward the penitent petitioner, and then came near.  An awe-inspiring experience!  Whatever Shirley heard she experiences as if Silence itself was speaking to her; yet – as in most mystical experience – the communique comes in no known words, no language or even comprehensible music.

Out of this Silence, she heard a name, Eva, and accepted it as her own.  She pledges herself to this presence as a “handmaid,” the presence offering her a “living draught from heaven.”  After she drinks, the presence addressing her identifies itself as “a Son of God” (491).  It tells her ‘he’ is a seraph – a celestial being having three wings; one of a class of angels – and she willing offers herself to be his bride; thus dramatizing an instance of the statement in Genesis that the Sons of God took the daughters of men as their wives.  The Son of God – the Seraph – then takes the name of Genius, and in the following paragraphs of the story they live together through Eva’s life-times, struggling against temptation and the Father of Lies, who sought to come between Genius and Eva.   Eva is equated with Humanity itself.  The story ends with the Seraph being a defender of Humanity (492).

Once again, as in the story of the Yorke family, the text telescopes the narrative into the future, this time, that of the future of humanity itself, when all will be reconciled to the Divine Other – called Jehovah, here – and all beings will be transposed into Immortality and Eternity.  Though an apocalyptic story using the Genesis text as a touchstone or rune, this tale also has fairy-like elements, though its vocabulary and narrative style are more evocative of 19^th century esoterica.  I hear in it resonances of tales in which a mortal – man or woman – is companioned by a fairy mentor through their life and beyond – into the Otherworld; where time vanishes or at least runs in unusual ways; at least compared to time in our mortal world.

The next two references to fairy have to do with Martin Yorke; one of the Yorke children – brother of Rose – his reading of a Fairy book out in the woods, and the effect this has on him and his experience in our actual world.  Martin’s character is anti-poetic; even hostile to poetics—he “tramples on the name of poetry” (570) yet: “Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his attentive gaze.” (570)  He is seated in this natural locale, the beauty and life of which he can hardly appreciate, reading “a contraband volume of Fairy tales” (571).  Why contraband?  Probably because his parents would not want him to be reading it?  Perhaps because he is drawn to something he is sure they would not understand_ or his reasons for doing so?  For whatever reason, he has to leave his home, even on this cold wintry day, and read in solitude in the woods!  The moon “waits on him,” the moonlight – referred to as feminine – filling the natural scene around him.

It is winter, and he is surely cold, but he has found in this retreat from his family a respite for his soul and spirit; both of which he may well be unconscious?  Yet, in “her” light he reads two tales, being led into an imaginary dreamland of fairy.  In the first he sees “a green-robed lady” riding forth through the mist, in a bright vision!  She enchants him and he knows he must follow her into the fairy otherworld![5]    I wonder about Martin’s family life; as I do about all of the Yorke children – given their seemingly urgent desire to leave home and be away from their parents.  Rose, in the chapter where Caroline encounters her during a visit to Hortense, is talking of wandering and seeing the world, and reading a Gothic novel – The Italian.  Martin is early-on portrayed as a young misogynist; distrustful and even hateful of women.  He escapes into fairy-imaginings rather than in the desire to wander the world; a different form of wandering.  An analysis of the Yorke family and the fate of their children – which Charlotte presents in a telescoping of their story over the years after this novel is finished – might well be an interesting investigation of family dynamics and socialization. (Perhaps I will attempt it in a later blog).

The second fairy tale takes him to a seashore, where a strong tide rages and rain blows in a storm.  A wanderer is out on a black, rocky reef, lonesome and cautiously looking down into a deep well of brine, wherein they see vegetation larger than what grows on land and then—

“Looking up, and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall, pale thing—shaped like a man, but made of spray – transparent, tremulous, awful: it stands alone … a crowd of foam-women – a band of white evanescent Nereides.” (571)

Nereides are nymphs who travelled in Poseidon’s realm in Greek myth and could be friendly guides to sailors as well as to others on the shores of wide waters.

This vision is brought to a quick close when Martin hears footfall in the leaf-litter near him!  He shuts the book and awaits the realization of what might well be a fairy vision in mortal timespace! The narrator describes the vision thus:

“She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face.  Martin never met a lady in this wood before – nor any female, save, now and then, a village girl come to gather nuts.  To-night, the apparition does not displease him.  He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful and, that he now recognizes her for one whom he has often willfully pronounced ugly, he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of that veil.” (572)

The ‘fairy lady’ turns out to be Caroline Helstone, and this sequence of scenes is interesting for two reasons (and no doubt more).  First, for the way in which the fairy-tale-induced imaginings that put Martin in such a ‘trance’ or ‘enchantment’ that when a person in this world – not fairyland – actually approaches his embodied self, he thinks he is seeing a fairy.  Indeed, when I first read this passage, I thought that was what was actually happening, until the lady was identified as Caroline!  Martin Yorke, who thinks of women as “proud monkeys” (572), was prepared to encounter one the fairies about whom he had been reading, and, I thought, perhaps one of those who used to be seen in the Hollow (as per Shirley’s remark earlier in the book, and the narrator’s housekeeper on the last page of the novel).  Second, it adds heft to the association of Caroline with the fairy-folk.

In Chapter XXXIV (“Case of Domestic Persecution – Remarkable Instance of Pious Perseverance in the Discharge of Religious Duties”) Martin is spending his Saturday reading his book of fairy legends.  He is “in the wood with his book … and that other unwritten book of the imagination.” (590)  This “unwritten book” is the potential store of what the mind generates in response to our experiences, desires, hopes and fears, joys and abuses that we have endured.  It is a ‘book,’ I understand from the text, that Martin engages with though he has not operationalized its presentiments.  He is clearly able to imagine fairyland and can see – through that enchantment – another dimension of reality; one other than the actual world in which he is living—yet the Fairy book is more an escape that a provender of self-understanding or a touchstone of inspirations through which he might someday be self-liberated from his familial and social situation.

Martin is said to have “an irreligious reluctance” to see Saturday end and Sunday commence, as the narrator explains:

“Martin … disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long and the sermon usually little to his taste: this Saturday afternoon, however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the coming day.” (591)

Notice that it is his ‘musings’ are inspired by the woodland, and gathered from reading the Fairy book, giving rise to this ‘charm.’  He is in part ‘charmed’ in realizing that Caroline Helstone – the woman he had met in the woods – would be there.  This can be understood as Martin being enchanted in a fairy sense, especially as it is in relation to Caroline, who has been identified with fairies.  One possible interpretation is that Caroline has enchanted him; and this may be to the point—Martin has had so many imaginings of the fairy and their world that he is seeing this actual lady in his social world as having some effect of the fairyfolk about her.  It might also be read as saying Martin has been enchanted by his fairy stories, transferring that fairy-consciousness – though imperfectly – into the actual lived-in world of our mortal being-in-becoming. And as such he is ‘charmed with’ Caroline.  Either way you read it, fairy-influence is potentially implied.

In the penultimate chapter (XXXVI, “Written in the Schoolroom”), wherein Louis and Shirley resolve their differences, Louis asserts that Shirley has bewitched him, “in spite of sense and experience, and difference of station and estate,” lending further heft to Shirley’s relatedness to fairy and reinforcing Henry’s exclamation that she is a “white-witch.”  Louis is a tutor. Shirley, “the Lord of Briarfield Manor” and the “heiress of Fieldhead;” she is landed and wealthy.  While this would seem to imply – according to social conventions of the time – that Shirley is ‘above’ Louis in social rank, her position with regard to him as a former student, may be said to even-out their relationship to a degree.

I get the impression from what I've read that much has been made of Shirley’s desire to marry someone whom she does not need to be ‘master’ of, but wants a partner in marriage who will ‘master’ her.  While this might sound like she wants to retreat into a more conventional ‘female role’ once married, the ‘mastery’ she seeks is not one of patriarchal masculine authority ‘over her,’ but the mastery of a teacher, who can help her to mature into wisdom.  Louis’ engagement with Shirley is not one in which he is going to take control of her as a ‘male superior,’ but as one actually in awe of her.  As they spar in this chapter, Louis calls her “my leopardess,” (629) and later refers to her, in his notebook – which the reader is reading – exclaiming:

 "Pantheress! – beautiful forest born! – wily, tameless, peerless nature!  She gnaws her chain: I see the white teeth working at the steel!  She has dreams of her wild woods, and pinings after virgin freedom.” (635)

Both leopards and panthers and night creatures, and thus associated with the Divine as Goddess.  I am also reminded in this passage how the fairyfolk are sometimes thought of as shape-shifters, and also that they may sometimes have animal avatars; appearing in this animal form to ordinary mortals!  Louis, here, might be seeing her more mysterious form?  In the reference to her being “forest born” – which we do not know she wasn’t? – we have a term that identifies her with the fairyfolk, who are always born in the wildwoods and fields of Nature.  The “dreams of her wild woods” reference again her origin in Nature, and “virgin freedom” may be interpreted not as a woman’s life before marriage in a patriarchal society, but rather of her being ‘Virgin’ in a Pagan sense; she is a woman in control of her own sexuality, sexual pursuits and in the choice of partners.  This exemplifies Shirley throughout the story, in (1) her criticism of marriage, (2) her desire to make sure she chooses the right partner for marriage, and (3) her rejection of her uncle’s attempts to get her married in more conventional terms (with a man of her own class, etc).  All this points to customs characteristic of the fairyfolk and the freedom of fairy women in their own society to choose their mates as well as being chosen by them.

After this, in the ultimate chapter (XXXVII -- The Winding Up) we come to the last reference to the fairyfolk, on the last page, where the narrator’s housekeeper relates the story of her mother encountering the “fairish” (652; see my discussion at the end of my previous blog, Shirley II) in the Hollow before the mill was built.  The implication of all these references to fairy in the novel justifies Martha’s suggestion that the encounter had by her mother was probably the last one; no more have the fairy been seen on this side of the sídhe ­– though they have been “heard” over the intervening decades.  To me, all of these fairy indications and references to fairy legends in the novel; the culmination of which may well include Shirley’s story of Eva and Genius – are what have been “heard” of them; and that the fairy may yet be presencing in and through the experiences of such living mortals and the intimations of their creative imaginations.

On one level, Shirley is a social novel; not totally unlike others of its genre in the 19^th century.  The story deals with characters in their day-to-day lives, living-out ordinary mortal aspirations, difficulties, frustrations, injuries and sorrows, et cetera.  Yet, out of the ordinary arises the extra-ordinary; and in this novel, the fairy elements represent that extra-ordinary consciousness; which may remind us that there is Another World, other than the simply ordinary lived-in worlds we normally inhabit, and that being in-touch with that Otherworld – whatever we may call it and however we may understand it—can be a touchstone of a liberating and liberated consciousness, if it is not simply used as a placebo; a temporary escape from our ordinary circumstances, however sustaining or oppressive, satisfying or abusive.

An imagined Otherworld can be a guide to self-realization and full-fill-ment, but in Shirley it does not function in this way.  The fairy element in this novel serves as a reminder – to the reader if not to the characters – that more is possible in life than is dictated by the structures and strictures of our sociocultural and psychological realities.  The characters rarely act in such a way as would allow them to accept that the inspirations and insights that are possible to be derived from that Otherworld may be realized in their own situations.  And in this fact can be found the reason why the story ends the way it does, with Robert’s dream for Briarfield turning it into yet another industrialized mill-town with polluted air and water, with paved roads and “a mighty mill, and a chimney “ambitious as the Tower of Babel.” (652), where the green and greening effect of Nature has been overrun and closed out—but not forgotten.

 

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[1] All quotes taken from Charlotte Brontë Shirley and The Professor

(New York and London: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008; “Everyman’s Library” Edition

[2] This expression refers to someone being taken away into the faery world, for an hour, a night or a day and even longer; being unfit to live in the world one they are returned home.

[3] Sic Transit Gloria Mundi – “Thus passes the glory of the world.”

[4] See Doreen Valiente’s An ABC of Witchcraft: Past and Present (Robert Hale, 1994, an imprint of The Crowood Press, LTD, Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR) for a summary of the relationship between witches and fairies (pp 118.123) from one of the founders of the modern Neo-Pagan revival.

[5] For me, as I read it, Yeats’s poem “The Stolen Child” came to mind  (for the poem wonderfully set to music by The Waterboys, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDkK4VrmFQQ; for the text of the poem, see https://allpoetry.com/the-stolen-child)