Fairies, Environmental Justice, and Re-Enchantment in Modern Pa…

ecospirituality, environmental grief, Animism, neopaganism, nature spirituality, re-enchantment

This paper examines contemporary Pagan narratives about fairies, revealing themes of re-enchantment, environmental grief, and environmental justice. In these narratives, fairies are often portrayed as nature spirits and protectors of the environment who warn humans of impending disaster and suggest techniques for re-enchanting the physical environment through practices that create reciprocal relationships between humans and nature, change consciousness, and allow humans to experience an interconnected, ensouled universe. These narratives can be interpreted as belonging to a category of folk environmentalism in which expressive cultural forms provide resources for communities coping with environmental grief. They also reflect emergent vernacular ontologies which reflect contemporary Pagan efforts to re-enchant the world and shift perceptions from a naturalistic frame to one that is more animistic, in which other-than-human beings are thought to have consciousness and interiority.

Albrecht, G. A. 2019. Earth Emotions. New Words for a New World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

Arensberg, C. 1988 (1937). The Irish Countryman: An Anthropological Study (Long Grove: Waveland Press).

Barrie, J. M. 2014 [1902]. Peter Pan (London: Puffin).

Bird-David, N. 1999. ‘“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology’, Current Anthropology 40.S1: 567–91. https://doi.org/10.1086/200061

Borland, K., J. McDowell, R. Dirksen, and S. Tuohy. 2021. Performing Environmentalisms Expressive Culture and Ecological Change (Champaign: University of Illinois Press).

Briggs, K. 1976. An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures (New York: Pantheon Books).

Collodi, C. 1893. Le avventure di Pinocchio (Firenze: Bemporad e Figlio).

Cunsolo, A. and N. Ellis. 2018. ‘Ecological Grief as a Mental Health Response to Climate-Change Related Loss’, Nature Climate Change 8.4: 275–81. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0092-2

Daimler, M. 2014. Pagan Portals: Fairy Witchcraft: A Neopagan’s Guide to the Celtic Fairy Faith (Moon Books).

de Castro, Eduardo Viveiros. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4.3: 469–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/3034157

Foxwood, Orion. 2007. The Faery Teachings (Arcata: R. J. Stewart Books).

Gardner, Gerald B. 1973. Witchcraft Today (Seacaucus: Citadel Press).

Hart, J. 2004. Explore Fairy Traditions (Loughborough: Heart of Albion Press).

Harvey, G. 2019. Animism: Respecting the Living World (London: C. Hurst).

Hutton, R. 1999. Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

———. 2014. ‘The Making of the Early Modern British Fairy Tradition’, Historical Journal 57: 161–78.

———. 2018. ‘Afterword’, in Michael Ostling (ed.) Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: ‘Small Gods’ at the Margins of Christendom (London: Palgrave MacMillan).

Kimmerer, R. W. 2015. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions).

Kirner, K. 2016. ‘Pursuing the Salmon of Wisdom: The Sacred in Folk Botanical Knowledge Revival among Modern Druids’, Journal of the Society for the Study of Religion and Nature 9.4: 448–82. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v9i4.25814

Kuusala, T. 2020. ‘Spirited Away by Female Forest Spirits’, Folklore 131.2: 159–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2019.1701280

Letcher, A. 2001. ‘The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls, and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture’, Folklore 112.2: 147–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00155870120082209

Lindow, J. 2014. Trolls: An Unnatural History (London: Reaktion Books).

Magliocco, S. 2018a. ‘Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Vernacular Ontologies of Animal Afterlives’, Journal of Folklore Research 55.2: 39–67. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfolkrese.55.2.03

———. 2018b. ‘“Reconnecting to Everything”: Fairies in Contemporary Paganism’, in Michael Ostling (ed.) Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: ‘Small Gods’ at the Margins of Christendom (London: Palgrave MacMillan).

———. 2019. ‘The Taming of the Fae: Literary and Folkloric Fairies in Modern Paganism’, in Shai Ferraro and Ethan Doyle White (ed.) Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (London: Palgrave MacMillan): 107–30.

Marquis, M. 2021. ‘Otherworld Here: On the Ecological Possibilities of Fairies’, Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism 25.3: 266–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2021.2014929

Matthews, J. 2011. The Sidhe: Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld (Traverse City: Lorian Press).

Mauss, M. 1990 [1954]. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by W. D. Halls (New York: Norton).

Narvaez, P. (ed.). 1991. The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

Pihkala, P. 2020. ‘Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety’, Sustainability 12.19: 7836.

Pike, S. 2019. ‘“Wild Nature” and the Lure of the Past: The Legacy of Romanticism among Young Pagan Environmentalists’, in Shai Ferraro and Ethan Doyle White (ed.) Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (London: Palgrave MacMillan): 131–52.

Purkiss, D. 2000. At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Elves, and Other Troublesome Things (New York: New York University Press).

Silver, C. 1999. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Skjelbred, A. H. B. 1991. ‘Rites of Passage as Meeting Place: Christianity and Fairylore in Connection with the Unclean Woman and Unchristened Child’, in P. Narvaez (ed.) The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

Sugg, R. 2018. Fairies: A Dangerous History (London: Reaktion Books).

Tschakert, P., N. Ellis, C. Anderson, A. Kelly, and J. Obeng. 2019. ‘One Thousand Ways to Express Loss: A Systematic Analysis of Climate-Related Intangible Harm from Around the World’, Global Environmental Change 55: 58–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.11.006

Weber, Max. 1923. Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie (Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr).

Young, Simon. 2018. The Fairy Census 2014–2017. https://www.academia.edu/35591008/The_Fairy_Census_2014_2017_pdf

ecospirituality, environmental grief, Animism, neopaganism, nature spirituality, re-enchantment

This paper examines contemporary Pagan narratives about fairies, revealing themes of re-enchantment, environmental grief, and environmental justice. In these narratives, fairies are often portrayed as nature spirits and protectors of the environment who warn humans of impending disaster and suggest techniques for re-enchanting the physical environment through practices that create reciprocal relationships between humans and nature, change consciousness, and allow humans to experience an interconnected, ensouled universe. These narratives can be interpreted as belonging to a category of folk environmentalism in which expressive cultural forms provide resources for communities coping with environmental grief. They also reflect emergent vernacular ontologies which reflect contemporary Pagan efforts to re-enchant the world and shift perceptions from a naturalistic frame to one that is more animistic, in which other-than-human beings are thought to have consciousness and interiority.

Albrecht, G. A. 2019. Earth Emotions. New Words for a New World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

Arensberg, C. 1988 (1937). The Irish Countryman: An Anthropological Study (Long Grove: Waveland Press).

Barrie, J. M. 2014 [1902]. Peter Pan (London: Puffin).

Bird-David, N. 1999. ‘“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology’, Current Anthropology 40.S1: 567–91. https://doi.org/10.1086/200061

Borland, K., J. McDowell, R. Dirksen, and S. Tuohy. 2021. Performing Environmentalisms Expressive Culture and Ecological Change (Champaign: University of Illinois Press).

Briggs, K. 1976. An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures (New York: Pantheon Books).

Collodi, C. 1893. Le avventure di Pinocchio (Firenze: Bemporad e Figlio).

Cunsolo, A. and N. Ellis. 2018. ‘Ecological Grief as a Mental Health Response to Climate-Change Related Loss’, Nature Climate Change 8.4: 275–81. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0092-2

Daimler, M. 2014. Pagan Portals: Fairy Witchcraft: A Neopagan’s Guide to the Celtic Fairy Faith (Moon Books).

de Castro, Eduardo Viveiros. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4.3: 469–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/3034157

Foxwood, Orion. 2007. The Faery Teachings (Arcata: R. J. Stewart Books).

Gardner, Gerald B. 1973. Witchcraft Today (Seacaucus: Citadel Press).

Hart, J. 2004. Explore Fairy Traditions (Loughborough: Heart of Albion Press).

Harvey, G. 2019. Animism: Respecting the Living World (London: C. Hurst).

Hutton, R. 1999. Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

———. 2014. ‘The Making of the Early Modern British Fairy Tradition’, Historical Journal 57: 161–78.

———. 2018. ‘Afterword’, in Michael Ostling (ed.) Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: ‘Small Gods’ at the Margins of Christendom (London: Palgrave MacMillan).

Kimmerer, R. W. 2015. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions).

Kirner, K. 2016. ‘Pursuing the Salmon of Wisdom: The Sacred in Folk Botanical Knowledge Revival among Modern Druids’, Journal of the Society for the Study of Religion and Nature 9.4: 448–82. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v9i4.25814

Kuusala, T. 2020. ‘Spirited Away by Female Forest Spirits’, Folklore 131.2: 159–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2019.1701280

Letcher, A. 2001. ‘The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls, and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture’, Folklore 112.2: 147–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00155870120082209

Lindow, J. 2014. Trolls: An Unnatural History (London: Reaktion Books).

Magliocco, S. 2018a. ‘Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Vernacular Ontologies of Animal Afterlives’, Journal of Folklore Research 55.2: 39–67. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfolkrese.55.2.03

———. 2018b. ‘“Reconnecting to Everything”: Fairies in Contemporary Paganism’, in Michael Ostling (ed.) Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: ‘Small Gods’ at the Margins of Christendom (London: Palgrave MacMillan).

———. 2019. ‘The Taming of the Fae: Literary and Folkloric Fairies in Modern Paganism’, in Shai Ferraro and Ethan Doyle White (ed.) Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (London: Palgrave MacMillan): 107–30.

Marquis, M. 2021. ‘Otherworld Here: On the Ecological Possibilities of Fairies’, Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism 25.3: 266–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2021.2014929

Matthews, J. 2011. The Sidhe: Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld (Traverse City: Lorian Press).

Mauss, M. 1990 [1954]. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by W. D. Halls (New York: Norton).

Narvaez, P. (ed.). 1991. The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

Pihkala, P. 2020. ‘Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety’, Sustainability 12.19: 7836.

Pike, S. 2019. ‘“Wild Nature” and the Lure of the Past: The Legacy of Romanticism among Young Pagan Environmentalists’, in Shai Ferraro and Ethan Doyle White (ed.) Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (London: Palgrave MacMillan): 131–52.

Purkiss, D. 2000. At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Elves, and Other Troublesome Things (New York: New York University Press).

Silver, C. 1999. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Skjelbred, A. H. B. 1991. ‘Rites of Passage as Meeting Place: Christianity and Fairylore in Connection with the Unclean Woman and Unchristened Child’, in P. Narvaez (ed.) The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

Sugg, R. 2018. Fairies: A Dangerous History (London: Reaktion Books).

Tschakert, P., N. Ellis, C. Anderson, A. Kelly, and J. Obeng. 2019. ‘One Thousand Ways to Express Loss: A Systematic Analysis of Climate-Related Intangible Harm from Around the World’, Global Environmental Change 55: 58–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.11.006

Weber, Max. 1923. Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie (Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr).

Young, Simon. 2018. The Fairy Census 2014–2017. https://www.academia.edu/35591008/The_Fairy_Census_2014_2017_pdf