The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150526   Message #3507817
Posted By: GUEST,CS
23-Apr-13 - 01:49 PM
Thread Name: The Fey: stories and lore, sources pleas
Subject: RE: The Fey: stories and lore, sources please
Yes, I'm aware that there's no fairy bible so to speak - hence requests for suggested reading :)

Good suggestion re: Kipling M, yes will do, and it's probably all online too (I only have Kipling's poems in book form) Will look up Allingham & Keats.

WB Yeats should also be a good source. Though I only really know 'The Stolen Child' (cut and paste below), it offers a beautiful interpretation of the changeling motif from the Fey perspective, and that's also informed one of the themes I'm going to include.

The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by Evans-Wentz looks to be a good start for lore, and it's to be found here on Sacred Texts too, for anyone interested:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ffcc/



WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.