My own practice, a fairy path as it were, finds itself in the area of overlap between Irish and Nordic lore. More precisely, my personal practice caters mainly to fairy beings who are connected to the Norse-Gaels[1], the descendants of both the Norsemen who founded Dublin and the Irish, peoples that intertwined to form the most amazing cultural mélange. Since fairy beings[2] are known to travel alongside migrating humans, it’s only logically to think of Álfar arriving to Ireland with the Norse and settling there. Aligning my practice to the cycle of the Pleiades is a relatively new development which comes with its own challenges. But in addressing these challenges - related for most part to identifying various positions of the Pleiades, finding lore about fairies and their possible connections to these stars, and carving out new meanings- I learned a lot. There are also the little aha moments which turn the uphill portions of the journey into sources of joy. Here's one example.
Tracking the Pleiades movement across the sky throughout November and December, I notice them following a E-NE- W-SW trajectory. In her incredibly informative two-part class, “Mound Magic”, Cat Heath speaks about burial mounds with a NE- SW orientation. The sites where these mounds are found were developed before and during the Viking age in Scandinavia, thus in a geographical area where the belief in mound elves were strong.
Coincidence? Maybe. I certainly won’t go around shouting that people during the Viking age oriented mounds based on the trajectory of the Pleiades in November and December skies. But I don’t discard it either as a possibility, because both the Norse Álfar and the Irish Sidhe are related to mounds, and both are known to relate in significant ways to the human dead. The very word sí, with the older form sidhe, means mound. Additionally, there’s lore that specifically connects fairies to stars, and among the scholars that I highly regard some have developed personal practices based on the aforementioned fairies and stars connection.
To me, this is so beautiful. I mean, all of it: the blending of certainty and uncertainty, of what we know from archaeology, oldest recorded lore, and personal experiences. But this is also where things get tricky. Some of the Pleiades positions coincide, at least occasionally, with other astronomical events in the lunisolar cycles. Such coincidences set up the trap of making attributions that have no basis which is exactly what I want to avoid. So, I won’t go around presenting as certainty the fact that burial mounds were alligned to the trajectory of the Pleiades, because there is not enough evidence to support this statement. Nor am I going to claim that the Norse-Gaels were observant of the movement of the Pleiades because again, there’s no historical record I can use in support of this claim.
My own guides, human and Other, cautioned against operating out of context. This doesn’t mean that my own observations are worthless either. To the contrary, they are very relevant for me, my practice and beliefs, and they could be also relevant for someone else who follows a similar path and is open to such beliefs. In my own approach I integrate information coming from lore that connects fairies and stars, from stories that relate burial mounds to Elves and Sidhe, and the archaeologically attestation of NE-SW orientation of mounds in areas where beliefs in elves held strong. I add to these my own physical observation of the NE-SW trajectory that the Pleiades follow throughout November- December.
While my own my fairy path involves shifting from lunisolar to a Pleiades-based calendar, my personal guides did not ask me to completely divorce the two. Rather, I was told to follow the stars and also be mindful of the possible connections between lunisolar and stellar events. Accordingly, such events are markers for time periods when the boundaries between worlds are at their thinnest, portals can cut through much easier than they otherwise would and the Other can come through in a world that sorely needs their presence and enchantment. I am thus marking these moments as holy days on my personal calendar, and celebrate through ritual and feasting.
I believe in the value of practices that grow organically from the old roots, whether of just one or several traditions, and weaving those threads into the tapestry of modern living. As it is the case for me now, I navigate by starlight, have the solar and lunar system as a second compass, and pay close attention to the times when both compasses point to the same magnetic North. I hope readers will find the information here to be useful in some way, and get inspired to incorporate personal observations and experience into a practice that is still rooted in a historical context and into bodies of lore that have been in circulation for many hundreds of years.
Thank you for reading this.
I wish everyone a bright Winter Solstice, and I welcome the elven kin who, by the light of the Pleiades, walk the bridge from their world into ours ushering in wild Fairy magic.
Daniela
Resources:
Books:
Daimler, Morgan “Living Fairy”, Pagan Portals, 2019
Online Papers and Articles:
Daimler, Morgan “SPeking Starlight” XXXXX give specific links – personal Mythology
Daimler, Morgan “Celebrating a New Holiday” https://lairbhan.blogspot.com/2018/11/celebrating-new-holiday.html
Daimler, Morgan “Speaking Stars” https://speakingstarlight.blogspot.com/2020/12/breathing-stars.html
Heath, Cat “Mound Magic: Elves, Necromancy, and Adaptation” Parts 1 &2. For details and availability email Cat Heath at seo.helrune@gmail.com
Simina, Daniela, “Chasing Stars” https://whispersinthetwilight.blogspot.com/2022/10/chasing-stars.html
Simina, Daniela “Goddesses to Fairy Queens: Fairy Queens with Solar Associations in Irish and Romanian Fairy Traditions” https://www.academia.edu/83220250/Goddesses_to_Fairy_Queens_Fairy_Queens_with_Solar_Associations_in_Irish_and_Romanian_Traditions
“Norse-Gaels”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse–Gaels
“The Origins of Norse-Gaels in Ireland and Scotland” https://www.thedockyards.com/origins-norse-gaels-ireland-scotland/
[1] Norse-Gaels as a distinct group originated in the Viking Age from the intermingling of Norse colonizers and Gaelic inhabitants of the colonized territory; see links in Resources for more information.
[2] Used as an umbrella term to cover Norse, Germanic and Irish humanoid, non-monstrous beings, many among whom are described in the lore and mythology as akin to gods.
[6] I prefer the spelling Aos Sidhe, as used by Morgan Daimler in their book “Aos Sidhe: Meeting the Irish Fair Folk”. Other ways to spell out the name are Aes Sí and Aes Side.
[7] I was instructed specifically on the name and words to use in reference to them: Ælfe, capitalized when I refer to the whole group, ælf in singular form, and ælven or ælvish as attributes or adjectives.
