Beltane In A Week: The Faery Courts

As promised, here's a bit of information about the Faery Courts. Whether you believe in the fae or not, it'd still be good to know how they make an impact on the changing of the seasons... and who knows, maybe not seeing is believing!

Beltane is the first of three yearly Faery Realm festivals, with the other two being the eves of Midsummer (Litha) and Samhain. These dates, especially Beltane and Samhain, signal a great change in the Faerie Realm as the courts shift: Starting on Beltane eve, the Seelie Court reigns supreme, and on Samhain ege, the Unseelie Court takes over. The most significant difference between the two is compassion or lack thereof, as the Seelie Court tend to exhibit more compassion towards humans while the Unseelie Court outright refuses.

The Seelie Court

The term "seelie" is derived from the German selig meaning "blessed" or "holy", and Old English sælig meaning "silly". It can also be spelled from the Irish spelling seleighe. Obviously, then, the term itself would imply that those in the Seelie Court are more benevolent towards humans, while those in the Unseelie Court are quite the opposite.

Both Courts are capable of retaliation for an injury or insult, though, and are swift to do so. They both also borrow or steal items from humans, from your household keys to your cattle (well, provided you have cattle), and they're not above using humans for their own purposes, whatever those may be. Often, this is even without our knowledge.

Generally, Seelie faeries are often helpful and fair in dealing with us, returning things they borrow, showing gratitude for kindness we show them, showing delight in music and dancing, and displaying appreciation for neatness, order, beauty, and fertility.

Considering this, it makes complete sense that Beltane brings forth the Seelie Court, who emerge on this day to help us celebrate love, lust, and life. As explained in a previous Beltane post, one might look through a sprig of rowan twisted into a ring to seek the faeries at dusk... but beware that faeries, regardless of the Court, do not like to be watched!

Faerie Blessings and Practices

While faeries still do enjoy their carefree and mischievous ways of life, especially after a long winter's repose, Beltane often brings out the best in them. Requesting a blessing by leaving offers of bread and drink at your doorstep may leave you in their good favor. They enjoy the sweet harvests of fruits, candied roots, and aromatic spices, so breads made with dried fruit like raisins and candied peel, ginger, and cinnamon are sure to win them over. Be sure to not use any steel or iron, as they tend to detract the faeries.

Types of Faeries

Below the jump are types of Seelie Court faeries. You might find some to be very familiar, indeed!

• Ballybogs: a type of Bogan that lives in peat bogs
• Bean-Tighes: house faeries that look like kindly faced old peasant women
• Biersals: house faeries that look after beer cellars
• Bogans: a type of Hobgoblin that is very fond of tricks
• Bodachan Sabhaills: house faeries that work at night threshing corn and that keep things tidy; live with and look like old men; are very wise
• Browneys: faerie guardians of bees
• Brownies: house faeries that do odd jobs about a house and farm, cleaning, tidying up, or helping with the brewing; usually go naked, dress in rags, or wear a brown hood and mantle; an offer of clothes will cause them to leave; if offended, they turn into Boggarts
• Bruder Rausch: house faeries that delight in getting people drunk
• Buachaileen: faeries that appear as young men wearing pointed red caps; like to play tricks on shepherds and their animals, but keep their own herds
• Buschfrauen: golden haired faerie women that are small and shaggy with pendulous breasts and hollow backs; they live in hollow trees and guard the forests
• Caryatids: nymphs that live in walnut trees
• Centaurs: have the upper bodies of men and the lower bodies of other beasts, usually horses (hippocentaur), but sometimes donkeys (onocentaur) or even fish (ichthyocentaur)
• Church Grims: live in church bell towers and delight in ringing the bell at midnight; may appear to the clergyman during a funeral, who can tell based on how the grim looks if the deceased soul was saved or lost; they guard the churchyard from the devil
• Cluricauns: similar to Leprechauns, but overfond of raiding wine cellars and borrowing sheep and dogs to ride at night
• Coblyn: mine faeries that do not actually mine anything, just pretend to; if spoken ill of, they will throw stones but never really hurt anyone; often guide miners to the best seams
• Couril: little faeries with webbed feet that haunt ancient stone circles and standing stones
• Dobies: house faeries fond of helping workmen at their tasks; unfortunately, they are so stupid they are more a hindrance than helpful
• Doonies: faeries that appear in the form of a horse, an old man or old woman, and are generally helpful, even to the point of rescuing fallen climbers
• Drakes: house/fire faeries that keep the firewood dry, bring gifts of gold and grain, take care of the house, barn and stables, and make sure the pantry and money chest are well stocked; smell like rotten eggs and take on the character of fire only when they fly, otherwise look like small boys with red caps and coats
• Dryads: Nymphs that make their homes in oak trees
• Dwarves: born of the Giant Ymir’s body, they are intelligent and have great strength; they are superb craftsmen and very wise; they mine precious stones and metals, guard the earth and its riches, and are spirits of rocks and caverns, kin to the Knockers and Coblyn
• Elves: originally ancestral spirits that brought fertility; they are trooping faeries that live in companies ruled by a king or queen, and dwell underground or in certain groves
• Epimeliads: nymphs that live in apple trees
• Fadhas: small, lovely faeries that are generally friendly, will always return anything they borrow, and repair anything they break
• Familiars: guardian faerie spirits, such as Haltias, Fylgiar, and Leanan Sidhe
• Fantine: kindly faeries that bring good weather to farmers; they invented the cow-bell to keep cows from becoming lost
• Fauni: gentler equivalent of the Satyr, mischievous woodland faeries with the heads and torsos of young men and the legs of goats or deer; they love to dance with Nymphs in woodland glades, play their flutes, and are guardians of the fields and forests
• Fatuae: female Fauni; the off-spring of Fauni and Fatuae are known as Incubi
• Flower Faeries: the faerie spirits of flower-bearing plants; born in the flower, they look after them, causing them to grow and then fade
• Forest Sprites: broad term for faeries that live in forests and woodlands, often inhabiting trees and caring for forest animals
• Fridean: faeries that guard roads; they live under rocks
• Fylgiar: protective spirit Familiars that accompany children born with a caul
• Geancanach: house faeries that like to warm themselves at the fireside and be offered drinks of milk; they cannot fly even though they have wings, but can vanish and reappear in another spot instantly
• Gnomes: guardians of the earth and suburban gardens, they live for thousands of years, and reach maturity at the age of one hundred
• Grigs: tiny faeries the size of grasshoppers who are always happy and jolly
• Gryphons: legendary creatures with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle; as the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, griffins are an especially powerful and majestic creature; they are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions
• Gwarchells: small faeries that are gentle and kindly unless disrespected; they live underground and avoid sunlight
• Haltias: faerie Familiars that take on the role of an individual’s genius (i.e., guardian angel) within 3 days of birth; others protect the house or bath like house faeries
• Hamadryads: unlike Caryatids, Epimeliads, Meliai and Dryads, which are Nymphs, Hamadryads are the actual tree with which they are associated, of which there are eight
• Heather Pixies: are diminutive creatures with translucent wings that spend their time spinning
• Hobbs: sometimes a type of house faerie, these shaggy creatures often guard roads and lonely places, and can be either helpful or malicious as they choose, though they are often sought out for their power to cure
• Hobgoblins: hairy, good-natured, but sensitive house faeries that turn into nasty Boggarts if they are slighted, they are associated with farms and particularly dairies
• Hogboys: faeries that live in and protect local mounds and protect domestic animals from Trows; they sometimes mend farm implements in exchange for milk poured into the mounds
• Knockers: small, ugly, thin-limbed faeries that live in mines and guide miners to the best seams by tapping or “knocking”
• Kobolds: as house faeries, if sawdust placed on the floor by Kobolds is left untouched and milk with dung dropped in it by Kobolds is drunk, they know they are welcome and will move in, going so far as to sing lullabies to the children; as mine faeries, they will sometimes take a particular miner under their wing and direct him to the richer seams
• Kornböckes: faeries that guard the grain and cause it to ripen, riding on the breezes that ripple the cornfields
• Korn-Katers: faeries that protect the grain fields
• Korrs: faeries that guard dolmens and the treasure beneath them, as well as stone circles; they deal fairly with humans
• Leanan Sidhe: a faerie mistress that gives inspiration to her poet or musician lover; however, the lover pays the price of the relationship with a shortened life
• Leprechauns: faerie cobblers that make all the shoes for the faerie gentry; they love whiskey and tobacco, smoking small pipes, live under the roots of trees and in deserted castles; it is impossible to steal their legendary pots of gold
• Lesidhes: solitary Irish faeries that guard forests and look like foliage until they move; they can imitate birds and sometimes lead travelers astray
• Lobs: very large and strong house faeries with long, thin tails; they help out around a farm in exchange for a warm spot by the fire and a bowl of milk
• Luchorpáins: sea dwelling Leprechauns that can take humans safely under water by placing herbs in their ears or putting a magical cloak over their head
• Meliai: Nymphs that live in ash trees
• Mermaids: although these creatures (which have the upper bodies of lovely women and the tails of fish and may occasionally be seen sunning themselves on rocks as they gaze into mirrors while combing their hair), like Sirens, have sweet voices with which to lure human lovers into the depths or summon storms to wreck ships, they also make good wives and caring mothers, and have the power to grant gifts
• Merrows: Irish mer-people are human above the waist and fish below; the males have green teeth and hair, pig eyes and red noses but are jovial and friendly, while the females are beautiful and gentle but have webbed fingers
• Moss Maidens: faeries that spin the moss of the forests; they help humans they like and have healing powers; they help crops to grow and turn the color of the leaves in autumn
• Naiads: Nymphs of running water, rivers and springs, fountains and streams
• Nymphs: female nature spirits that may be regarded as minor goddesses
• Pillywiggin: delicate faeries that live among wild flowers
• Pixies/Piskies: little green faeries that like to dance in the shadow of standing stones; they wear bells often heard across moors or within faerie mounds; steal and wildly ride ponies at night; can turn into hedgehogs at will; loves to lead travelers astray, but always returns them safely; although mischievous, they can be as helpful as house faeries; in Cornwall, described as dapper little old men with gright eyes and white waistcoats, green stockings and highly polished shoes that gleam with diamond dew that ride snails; rings of mushrooms appear where they have been dancing; give humans: usually witches) a green ointment that rends them invisible so they can join in the faerie revels
• Roane: faerie seal people who are gentle, shy and retiring; females sometimes come ashore and cast off their sealskins
• Satyrs: nature spirits of the fields and woods, covered in bristly hair with goat legs and feet, have small horns on their foreheads and extremely large genitals, flat noses and pointed ears; incessantly chasing various Nymphs
• Selkies: take the form of seals in the sea but shed their seal skins when the come ashore and assume human form, where they dance
• Shellycoats: water faeries that haunt shallow woodland pools; covered with shell-like scales of red or purple and generally look like fish with large mouths and eyes; can take off their coats, but become weak and powerless; they can fly and like to play harmless pranks on travelers looking for fresh water
• Sprites: faeries that change the colors of the leaves in Autumn
• Sylphs: air elemental that lives in the mountain peaks and are rarely seen; sometimes their voices are heard on the wind; mostly transparent, very small and winged, or alternatively tall with feathered wings and large hawk-like eyes
• Undines: elemental spirits of water
• Unicorns: white horse with a single horn in center of forehead; seldom seen by humans
• Wood-wives: shaggy in appearance and covered in moss, they haunt old forests and groves; they ask people to bake them a cake or repair their wheelbarrow, or ask woodcutters for food; they always leave a gift in return, wood chips that turn into gold
• Woodwose: a forest spirit, wild man or green man, shaggy in appearance, naked and covered on in their own hair but does not speak; guards the forest and its inhabitants