The 'human' and the 'faery' are two poles of our being between which we oscillate through our transmigrational cycles of rebirths, our countless discarnations and incarnations. In other words, the Sidhe are ourselves awaiting birth in middle-earth and we ourselves are the Sidhe awaiting our return to Elfhame. The faerie Craft is concerned with regaining the totality of our awareness, bridging our human and faery natures and activating the 'Sight of the Two Worlds' or 'Second Sight', the faculty of trance-seership and direct spiritual vision into Elfhame.'
-Nigel Aldcroft Jackson,
The Call of the Horned Piper,
Chapter 9: "Faerie Witchcraft & the Geography of Elfland"
5 comments:
That *is* interesting. Will have to pick up that book.
Ah, now we likes that, precious. I was just talking to Shimmer the other evening, and he suggested I pick this book up.
Now I *have* to. *droolz* :)
That's really interesting. I have the book for sale and perhaps I shall pick it up for myself.
It reminds me of a filk song I heard Leslie Fish do once. I think it's available online through the Archive.org website. It was called elfland and it went like this:
I've been out wandering in foggy country
Out where strange things exist
The edge of magic, the edge of science
Meet and merge in the mist.
And I've come back with a book full of songs
A handful of tactics for righting old wrongs
And all you can say is I've "been gone too long."
You don't know me at all.
I've been out wandering in hidden country
Out where your rejects reside
Where dreams are solid, where words are fire,
Out where the free thinkers hide
And all you can say is that you don't care
You can't put a meter on sunlight or air
You've got no use for the new world out there
You don't know us at all
Guess I'll go back there with all I'll get here
All that will help us go on
That country's growing with every outcast
You never notice we're gone
And when you've won all the games that you play
You just might see there's no one left to pay
We'll have the whole world that you threw away
And we won't know you at all
I feel there's a similar poetic sentiment in that tune.
I have enjoyed this little book for many years and recommend it to students, as it is free of much of the New Agey influence so pervasive in neo-Wicca and neo-Faery traditions.
I also like that the author uses the O.E. "Wicce-craft" (from whence the word "Witchcraft" is derived), as I have always felt that it is somewhat ridiculous to call a Goddess-centered religion by the masculine pronoun ("wicca"). And so I prefer the Wicce spelling (which also distinguishes it from Gardnerian Wica and neo-Wicca) or simply Witchcraft, which in my mind is more inclusive.
Ironically, this and similar books may be as much a reenvisioning as modern traditions of the Craft, but Horned Piper certainly has more flair than most of the MacWicca books sold today. Just MO. YMMV.
What are you thinking of the book? I've been wondering recently about the nature of the Sidhe, because in tradition they were basically the Gods of the ancient peoples - not faeries. So, the Faery Folk are my ancestral Deities.
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