In many folk tales from around the globe, there are accounts of a midwife who is taken by fairies to assist with a birth. Aside from their typically supernatural nature, the mode of transportation is frequently overlooked; that of the fairy winds. This wind appears to have a property whereby it may move between the human world and the fairy world. It has, in some ways, the ability to tear down the dimensional curtains, so to speak, rather than just the way to deliver a body over the land and mountains. In some of the accounts, the fairy wind can also influence time for the person caught in its pull, as if the wind contains on its own the very timelessness of the Otherworld.
Crossing Over with the Winds
The various winds are frequently invoked to carry communications between the physical world and the ethereal world. Some winds are said to travel to specific places and to particular gods, goddesses and ancestral domains. Even in contemporary witchcraft and magical rituals, the wind is invoked to bring blessings, healing, and even to banishing persistent negative forces. This isn’t just a folk-magic observation; even inside the Vatican library, the names of various winds are painted in circles on the floor signifying their authority over various domains.
Around the globe, the native names of different winds are themselves endowed with certain superstitions and also contain much deeper traditional observations. Some winds are said to be possessed by deities, and should be treated accordingly.
The winds of the gods
In Greek mythology, the Titan Astraeus (Starry) and the Eos (Dawn) are the parents of the four wind gods collectively known as Anemoi. However, each was assigned a direction from which their respective breezes arrived. Aeolus was in charge of the winds of the island of Aeolia, where Odysseus met him. Boreas is the cold north wind and the winter’s bringer. He has a violent temperament. Zephyrus is the gentlest of the winds, while Notus is the south wind, bringing storms and destroying crops. Eurus is the east wind, bringing gentle rain.
Mediterranean Madness and Aboriginal Dust Devils
The Sirocco winds are said to bring visions to the edge of insanity in certain circumstances. This is interesting in relation to the Slua SÃ Fairy host who are believed to travel using the Sirocco winds. In this instance, as with Sirocco, insanity and sickness are two symptoms that often go hand in hand as the have scant regard for those whom they abduct.
The Australian Aborigines wind, the whirly-whirly or willy-wundy, is said to transport powerful, ancestral spirits travelling on the wind to the next world, and they are often linked with kidnapping children.
In numerous occult ceremonies, the recitation of a mantra or prayer opens up the eyes to visionary vision and enables such a person to see fairies, spirits or the Otherworld. In a similar way, the vibrations of the wind may induce a change of consciousness that is similar to that of a shaman’s chant or drumbeat. Some evidence may be that the sound is usually the fairy wind that is heard before visions or interactions with fairies themselves take place.
Fairy Winds of Ireland
In Irish folklore, the women are said to be lifted into the air and carried by the Sidhe gaothie, the Fairy Wind, to the fairy fort or even the Otherworld itself. In a narrative of an Irish fairy wind, one notices how the arrival of the wind seems almost innocuous, until the farmhand realizes that it has taken his son, whom he searches for, before discovering the boy at a local fairy.
Regrettably, not all accounts of fairies finish so well. Another account of Co. can be found at www. # Leitrim, recorded in 1938, a husband tries to rescue his kidnapped wife from the fairies, but they take their own retribution in a savage manner.
Fairy Paths and Ley Lines
These winds are frequently haphazard and appear unexpectedly at times, but they also follow a well-defined course, sometimes associated with fairy paths or roads. In Ireland and Iceland, if someone has built a house on such roads, they will experience terrible luck for it. Occasionally, this might result in the death of livestock while in other instances, it might cause the destruction itself. These stories are not numerous and seldom told; they are discovered anyplace a strong belief in fairies exists.
Some researchers correlate these pathways with streak lines or cycles of seasonal activity that folklorists like Robert Kirk, himself purportedly collected by fairies, and others mention. While most often associated with the equinoxes, solstices, and quadrant days, there is also lore associating these fairy openings to stellar association too. They are part of a much more vast timescale which might explain why they are mentioned in old indigenous legends, but less well recorded by anthropologists and contemporary researchers.
Protection
If one becomes caught in a fairy tide, what should one do? One method to safeguard oneself is to scatter dust on one’s shoulder or at the wind itself. It’s also possible to quickly lie on the ground and remain entirely still.
In other circumstances, especially when working in the great outdoors, the strategy of a fairy wind may be blocked by throwing a pitchfork against it. This brings back the notion of iron being used for protection and warding, and it is not just the act of flinging that stops the Slua SÃ but the brandishing of the item itself. The blade is constructed of iron, which symbolism is connected to protection and the warding of the Evil Eye. Fairy tales can provide terrible consequences, but folklore also affords a way out of its problems.
