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Bonus 38 - Faerie or Ghost? (Patreon)

Published:
2021-11-29 20:15:26
Edited:
2024-09-20 23:43:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

For this bonus episode, we're discussing all sorts of scary faeries and addressing the important scientific issue of the day: is it a faerie, a ghost, or a ghost-powered faerie?

Sources:

https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-faeries/amber-fua

https://gizmodo.com/ten-freaky-types-of-scary-fairies-5830188

Comments

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

B-B-B-B-B-BONUS ROUND! I've spent the month describing Scary Fairies. How about a scary fairy that doesn't *want* to be scary? We're heading to the mainland on this one to visit the Bretons. A fairy known to them of old is the Bugul Noz—whose name means, essentially, "the Night Shepherd." According to legend, the poor fellow is absolutely *monstrous* in appearance, to the point that animals avoid It. In some stories, I believe the Bugul Noz looks so awful that seeing It is fatal. Aware of how fearful It is to others, It only goes out at night, and cries out as It walks along paths so people will know It's coming and can shutter their windows and look away. In later, more christianized versions of the myth, the Bugul Noz will come to the aid of night wanderers being accosted by the Devil, usings Its dread countenance to scare Old Scratch away.

Alan Ricks

Ghost-powered Faerie sounds like a steampunk band.

Jason Thompson

Loved this episode! You might someday want to read Hope Mirrlees’ fairy novel “Lud-in-the-Mist”. Neil Gaiman likes it, and it lleans into the “fairies are sorta like ghosts” idea. However (alas), it’s not horror.

Jason Thompson

You know a creature that is really fairie-like? The thing from the movie “It Follows.” It’s human in shape, but totally alien and hostile. It follows arbitrary weird rules. And it’s sort of invisible, sort of not; but it also definitely (?) has a body.

Stacy Schumacher

Redcaps will mess you up. Not only is their cap red from soaking up blood, they have to keep soaking up new blood, they can't let it dry out! Robin Redcap is a famous one from the Scottish Borders that was a familiar to the Lord of Hermitage Castle. Interesting that many early Scottish witches were accused of conspiring with the faery folk, not demons. Converting to Christianity is one thing, throwing out all you know about the good folk and how to avoid getting on their bad side is something else entirely... Speaking of that, and a hopefully helpful PSA, you broke down the food/drink rules pretty well this month, but if listeners would prefer to avoid the whole mess, they can tie a red string around a tree in front of their house (preferably a rowan tree), carry a sprig of rowan (serviceberry) on their person, or carry a hagstone (stone with a natural hole in it). Gotta watch out for that last one though, because although a hagstone will protect you from faeries, it can also let you SEE the land of faery, which is just inherently risky. The more you know....

MonsterTalk

Fairy movies that treat the topic with appropriate horror: The Hallows Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (the original TV movie is great, the GDT version is beautiful but I prefer the original) Pans Labyrinth Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (the tv movie is good, the book is astonishing) There are more…

DR

There is a book by Keith Thomas called Religion and the decline of Magic that talks a lot about old pagan mythology being taken in by the new religion and then the reformation wiping out a lot of it. There are two fairy examples though. One is a woman who accused another of being a witch and when asked what evidence she had, she say’s “ the fairy’s told me”. Another is a woman who went to a Abbot with a stick of hazel that her child said the fairy’s had given her and she wanted the Abbot to bless it so she could use it to find hidden treasure.

Jim Cannon

No scary fairy movies? This is <i>Leprechaun</i> and <i>Troll</i> franchise erasure!

Jim Cannon

Some quibbles with some of what you guys were talking about. Fairies are not confined to the British Isles, which Chad acknowledged. They pretty much exist in every culture worldwide. Which is why they don't really fit into the hard and fast categories that Chris wants to use. They can be spirits, they can be monsters, they can come from people, they can come from outside. The important thing is that they're magical creatures that interact with humanity in some way. Now, I don't know why werewolves and vampires are not fairies and elves and trolls are, but that's just the way it works. I first encountered the Hulderfolk in the D'Aulaires <i>Trolls</i> (the husband and wife team also did fabulous Greek Myths and Norse Myths books for kids): the Hulderfolk are Scandinavian faeries that aren't exactly malevolent or benevolent. They're just different people. You can identify them because they either have a hollow back or a cow tail, so they are usually encountered in cow pastures tending herds. Importantly, like all fae in Christian Europe, they don't have souls, which is where the danger comes in. If they "seduce" you, they convince you to join their villages underground, where you live forever in plenty but never get to Heaven. Conversely, if you convince a Hulder maiden or lad to come back to your village and marry you in a nice Christian ceremony, at the toll of the church bells they gain a soul and their cow tail falls off. You need a young helper to quickly get the tail out of the way before the rest of the party notices, btw, that's a life hack, all you single people keep that in your back pocket. That's the problem with listicles, they usually leave all the juicy details out.

Sanjay Mathew

Re fairies and Abramanic religions coexisting, as Chris says much of this may just be pre-monotheistic beliefs reinterpreted in the new framework. For example in the Malay world the old pre-Islamic spirits are reinterpreted as Jinn, thus fitting neatly into Islamic cosmology. The Irish I think may have had a similar reinterpretation with all these creatues being angels who didn't take sides in the War in Heaven, thus not being fully demonic but no longer angelic.

Akeel1701

it's Gaelic when you refer to Irish Gaelic, but you say 'Gallic' when you talk about Scottish Gaelic

Ben Moule

Damn me, Chad's English accent is the best regional English accent I've heard from anyone, English or not!

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

Hard to believe I've listened all month and never mentioned the wonderful Brian Froud Faeries book of illustrations. My brother owned several Froud books and I often snuck into his room to marvel at them. A Google image search will give you some idea of what the book contained. As well as trolls and creatures for Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Edit: I really should add that while Brian Froud is the name I remembered, he often collaborated with others including his tremendously talented wife, Wendy. And, of course, their son Toby is the child in Labyrinth.

Ratchbox

Great episode guys! Spooky fairies is a such a good topic! For anyone interested in Scottish folk creatures such as the Redcap I heartily recommend the YouTube channel Liath Wolf. He covers Scottish folk tales of the Fae including a lot of creepy beasties! It's a charmingly made and well researched channel that is well worth checking out!

Peter Larsen

Redcaps are having a hard go of it in today's wold Tonight on CSI Faerieland: Redcap: You can't prove it was me! World-weary Detective Kelpie: Sergeant Brownie, take that cap down to Forensics for DNA testing. Redcap: Oh, hell....

Peter Larsen

Announcer: Fachan are not only discriminated aginst because of their appearance, they also only have one lung, which increases the severity of breathing problems, including respiratory infections and COVID, and many die quite young from renal failure, due to their single kidney. So give generously this holiday season to Faerieland Medical Charities; we are in the final leg of our funding drive to build a new pulmonary research wing on the hospital. Voice off screen: I can't believe you used "final leg" and "wing" in an announcement on Fachan! Announcer: This job....

StarryLilVix

Chad, I believe you're thinking of The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield. I bought a copy thanks to you guys. I really enjoyed that one.

Karlandos

So I wonder how strongly or strictly the separation of things like spirits, ghost, fey, whatever needs to be held. That used to get me but now I feel like whatever it is the sort of strict categorization is really more a product of the fiction we've built on the various myths and legends than anything else especially when you take games like D&D and what not.

Jason of the K

"Elves" on netflix looks to be relevant to this topic.

Jason of the K

I've always been fascinated by the origins of the "faeries/goblins swapped my baby!" myth. Was it a way to explain away a stillborn or SIDS death, a birth defect, or infidelity? I've always imagined this conversation: "Oye, whys this baby got bright red hair? Yous and me are dark haired!" "Oh no, goblins swapped my baby!" screams the wife, as she shoos the ginger stablehand out of the house :P

Billy Egregore

Just caught up on all the episodes of podcast over an embarrassingly short time frame. Let me tell you the journey from the OG HPL stuff and here certainly felt like time travel. Your business model shook out my pennies and dimes immediately. Here’s to the episodes behind us and to the many more to come!

Daniel Weber

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and the scary faerie stories this month. Something about the faeries (or ghosts!) that were dead children reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in years: the Time Life Books series Enchanted World that they used to advertise on tv all the time. It seemed like they had one on faeries and one on ghosts. They had creepy artwork that completely freaked me out as a kid! There was one picture of a spirit/creature that stood on a sleeping person's chest and stole their breath that was especially creepy. Sort of related: I know you guys weren't that crazy about Carnacki the Ghost Finder, but I do wish you'd cover the story The Searcher of the End House. I like all of those stories, but I found that one weirder and creepier than the others and it contains [spoiler] significantly less sinister clip-clopping. I am enjoying the broadening range of stories and topics you are covering on the show. Strange times call for strange changes and I am going with you wherever your strange studies lead. Keep up the great work!

Necropolis Railway

Great episode! But haha, Chad should have stuck with that second Youtube video, the one with the bearded British guy in the woods who proports to have proof of fairies. He actually does have some pretty good evidence! Er, that he most likely fabricated using composited CG models and stuff. He's an artist called Erwin Saunders (probably a pseudonym) who was covered last year in this Fortean Times article: https://hauntedgeneration.co.uk/2020/08/19/erwin-saunders-pixie-hunter/ As Chad rightly notes, the videos start off slow and unimpressive, but they eventually build toward some effectively creepy and pretty convincing shots of these fairy creatures he calls "Morsu." A few credulous tabloid and paranormal sites have reposted Saunders' videos as definitely authentic. This despite the fact that in the later videos we see Saunders interacting with a whole army of Morsu outside an eldritch temple.

Jeffrey Kahrs

Chad, the dogs are trying to protect us from correlating the contents. They're good boys, Chad

Psuke Bariah

As far as the distinction between ghosts and fairies, the line isn't nearly as distinct as some might think. There is a book by Walter Evans-Wentz titled "The Fairy Faith in Celtics Countries" that covers this topic. A lot of the folk beliefs about fairies in Ireland (and a few others, I forget which) are beliefs about the dead in Wales. They live in barrows, they steal children and adults, actually. There was a heartbreaking line regarding changelings...Walter was visiting a village, and visiting a little person, possibly suffering dwarfism, asked him when Walter came to visit "Did my mother tell you I was a changeling?" She had, claiming she had given birth to a perfectly healthy "normal" child, and the fairies had stolen him, and left this person in his place. What a childhood that poor man must have had. There is also a ginormous dictionary that covers the fairies, gnomes, elves, etc of the globe...and most are disturbing, creepy, and dangerous.

Jason Thompson

I love you both and will always listen to your podcast. The renaming makes me think of when Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name to “KFC” to get rid of the word “fried” and people started a rumor that they were legally required not to call their food “chicken”. On that note, I know people are turned off by the word “literary”, so why not just call it the “HP Lovecraft Podcast”? It’s perfect!

witchhousemedia

Would be analogous if KFC didn't serve chicken anymore, or if we were ditching Lovecraft because of public distaste, but it's more the haven't-covered-in-ten-years thing. Either way the mashed potatoes are delicious.