Left Fae~Faerie Music~Right Faerie

    The most renowned faerie occupation is the making of such sweet music that only that of the angels singing the praises of Heaven's king can compare. The strains of the faerie harp, which tear the heart with a longing few mortals can endure, are wild and melancholic. Each note excites desire; and since music moves forward in time, unlike a painting which can be contemplated at leisure, no mortal can embrace nor be wholly ravished by its sounds, which tease him then leave him all the more desperate in his frustrated desire to possess. Even though the music rends his vitals, he cannot choose but to listen and exult in his beauteous destructions; and if those strains were to stop, he would die with desire to hear them once more. He loses memory of love and hate, forgets all mortal things and hears nothing but faerie music until the spell is broken and he dies.
    Faerie HarpFew mortals are equal to immortal desire; yet a rare few have revelled in Sídhe music and, exultant, brought back those blinding sweet tunes to the mortal realm. Turlough O'Carolan, the last of the great Irish bards, slept one evening upon a faerie rath and ever after the songs of the Sídhe run wild in his head, and wild and sweet they sprang from his lips. The few faerie tunes we have, like the "Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow", are gifts to us from such intrepid eavesdroppers.
    'Come with us to the land of delight and rest' play the faerie musicians with fiddles and pipes and drums, and none can resist. They come gliding over fields without bending the grass, crossing rivers without wetting their feet. Being nationalistic, the faeries enjoy praising their home; the music blithely skips from the fiddle, compelling all, man beast and faerie, to see for themselves the joys of Tír-na-n-Óg, the ultimate faerieland. Such is the desire, but the delightful destination is not so readily reached; for the music vanishes leaving man and horse standing bewildered in the midst of a stream.
    Faerie Playing MusicMortals are always sensitive to the music of the Sídhe. One morning a mother found her infant son in the craddle lustily playing the bagpipes. She knew at once that it was no child and not her own. Wild through the village the music tumbled and not a mortal could stir nor move his lips for charmed were his will and his senses.
    But whereas faerie music oftentimes paralyzes mortal bodies, it alway animates those of the Sídhe. Any who pass a rath at night will see them at it in true Irish fashion: their bodies straight as a sapling, but from the knees down they are as quick as a stream. In a ring they dance until the grass and their shoes are worn; and the next morning the tack-tack of the leprechaun's hammer echoes from the hills.
    Faerie Dance

    Divider

    Source: Carolyn White "A History of Irish Fairies"

    Home Button Back Button Next Button Mail Button

    Background courtesy by Rowan

    Divider

    This Realm is hosted by

    A Fae for GeoCities