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They were sometimes seen as forebears – forerunners whose skill had ensured the wellbeing of the contemporary peoples. Like the Siddhas they were venerated as those who were spiritually ‘perfect’ and were believed – as ancestral spirits – to look after the needs of their subsequent relatives, hence the ‘hearth cult’ and ‘fairy faith’. With changelings, the sacrifice idea is only one possibility . From what I read, the story is that the fairy people are forced to send a girl every seven years, and they take mortals because none of the fairies wants to send their own daughter. With the aos si, I mainly saw coveting the beauty of a baby as the reason for stealing. I think it’s Norway where elderly trolls sometimes become changelings in order to get care until they die.
Other varieties of Aos Sí are the Cat Sìth – a fairy cat, the Cu Sìth – a fairy dog, and the Scottish Bean Nighe – the washerwoman who is seen washing the bloody clothing or armour of the person who is doomed to die. No matter where they abide, it is in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans, a different dimension of space and time other than our own. This world is described as a parallel universe in which the Aos Sí walk amongst the living. However, many of these views have been deemed unlikely, and the influence can be explained by the similar moral foundations stemming from the two cultures’ Indo-European background. Celtic mythology is diverse and historians have been studying it through the lens of several modern cultures .
Rivers and streams are often a boundary between this world and the Otherworld. Sattva is the harmonious, pure uniting principle expressed through the rejection of worldly things, and is one of the three ‘Guna’ or ‘threads of being’ of Hindu belief. The other two are the state of rajas, embodying the passionate, active and confused state of being, and that of tamas, embodying darkness, cold, and resistance to growth which we can all express at times in our destructive nature. Nothing springs to mind, but if it’s scary i think I’m cool with not knowing. At least Zeus would be innocuous about it like visiting mistresses as light sprinkles of rain. 😂 Actually as for head scratching love trysts, there’s an Irish legend where a man pines so much for a woman that he transforms into a woman himself to be near her.
Most Common Spiritual Symbols – Meanings & Importance
Aos Si combines Irish Breakfast with Cream and Caramel creating a sweet tea to celebrate the magic in life. A little bit can also be left out at night as a gift to thank the faeries for their blessings and favors. Yeah, I have a hard time remembering that “si” equals “shee” in Irish, so I thought I better mention it.
- They also much desire the aid of a powerful mortal hand to assist them in their fairy wars, for they have often disputes and battles amongst themselves for the possession of some coveted rath or dancing ground.
- The Sidhe series by Cindy Cipriano presents a mostly positive view.
- Most of these terms are usually translated as The People of Mounds – Aes being people and Sídhe meaning mounds.
- In addition to living under fairy mounds, Aos Sí are variously believed to inhabit fairy raths and cairns or to live in the land of “Tír na nÓg”, a mythical island to the west of Ireland.
- I did notice that there were stories in Lady Wilde’s “Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland” that involved both angels and fairies.
- Actually, your conclusion about how the clash of powers drives one into the underworld makes me think of some of the Russian pantheon stuff I dug up.
The sluagh sídhe — “the fairy host” — is sometimes depicted in Irish and Scottish lore as a crowd of airborne spirits, perhaps the cursed, evil or restless dead. The siabhra (anglicised as “sheevra”), may be a type of these lesser spirits, prone to evil and mischief. However, an Ulster folk song also uses “sheevra” simply to mean “spirit” or “fairy”.
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There are guardian Aos Sí of most of the lakes of Ireland and Scotland. Lough Gur in County Limerick is a very magical place where many of The Sidhe kings and queens of Ireland can be found. The lake’s guardian is known as Toice Bhrean because she neglected to watch over the well from which the lake sprang forth. It is believed that once every seven years a mortal meets their death by drowning in the lake, taken by the Beann Fhionn, the White Lady. Aos Sí are sometimes considered to be nature spirits, divided into distinct categories of wood spirits, water spirits, air spirits and so on, the elemental spirits of each place. Aos Sí are fierce guardians of their abodes – whether that be a fairy hill, a fairy ring, a special tree , or perhaps a particular loch or wood.
Yeats used them during the late 19th century as symbols bolstering Irish nationalist pride, claiming that Irish “fairies were more genuine” than English fairies.52 The quote above is the call of a sí-like fairy tempting away a human child. It’s possibly the most frequently quoted of Yeats’ fairy lines. Just as they might hurt without cause, the aos sí could show spontaneous kindness too. Mortals taken to the sí realm often receive warnings and aid from one of the aos sí despite others trying to tempt them. There were many ways to protect against aos sí anger, but the best was proper respect.
Who are the Aos Sí?
According to most sources, the Aos Sí are the descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann . These were viewed as the original divine inhabitants of Ireland before the Celts (the mortal Sons of Míl Espáine) came to the island. It’s believed that the Celtic invaders pushed the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Aos Sí into the Otherworld – the magical realm they now inhabit which is also viewed as the Aos Sí kingdoms in the hills and mounds of Ireland.
The Aos Sí are an ancient elf-like or fairy-like race of beings that are said to still live in Ireland, hidden from human sight in their underground kingdoms. The name ‘Aos Si’ is the understanding that we are part of and not separate from the land we inhabit. In Celtic legends, the natural world is at centre stage and in Celtic mythology, things in nature can possess a spirit and presence of their own, including mountains, rocks, trees, rivers and all things of the land and the sea.
Sí Who Must Not Be Named
And you really got me thinking about my favourite representation of such creatures. The Tinkerbell type and wee folk is nice, but I think I prefer the more sophisticated being. I am glad you have highlighted the importance of respect to these beings as it is often the start of various shenanigans when the important ritual of sharing food is not observed by the offender. Small Worlds is an awesome episode and really cemented Torchwood as a favourite TV series for me. The Sumerians, who based their calendar on the moon, gave the week seven days and declared the seventh and last day of each week to be uncanny.
- In other cases, beings labeled only as “fairies” might show aos sí characteristics.
- In folk belief and practice, theaos síare often appeased with offerings, and care is taken to avoid angering or insulting them.
- The Irish called them the Sidhe, or spirit-race, or the Feadh-Ree, a modification of the word Peri.
- They can assume any form and they make horses out of bits of straw, on which they ride over the country, and to Scotland and back.
The aos sí likely contributed glamour and maybe also the warning against eating in fairyland. Usually King Finvarra and Queen Oona are less well known than Queen Mab, depicted as historical and human in the Táin Bó Cúailnge macd stocks explained as Queen Medb, or Titania and Oberon from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare was also one of the first to describe fairies as minuscule,50 which led to the tiny flowery fairies of Victorian England.
Such attacks usually resulted from slights or disrespect, such as building over a “fairy path” and not making sure the front and back doors aligned to keep the path accessible. Speaking ill of them, especially on Friday when they were most present and powerful,23 was another good way to earn their wrath. They sometimes interfered in hurling and wrestling because they disliked the “violent” nature of such games,24 despite their own willingness to be violent in punishment. The story of the Aes Sídhe is found all over Scotland and Ireland, many tales referring to how the Norse invaders drove Scottish inhabitants underground to live in the hills.
When this transformation is going on within you, your vision expands into a new dimension. For example, you may be able to see someone australian dollar to japanese yen coming into the room who is not really physically present. This is not a ghost or some spirit entity; nor are you hallucinating.
The lake’s guardian is known as Toice Bhrean because she neglected to watch over the well, from which the lake sprang forth.It is believed that once every seven years a mortal meets their death by drowning in the lake, ‘taken’ by the Beann Fhionn, the White Lady. There are different types of Aos Sí, the most well-known being the Bean Sídhe, or Banshee. The word banshee simply means woman of the sídhe, but has come to specifically indicate the supernatural women of Ireland who announce an oncoming death by their wailing and keening. In folk belief and practice, the Aos Sí are often propitiated with offerings, and care is taken to avoid angering or insulting them. Often they are not named directly, but rather spoken of with euphemisms such as “The Good Neighbors,” “The Fair Folk,” or simply “The Folk”, in the hope that if humans describe them as kind, they are more likely to be so. Other names are “The Gentry”, “The Lordly Ones” or “The Good People”.
Still, these and other evil examples are typically seen as the exception rather than the rule. Even though some types of Irish fairies like the leprechauns were portrayed as small in stature, most Aos Sí were as tall as people. They had distinct elfish features such as long fair hair and tall, slender bodies. Additionally, there are many types of Aos Sí, some of which were rather monstrous. In either interpretation, however, it’s clear that there are pathways between the two realms. According to the Irish, the Aos Sí can often be seen in Ireland, whether it’s to help us, to sow mischief, or just to mind their own business.
However, Aos Sí are notorious for destroying wheat and the goodness of the milk. To propitiate them, the people of Ireland leave them offerings of milk and butter. Down through the ages the Aos Sí have been said to be in contact with mortals giving them protection, healing them and even teaching them some of their skills – smithcraft or the working of metals being one such skill. When they fight, they go armed with lances of blue flame and shields of pure white. Random Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts.
This literary work, first written sometime in the 8th century, is a pseudo-historical foundation legend for the medieval Kingdom of Déisi Muman, which seeks to hide the historical reality that the kingdom’s origins lay among the indigenous tributary peoples zulutrade regulated broker review of Munster. To this end it attributes to “the Déisi” an entirely fictive royal ancestry at Tara. Madame Blavatsky included fairies in her theosophical system in the later nineteenth century — theosophy was essentially about growth of spiritualism .
But the fairies do not always keep the mortal women in a seven years’ bondage. They sometimes only take away young girls for a dance in the moonlight, and then leave them back in their own home lulled in a sweet sleep. But the vision of the night was so beautiful that the young girls long to dream again and be made happy with the soft enchantments of the music and dance.
The themes are ever evolving, developed from longstanding interests. Take a look at the aos-si website or Kate and Colette’s own websites to read more about their working practice. The ‘Aos Sí’ or ‘Aes Sídhe’ is a term for a supernatural race that exist in Irish, Scottish and Manx mythology. Inhabiting an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans. These were the ‘saints’ of these eastern religions, and the christian ‘saints’ of European, Caucasian and Near Eastern medieval monotheism would also come to take on similar characteristics and abilities , albeit based upon indigenous local traditions. Indeed, followers of this blog will probably have gathered that I have been suggesting that these christian saints were often given the identities of pagan spirits, gods or Sidhein order to provide provenance and a sense of continuity.