Where is rowen the fairy

It has had a wide range of popular folk names, the most well-known being mountain ash. Its old Gaelic name from the ancient Ogham script was Luis from which the place name Ardlui on Loch Lomond may have been derived. Rowan was also the clan badge of the Malcolms and McLachlans. Greek mythology tells of how Hebe, the goddess of youth, dispensed rejuvenating ambrosia to the gods from her magical chalice. When, through carelessness, she lost this cup to demons, the gods sent an eagle to recover the cup.

A fight ensued and the eagle shed feathers and drops of blood. These fell to earth where each of them turned into a rowan tree.

The rowan is also prominent in Norse mythology as the tree from which the first woman was made, the first man being made from the ash tree. Legend has it that it saved the life of the god Thor by bending over a fast flowing river in the Underworld in which he was being swept away. Thor managed to grab the tree and get back to the shore. In Scandinavia, rowans growing out of some inaccessible cleft in a rock, or crevices in tree possessed an even more powerful magic.

Rowan was furthermore the prescribed wood on which runes were inscribed for divination. In the British Isles the rowan has a long and still popular history in folklore as a tree which protects against witchcraft and enchantment.

The physical characteristics of the tree may have contributed to its protective reputation. Each berry has a tiny five pointed star or pentagram opposite its stalk. The pentagram is an ancient protective symbol.

People also believed the colour red was the best protection against magic. The rowan was denoted as a tree of the Goddess or a Faerie tree by virtue of its white flowers. The same was true of the hawthorn and elder. These themes of protection crop up again and again. People carried pieces of the tree to ward off witchcraft. The pixies are known for their ability to control the weather and this can be used as a way of trapping victims. Men travelling across Dartmoor from Crediton to Exeter were advised that, if a cloud descended, they should strip and sit on their clothes for half an hour or so.

The pixies would in due course raise the fog thrown around them. Patience is evidently important in such cases. A woman on the Quantocks became demented with terror when the pixies caused an evening mist to rise suddenly around her, so that she was lost in a field minutes away from her home. The pixies may lure people away from their route with music, thereby getting them lost.

This has been reported in Devon and in North Wales. A Somerset farmer coming home from market was led like this until he ended up exhausted by a briar bush that grew in three counties- a plant which magical properties that seems to have broken the spell he was under.

In one Cornish story a man called Nicholas Annear was punished by the pixies for always rushing and hurrying. One day, he set out for market with his horse and cart. The pixies made it appear that the church tower at his destination was ahead, but he never got there.

He drove his cart all day and never arrived. Alan Lee. Who do they pixies do this? They seem to have several motivations. However, they may feel the person needs to be punished for some reason as in the case of Nicholas Annear above. A mist descended upon him and he was led through brambles all night. A woman from Selworthy parish on the Exmoor coast of Somerset saw a group of pixies; they were so upset by her intrusion that they led her all over the moor and through the woods.

An isolated example of retribution for trespass comes from Orkney, at the diametrically opposite end of the British Isles to Devon and Cornwall, where most of the accounts are located. Two men in search of a midwife crossed the path one evening; for this disrespectful act one of them was led far astray by the trows.

Predictably, the pixie attitude to leading someone out of their way is great amusement. They are often said to be heard laughing or, even, clapping their hands with glee. They might sometimes be seen jumping about in front of the victim, mocking their situation see Evans Wentz, Fairy Faith, As for the human victims, how do they react?

Inevitably, they will end up exhausted, frustrated and panic-stricken. The consequences of being pixie-led can be much more serious, though. A man who was pixie-led on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset had to be rescued after he was lured into a bog. He was ill for quite some time after this experience. A Devonshire man crossing Dartmoor near Chudleigh was pixie-led by the sound of music. He wandered for hours, trying to locate the source, and eventually collapsed in a faint.

When he came round the next morning, he was able to make his way home, but he took to his bed, never rose again and soon afterwards died. In like manner a Welsh man, John Jacob of Bedwellty, was led astray by the fairies one night, following shapes that appeared and then vanished. If you are pixie-led, what can you do to free yourself? There are several tried and tested remedies. The best known and easiest remedy is to turn an item of clothing- a hat might be turned back to front or a coat, pocket, glove or stocking might be turned inside out.

It seems likely that this is effective because it changes your appearance and throws the pixies off the scent or releases you from the enchantment that traps you in a fairy ring. Wise travellers turn their clothes before they set out, so that they will be safe from enchantment throughout their journey. This is effective in two ways. Either the rescuer calls out in reply to help guide the victim to safety or the pixie-led person makes a noise which attracts rescuers to where she or he is stranded.

For instance, Abraham Stocke in Somerset had said that he had no time for pixies. They led him into a swamp one night when he was walking home from brass band practice. Luckily, he had his euphonium with him and was able to play it to alert his family and guide them to him. It can help to carry something with you to protect yourself against pixie charms during your travels. Rowan, or mountain ash, are also well-known for repelling supernaturals beings of all kinds witches included.

The stitchwort is more unusual and seems to be a uniquely Devonian remedy. Picking it will upset them, but apparently carrying it with you somehow has the effect of deflecting rather than attracting their ill-will.

Water as often can release the bewildered person. Apparently any running water may have the same effect and, in fact, it is possible that falling in a stream might be sufficient to break the spell. Unlike abductions, though, it is generally a very short-term and harmless experience.

People can occasionally be led to perilous spots, such as marshes or cliff tops, and a few react very seriously to the stress of the experience, but for most it is an annoyance and a bit of a fright, but no more. I have, of course, read this, but in writing this posting I deliberately sought to reach my own conclusions based on the evidence that I had uncovered.

Simon had access to a range of other sources and therefore reaches other useful conclusions on the subject. My posting on Glamour Houses deals with a related phenomenon, though admittedly a deception by the fairies undertaken for benign purposes.

My book, British Pixies , also examines the theme of pixy-leading in detail and in the wider context of pixie behaviour overall. This seems to apply particularly to the boggarts of North West England and, it has to be said, the difference between boggarts and ghosts is not always clear-cut in the stories that are told.

There are still quite a few spots identified where boggarts have been laid- for instance under a laurel tree at Hothersall Hall near Ribchester. Milk is poured on the tree roots, both for the benefit of the tree and to prolong the spell that imprisons the spirit. At Towneley, Lancs, a deal was done with the boggart to banish him.

He haunted a bridge over a small stream and demanded gifts from terrified travellers. In return for a promise that he would stay away as long as the trees were green, he was given the soul of the next living being to cross the bridge. The bargain was sealed by the locals by sending an old hen across the bridge; true to his word the boggart vanished and of course evergreen shrubs were quickly planted in the vicinity.

There are two other locations in the same county where the terms of banishment were the same: the boggart agreed to stay away so long as certain evergreen plants might be found in leaf holly and ivy. The farmer promptly planted potatoes followed by wheat- and the boggart received wheat roots and potato tops for his pains.

It took six horses several laborious hours to drag the rock to his farm and, after the stone was installed, nothing but misfortune followed. No pan or pot would ever stay upright upon it, eventually persuading the avaricious man to return the slab whence it came. It took only one horse a short while to pull the rock back and once it was restored the disturbances promptly ceased. Sometimes prayers are used, underlining the uncertain position of boggarts and faeries in our theology.

Are they some sort of evil spirit or simply antithetical to the Christian faith? Whatever the answer, some boggarts were harder to banish than others. Some might disappear through the ministrations of just one priest; others might need several praying as a team and, in a couple of instances, the fervent supplications of an entire village were needed to lay the sprite. At Grislehurst in the same county of Lancashire a boggart was laid in spectacular manner, in a grave under an ash and a rowan tree and along with a staked cockerel.

We have no information as to how you trap your boggart in the first place. Either way, it seems that this expertise has now been lost, which is regrettable, given the fact that most fairy captures are entirely accidental. The layings described so far were ways of getting rid of nuisance boggarts and were brought about by humans. For the Cauld Lad, evidently, laying was a condition to be desired, to release him from his earthly bondage, and it was eventually achieved by that classic means of the gift of clothes.

It seems then that spirits might be laid to rest consensually and without violence. Nowadays, the association between fairies and the natural world seems obvious and fundamental to their character. I think this belief is relatively new and that it derives from two sources. Firstly, during the last century or so the conception has emerged of fairies as nature spirits, beings whose purpose is to motivate and to shape the processes of nature, most especially the growth of plants. As such, it might be added, they tend to lose some of their individual personality and become incorporated into those natural systems themselves.

Human representations of faery kind have always tended to mirror our own society, hence to medieval people it seemed obvious that the fae would live in a world much like their own, with the same organisation and occupations. There were fairy kings and queens, and the fairy court went out hunting deer with hounds. In the Middle Ages, too, we all lived much closer to nature, far more in contact with the cycles of growth, with the seasons and with woods and wildlife.

The fairies accordingly were no different- and whilst human society has rapidly developed in recent centuries, our perceptions of faery have tended to remain rather more fixed. Be that as it may, it seems right and proper to us that fairies should live in forests and be intimately associated with flowers , trees and springs. I have discussed these associations in a couple of my own postings on plants and fairy authority Morgan Daimler has also written on aspects of this subject on her own blog.

Reading her thoughts sparked further musings of my own. Morgan has written about fairy trees and about fairy rings. She highlights some interesting points which I had overlooked or downplayed. As is well known, the rings are linked to fairy dancing. Here are a couple of examples of this genre of verse, which had international appeal:.

Now, usually it is said that it is the passing of fairy feet that makes the marks, but Morgan ponders whether instead the fays are drawn to dance by the clearly visible mycelium circles in the grass rather than the causation being the other way round. This certainly seems just as probable an explanation. Charming as the sight of fairies tripping all in a circle might be, Morgan rightly emphasises that they are places of danger.

The rings should never be damaged and she warns that spying on the dances, or joining in with them, may actually be perilous.

These circles may even be traps, she suggests, deliberately set to lure in humans and to abduct them forever- or for extended periods. Morgan discusses too the disparity in the passage in time between faery and the mortal world; the captive dancer spins at a different rate to the human globe and may return to find their old life long passed.

There are too many to reproduce, but the example by Florence Anderson below repeats many of the key motifs. On the subject of fairy trees , Morgan examines the possibility that at least some fairies are tree spirits or dryads before turning to look at trees which simply have fairy associations. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, the question as to whether fairies are plants, or live in plants, or simply prefer to frequent glades and meadows is still a matter of debate.

I have a particular attachment to the old lady of the elder tree , so I was fascinated to read that in Ireland elder sap is believed to grant a second sight of the fairy rade. I'm gona guess same with the curse dolls quest. Posted 25 September - AM That's right, just keep clicking on her over and over again. Try double clicking on her with one hand and press the enter button with the other hand. There are just some things women can't do in public Posted 02 October - AM so any1 done the curse doll quest?

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