My own practice, a fairy path as it were, finds itself in the area of overlap between the Irish and Norse cultures. 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 strains that intertwined to form the most amazing cultural mélange. Since fairy beings[2] are known to be travelling alongside migrating humans, it’s only logically to think of Álfar arriving to Ireland with the Norse settling there. And, a slightly different yet connected bit that I want share in support of what I just said, I have a very good friend, an eminent scholar, who is currently researching possible ælf connections among the Norse founders of Dublin. Something’s afoot, right?
Anyway, however you chose to think of Álfar[3] and Aos Sidhe[4], try to picture that my own group of fairy beings is a mix of these two, with a strong prevalence of the Álfar but dwelling mainly[5] in Dublin and the surroundings. I do have connections among the Aos Sidhe[6] and among the Álfar, but most of my friends and guides, are part of this intersectional population, a group I call Ælfe[7]. How I ended up having a very close connection to the Ælfe is an entirely different story.
I’ll remind that since my trip to Ireland in June 2022, I have been carrying on work assigned by the aforementioned Ælfe. You might have heard this before, probably ad nauseam, but please bear with me just once more: as part of my assignment, I must track the Pleiades and identify various positions that signal times which Ælfe observe as holy days[8].
On October 31 - November 1st Pleiades appeared E-NE on the horizon right at nightfall, a beautiful sight to behold. In “Chasing Stars” post linked in Resources at the end, I talk about the journey that led to pinpointing this position and the relevance it has so I will not repeat that information here. I will say though that what I thought it would be an ending in itself turned out to be only the beginning.
Directed by the same ælfe guides of mine, I tracked the Pleiades movement throughout December paying attention particularly to the Winter Solstice as I had been told to do. Working with the astronomical calculator that I mentioned in “Chasing Stars”, I found out that on Winter Solstice, December 21, 2022, right before the first light and therefore still visible in the sky, the Pleiades appear at the horizon in a W-SW position. In other words, during a time frame that connects the end of October and the Winter Solstice, a time when honoring the beloved dead weaves into many aspects of spiritual practices in various cultures, the Pleiades move across the sky and bridge horizon to horizon following a E-NE- W-SW trajectory. In her incredibly informative and complex two-part class, “Mound Magic”, Cat Heats speaks about burial mounds with a NE- SW orientation build throughout the time in areas where the beliefs in the Álfar are strong even today (see links in the Resources).
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 historical basis. It is exactly what I want to avoid, so I won’t go around stating that Pleiades and the Winter Solstice conjoined were markers of some holy day people observed let’s say three thousands years ago, because there is no evidence for this. Nor am I going to claim that the Norse-Gaels were observant of such astronomical alignment, because again, there’s no historical record I can use in support of this claim. Additionally, my own guides – both those in human form and those from among the ælfe- cautioned against operating out of context. Which doesn’t mean that my own observations are worthless either. To the contrary, they are very relevant for me and my practice as it is today and it could be equally relevant for someone else who follows similar beliefs. Today, in the very specific context of my own personal approach, I relay on lore that connects fairy beings and stars, on stories that relate burial mounds to Ælfe and Sidhe, and the attested NE-SW orientation of such mounds in various areas where beliefs in Ælfs held strong. I add to these my own physical observation[9] of the NE-SW trajectory Pleiades follow throughout November and most of December, with sunset and sunrise marked by the Pleiades presence at the horizon on October 31 and December 21 respectively.
While my own my fairy path involves shifting several degrees 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 occasions when lunisolar and stellar events overlap. Accordingly, such events are markers for time periods when the boundaries between worlds are at their thinnest and portals can cut through much easier than they otherwise would. I am thus marking these moments as holy days on my personal calendar, and celebrate through ritual and feasting. (For a complete explanation, read “Chasing Stars” linked in the Resources.)
I believe in the value of practices that grow organically from the old roots, whether of just one or several traditions, and weave 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 ways, 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 those of the Ælven kin who, by the light of the Pleiades, walk the bridge from their world into ours ushering in the wild Fairy magic.
Daniela Simina
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.
[3] Fairy beings in Norse cultures.
[4] Fairy beings in Ireland culture.
[5] Mostly, because there may be also groups or clans who dwell in Northern England.
[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.
[8] For the full explanation, read “Chasing Stars” linked in Resources
[9] I double-check the data I get through calculations and by using of the astronomical calendar against personal observation with naked eye and apps for star-tracking. These last ones are added to the list of resources that follows “Chasing Stars”.
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