Faery Fears: The Dark Side

I'm off to bed.
As I go I'm thinking about what scares us about the Fae.
What is it that we don't want to see or run into out in the Forest at night, when the mist is rolling in and the trees are particularly dark and creaky.

What about the stories we've read and been weaned on where the Faery Queen takes us between the worlds and keeps us there until when we return we are decades behind our loved ones.......Or when we have to rescue our true love from her clutches.........And who is the faery queen in our deck? Is it Nelys? Or perhaps the Dark Lady???

Is Himself the King? Or perhaps Solus is Lord of the dance....

I'm particularly interested in what you fear in the Froud deck, if anything.
Does the thought of running into Luathas on a dark night bother you? Perhaps Luathas in broad daylight is enough to scare you as well?

Or perhaps the Bodach sends your blood running cold?

Are the Fae we love so well all beauty and light or are there tendencies toward truly scary mischief bubbling around the deck?

What if we've got skeletons in our own closet and are visited by a Singer. Can we expect forgiveness or some other more provocative intervention...

If you've experienced the dark side of the Fae or have merely had nightmares about it, I invite your discussions here.

I want to elaborate on this.
Since I've been working with the Fae for the public I'm seeing some things with the hard cards and am trying to see what they mean.

G. Hobyah comes up for many folks in the "real" world.
So I'm visiting the lands, the borderlands where he roams.
I see him hexing us, I see him trying to confine....or rather he tells me that someone is not allowing another person room to grow or be.

The Fee Lion came up today for someone. He was telling her that unless she completed the change cycles other cards spoke about she wouldn't be able to progress....

I see that there is a journey into darkness that sometimes has to come before we can venture to the light. And I don't want to miss the journey, miss the dark shadows, because I'm looking so hard for the light.

It is in the shadows isn't it, that we see the lessons and the beauty that we are and can become......but we must be willing to venture into the dark, right? We just don't want to live there.

And for me to be able to help others who do live there, or at least read for them, i ought to take a trip thru the borderlands to see what it is that is there.

Perhaps that is just me.
I don't mean to scare people or make folks think I'm on a downer trip here. Just looking at the realm from all the angles.

It is in the shadows isn't it, that we see the lessons and the beauty that we are and can become......but we must be willing to venture into the dark, right? We just don't want to live there.

And for me to be able to help others who do live there, or at least read for them, i ought to take a trip thru the borderlands to see what it is that is there.

Click to expand...

That is the truth of it all, dear elf.
Our dark nights are a gift if we allow ourselves to see and use them as such......remembered pain is a powerful healing tool...as is happiness!
One of the joys of being a crone tarot reader - a wealth of life experience to draw from.......

Not that I'm suggesting you ought to look to take a trip there ......life usually hands it to us.

Ya know something? There are some ghastly and terrifying things in the dark corners of the Otherworld.

But I have never been afraid of any of them.

I think part of this is because the Otherworld(the one I know) so bends and conforms to my soul's leanings...its wonders and terrors exist and rearrange themselves to what my subconcious wishes me to experience.

And all the shadows and darklings don't scare me...because I understand and have made peace with those particular shadows. I understand my dark side.


On the other hand...there is a bit of Faerie lore that you mentioned, Elf, that I have always been sort of cautious and wary of...and that is the idea of FaeTime. Partaking of faerie feasts, dancing in faerie circles til you get dizzy...even a friendly game of 9 pins (in the case of Rip Van) that leaves you a few too many years outside of what you know.

I don't mind the idea of being a time traveller, mind you...but I don't like the idea of not being able to go back...missing your loved ones...and not saying good-bye.
It's never been a fear...but it has always been there at the back of my mind, as a possible horror.

I just purchased The Faerie Oracle cards the other night. Since I was given Froud's original book on Faeries back in 1978 I have long been one who appreciates both the Faerie Realm and Brian Froud's art and work. When I saw there was an Oracle deck based on his Good Faeries/Bad Faeries book (which was also given to me as a gift by someone who didn't know I had the original) I had to have it!

Wow. The Dark Lady pulled herself out of the deck the other night with some deeply comforting messages for me, hard truths I needed to hear, and assurance that the unfamiliar terrain I now find myself in has been well worn by her. She draws me into her embrace, and it is not cold as I thought it would be. Her deep, dark wisdom brings peace to me.

The "scarier" faeries, to me, are the ones who take advantage of my own desires and cast illusion and deception so I am lured to my doom. Those are the ones, like the Glauconer (His self-title "Smoothe Harry" is yet another deception that causes one to take him less seriously than one maybe ought), who I fear the most. The ones that don't look frightening can be the ones that pack the worst sting.

~Mercy

For me, the Glanconer is definitely the scariest, because he can get inside your head and seduce you from the inside out. Dangerous guy.

Kim

I had a period a few months ago when the dark lady kept appearing to me. Night after night I picked her card from the deck. She is a frightening force when you ignore her, but once you recognize her existence, she shows you the way out of her realm. In my case, this meant I had to cry. I cried for about two months, and when I was done, I was well and truly done.

The gift the dark lady gave me was the lesson that sometimes you cannot escape the Dark. Acknowledging the pain was not enough; I had to experience it, live through it before I could finally close this chapter. Somehow, I needed the permission the dark lady gave me to allow myself to feel this pain, and to take the time to experience the loss, the change. (And no, it wasn't about a relationship, you busybodies ) Her message sometimes frightens me, since it means I can run away no longer, and I will have to deal with my feelings. She, herself, however, is a great comfort. She taught me that love and grief and anger are all normal human emotions, and that avoiding them is denying yourself something very precious.

The card that scares me most is the soul shrinker (I think this is true for many of us, see topic about least fav. Card) I do not buy the content of the book on this guy. He is not here to help us, (why help eliminating pain when you thrive on it???) and to me he is not about gossip.

He is a very malignant, corrupting force that will literally eat your soul when you let it. The worst part is that you do not recognize him at first. His face might be that of your parent, telling you yet again that it’s just not good enough, or it might be the grief that has turned sour, that rots and becomes a depression. He might be the illision that keeps you from living your life and he might be the sense of powerlesness that prevents you from pursuing your dream. I dislike him, I fear him, and I hope I will never encounter him again.

Although the appearence of the soul shrinker might lead to lessons learnt and stuff like that, I do not believe that all forces here on earth will help us. Some faeries help us unintentionally, and some try to prevent us from reaching our goals.

Thank you for these replies.
They confirm for me that we see the darkness but we always find a way thru to the light....because the path is being lit for us by the Fae, we just have to choose to see it!

Great replies. keep 'em coming please. There is much here to purge.