The Good Folk

It's interesting so many people do so much to invoke the fae, but historically, the widespread charms were to keep them out of placate them rather than draw them.

There are examples in older surviving texts of people talking to them, but none I know of that imply invoking them or calling them to you by whatever means.  If there are, I'd love to hear about them.

Talking to them is not the same as inviting them into your home. As they say, good fences make good neighbours (1). And they are likely already there anyway. No need to invoke more, just need eyes to See what's already there.

I had a conversation related to this with a friend a few days ago and I'd like to share my thoughts here.

I'm not trying to disparage or say anything negative about authors, teachers, and practitioners who recommend seeking contact and invoking the fae, or do so themselves.  I just recommend caution and a good dose of self possession.  While I won't say their approach is wrong, I would say I don't see much evidence of such active seeking in the materials that have survived from earlier time, and I think the reason for that is valid.

The Victorian view of the fae did a lot to defang them in the eyes of the general populace, and this is both good and bad.  I'll leave the good for a different discussion.  The bad is the lack of caution that has resulted.

The fae were not called the Good Folk because they were benevolent, kind, or forces of good fighting evil in the world any more than calling mafia good fellas implies upright morals.  It was to avoid offending, because of the result if you do.

The thing to remember about the fae is that they don't see anything through human eyes.  Their ideas of ethics and morals, good and evil, right and wrong, and benevolence and malevolence are different from ours.  Even those that might wish us good aren't thinking what we are.  Accomplishing your goal but dying in the process might be seen as your own good, for example.

The thing to remember is you are in charge of your own life (this is much of what makes a witch), you are responsible for your decisions and actions, and you must not submit your life force to another (2).

Point being, make no deal you can't live with the consequences of, agree to no condition you aren't willing to meet, and don't assume you must do what they say.  While I'm against attempts to enslave them (which will end badly regardless), I also caution not to allow yourself to be enslaved to them.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss


(1) This is an old adage, now famous from Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall.
(2) As Victor Anderson put it.  Or, as Robert Cochrane put it:

"In fate, and the overcoming of fate is the true Graal, for from this inspiration comes, and death is defeated. There is no fate so terrible that it cannot be overcome - whether by a literal victory gained by action and in time, or the deeper victory of spirit in the lonely battle of the self, Fate is the trial, the Castle Perilous in which we all meet to win or to die" http://www.1734-witchcraft.org/lettertwo.html