The Fairy Trees: Blackthorn, Hawthorn and Rowan

Hawthorn Blossom © Lisa Schneidau

White blossom on the trees is one of the delights of springtime, but it masks a deeper magic in three of the most charismatic of British trees: blackthorn, hawthorn and rowan. Storyteller and ecologist Lisa Schneidau has some practical tips on navigating plant folklore, bringing you face to face with the fairy realms and the ways of the Other Folk…..

A Thousand Years Before Tolkien: The Original Evil Magic Ring

Siegfried und Brunnhilde by Charles Ernest Butler (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18935890)

An evil magic ring, associated with dwarf and dragon – what a great idea Tolkien had for his books! But he actually borrowed it from ancient Viking legends…

Fairy Folklore: The Unchanging Appeal of Changelings

Fairies in a Bird’s Nest © John Anster Fitzgerald https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46315765

The notion of fairy changelings, whilst dating back centuries, in many ways feels like a modern concept. That a human might be stolen away by the little folk and replaced with a worn-out fairy or stock of wood, enchanted to look like them, is reminiscent of the human-seeming aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. […]

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