About Faeries
Faerie Heart is my latest book. It's about a little girl, Keri, who lives in a round hut surrounded by forest, and who longs to see a faerie. The people she lives with all believe in faeries, but think of them as dangerous, magical beings who should be avoided. This doesn't stop Keri wanting to see one.
Just today I remembered that the first writing I ever did was about fairies (rather than faeries). When I was seven years old I completed a series of little poems about fairies and announced that I was going to be a writer. I don't know what happened to those poems. I remember being very proud of them then, but if I saw them again now I don't know what I would think! But all these years later I've gone back to the same subject matter.
At the time I thought of fairies as tiny winged creatures that lived in flowers and granted wishes. I used to think I could see them in the curtains at my bedroom window, which were patterned with leaves, and if you stared at them long enough you could see different shapes and pictures in them, wings or tiny faces. The curtains I've recently picked for my study window are similar. If I stare at them, which I sometimes do instead of writing, I can see the same pictures in them now. But as I got older, my ideas about fairies changed. I realised that there were more of them, and they were darker and more mysterious and exciting than I had thought, that in fact there is a whole world of enchantment containing many different kinds of magical beings. This world is more properly known as Faerie, and the beings who live in it are Faeries.
Some Things You Might Want to Know About Faeries
What different kinds are there?
My A – Z of world faeries suggests that there are over 90 different kinds, including ballybogs, bogles and boggarts, as well as the more usual elves, pixies, dwarves and gnomes. They can be the size of a flowerhead (some are said to sleep in foxgloves) or taller than a tall man; magnificent beings of light or shadowy presences with glowing eyes, beautiful maidens, hideous hags or crones, trolls or gremlins.
Where can you find them?
Faeries can most often be seen from the corner of your eye. They are elusive, sometimes invisible, and when you look at them directly you might only see a flickering shadow on grass, or a ripple of moonlight on water. Children see them more regularly than adults, and you are more likely to find them in wild places such as woodland or a natural garden full of tangled plants. Some kinds are found only at dawn or dusk, near water.
There are places in Britain and throughout the world which are said to belong to faerie, such as Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, where the entrance is guarded by the White One, the Faerie King, Lord of the Otherworld. Or Mallam Tor in the Yorkshire Dales, home of Janet, Queen of the Faeries. Also anywhere in the world you might find faerie rings in the grass, and if there is a grassy mound nearby there will almost certainly be a hidden doorway in it somewhere. This will lead you to faerie pathways beneath the earth, and maybe to the Land of Light itself.
There are several faerie mounds or earthworks on the tops of hills, and sometimes mysterious lights can be seen around them, when the faeries are dancing.
When can you find them?
The best time of year for finding faeries is midsummer eve, which may be any time from the 18th to 25th of June. May Eve is also a faerie festival, and Halloween, which to the faeries is known as Samhain, is traditionally the time when the Wild Hunt rides with the King of the Faeries, and when other faeries move to their winter quarters. Gremlins, goblins and hags may wander they world freely at this time.
What do faeries do?
Well, some of them can fly, while others can shape-shift, or disappear, and most kinds can do magic. They take care of the natural world, and may do work for humans or grant wishes, or leave money in exchange for teeth. The more dangerous kind have been known to steal babies or children and even grown human beings, either for company or to make them work like slaves. Trolls are particularly nasty and may actually eat humans. Gremlins will play nasty tricks, while if you hear a banshee wail there will always be a death.
How long do they live?
Some fairies are immortal and live for ever in the Land of Youth, while others live for thousands of years, then choose to die. They simply stop breathing, or dissolve into the foam on a wave.
Most experts agree that faerie time functions quite differently from human time. There are many stories of people who have been captured by faeries, and believe that they have stayed with them only a day or two, but when they return to the human world, many years have passed. This is, in fact, what happens to Keri in Faerie Heart.
Which Faeries are in Faerie Heart?
The main faeries are: Mabb, Queen of the Faeries, who is sometimes like a beautiful little girl and sometimes like a tall and terrible queen. She can change shape or size at will, drives a chariot pulled by insects, and presides over the elements and the seasons. Sometimes she is like fire, with fiery hair that falls to her knees, and sometimes watery, like rain.
The Peggotty Witch is actually a faerie washerwoman, a hideous, hooded crone, who has one nostril in her broad, squat nose, one tooth in her mouth and red, webbed feet. She washes bloodstained clothing by the river, and whoever the clothing belongs to will certainly die. But if you can creep up on her without being seen, she has to answer three questions truly.
The Cailleach Bhuer, or Cally Burr, is also mentioned. She is a blue faced hag, so monstrously ugly that anyone who looks at her will die. In summer she sits by water like a great, grey stone, but on the first day of winter she comes alive, and goes wailing through the forest looking for children. Water drips from her, and she is covered in moss and has mossy teeth like stones.
When Keri becomes a faerie she has wings and green tattered clothing like a pixie, but she plays tricks on people like a gremlin.
Keri has to win her life back from the Faerie Queen, who has a false heart that she keeps in a casket. I hope you are never kidnapped by faeries, but if you are, the most useful thing to remember is never to eat or drink with them, since this binds you to their world.
I hope you enjoy the book!
Find on Amazon.co.uk
- Published by:
- Puffin Books
- Date:
- June 4 2009
- ISBN-10:
- 0141319259
- ISBN-13:
- 978-0141319254
- Price:
- £6.99