Celtic Fairies the Good People

¶ … folklore perpetuates the customs and beliefs of the country people. Creating a vast universe of heroes and magical figures, folklore creates a sort of collective dreaming. Fairies are the most important magical figure in Celtic folklore. Known as the "good people," fairies possess intense power that is critically neutral. The demise of the "good people" can be traced to the institution of Christianity, which dismissed the folklore of the indigenous people and imposed and superimposed upon it a set of new myths and cosmologies.

Yet it has been impossible to totally stamp out the meaning, significance, and symbolism of the ancient folklore and especially that which is related to the "good people." The Celtic countrymen devised ways, as many traditional cultures have, to syncretize deeper and older beliefs with the Christian ones. The relationship between the countryperson and the domain of the fairies is a complex one. The fairies possess tremendous spiritual and supernatural power, but they are to be respected more than feared.

The neutral power of the fairies ensures that they are just as capable of bringing good and bad fortune, and in this way their lives parallel that of the human dimension. Their world is an overlay with the human universe. The country folk devise a set of prayers, sayings, stories, and superstitions around the "good people." God plays a role in these formulations, making the fairy folk exist on a plane between the divine and the mundane.

Moreover, human beings can interact with and collude with the fairies, such as through acts of will that define "magic." The result is a sort of animism permeating the worldview of the country people in Celtic lands. The world of the "good people" is a means by which the country people feel in control of their often frustrating world, and provides a systematic set of beliefs and structures to make sense of life.

The Celtic countryperson can position all aspects of his or her life into the framework of the "good people." The worldview is emotionally charged and shared among the people to create a sense of community, solidarity, and cultural continuity. Rites of passage are particularly important and potent times, during which the "good people" figure prominently. The most important of these rites of passage are birth and death, because those are the transition points between one world and another.

After death, relatives and loved ones retail ties with the material world via the "good people." Elders in the community are viewed as being particularly close to the alternative worlds of the "good people" and the "other people," the realm of the dead. As of the time of writing, the author points out the younger generation remains suspicious of the old ways and prefers the Christian worldview.

However, the author also notes that the old ways will not die out, that they will become integrated into Celtic custom and culture in different ways instead. The symbols may have changed but the essence of the old ways of life and viewing the world remain extant. As the author notes, "ghosts" and other supernatural figures have replaced the "good people" but the same.