Vagabond Fae

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A story of courage and survival for two fairies driven from their home by terrifying spirits. They now travel without a place to call their own. Hiding from the thing that stalks them, dealing with rival clans. All while searching for a new home. 

The wood wives of Germany are some of the most interesting fairies in folklore, but there are very few tales about them translated into English. Which is why I had a number of German tales translated. 

The German fairies are interesting because they needed humans, they loved to help humans, but were terrified of us. 

This story follows two wood wife sisters who are driven from their home by a magical hunter. No fairy can stop him. There are stories of thousands of fairies fleeing their homeland to escape him, because only a human can stop him.

But humans have killed and exploited fairies in the past, so the fairies were often too afraid to ask for help (though not always).

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With her red hat making her invisible, Saga whispered secretly into a girl’s ear. Giving the inspiration to fix the lines of code that had been troubling her. The girl in question, was sitting on the steps of a high school stairwell. Having been distracted from her trip home by her eagerness to finish her program. She was so motivated and brilliant on her own, Saga loved helping her. The app she was working on wasn’t world changing, but it would help a few people. Saga delighted in that thought. For she could feel the future. She could feel the relief, the happiness that the app would indirectly cause once it was released. She could also see the good it would do the girl who’d made it.

Saga was an ellegirl, related to the elves. Elves, however, were nearly divine beings, and she was decidedly not. She wasn’t even a member of the elle clan. She and her sister had been abandoned as a little girls, or perhaps lost? She’d been too young to remember exactly what had happened. After that, they’d been raised by a family of foxes. Making her a bit wild, and she looked it. Her dress was sewn together from the bits of clothes people abandoned in the forest. Mostly brightly colored mittens and socks. Saga loved the cheerful patterns of these. Even more than Saga’s moss and leafy hair, or her fierce blue eyes, the crazy patchy dress would have provoked staring if any human saw her for more than a second or two. Though that almost never happened. She was only visible to humans when she took off her little red cap, often to scratch an itch or cool off.

Saga could feel a new problem coming. High schools, she’d learned, were filled with garbage people who loved nothing more than to hurt those who did things worthwhile. No, they were worse than that. Garbage, at least, could be delicious and fed so many animals. Saga’s scowl was deep as she went hurried to head off the worse than garbage person coming towards them. Jared. His happiness was based on the unhappiness of people who were better than he was. So pretty much everyone. Saga ghosted over to him before he had spotted the girl and blew in his face. His eyes, already pretty much vacant became even more so. They fluttered a bit as Saga’s spell caused him to forget where he was going. Saga touched his stomach, causing him to suddenly have an intense urge to pee. He danced and hopped back towards the restroom. He wouldn’t likely return any time soon. Bullies were like a fish, easily distracted by shiny new objects. By the time he got out of the bathroom he’d be off chasing something else.

Saga skipped out of school. It was time for supper and she had a gimpy little skunk she and her sister had been helping to feed. Saga wandered out into the little patch of trees near the school. She swapped her red hat for her fox cape. All the easier to hunt for fresh food.

Still in her fox form Saga sighed with pleasure, as she took another bite out of the plump little mouse. It tasted of the wild forest it had lived on. It was late in the evening, and what little sun remained was mostly blocked by heavy clouds and thick trees blocked out most of the light, making it easy for her to hide at the base of a large pine. The other ellefolk. The ones without fox parents always found this behavior a little repulsive. Though not as bad as her dining with a squeaking little fox. The skunk looked at the last little mouse, then at her.

Go ahead, Saga told the adorable little animal.

She watched as the skunk, happily devoured rodent. She knew from experience that the skunk’s fur was even softer than her own. Sadly her sister had made her promise not to cuddle with the skunk without washing before coming home.

Saga was just gnawing down the last of the mouse’s bones when she heard two human lovers half whispering half calling each other as they tried to meet for what she assumed had been some sort of arranged secret meeting in the dim shelter of the trees. Her fox sharp ears could hear them, but they obviously couldn’t hear each other yet. An evil grin formed across her face.

She pulled her fox fur back. It was dark enough now that they wouldn’t notice her mossy hair, or even her face. She used the human girl’s voice to answer the boy. He found her a moment later. The shadows hid her face, and men never payed that much attention to dresses. He never suspected that she might not be his lover. He kissed her for a moment before pulling away.

“Are you bleeding?” He asked, the blood from her meal still fresh on her lips.

“What’s going on?” His lover asked her voice quivering on finding him in another woman’s embrace.

He spun to look at her, his face twisted in confusion. He looked back towards Saga.

With a laugh Saga jerked her fox skin back over her head to return to canine form. She bolted away from them. The sound of her barking laugh echoing through the little orchard.

Rain started to fall in giant cold clumps.

Whiskers falling off a kitten, Saga cursed. She ran faster towards home. The rain would cause the berries her sister had been carefully growing to split if they were left out too long.

The base of the elm tree where she lived was twisted in a large knot, making an opening just large enough for her and her sister to get through when they were small as mice. Her sister Ella was four inches tall, standing inside the doorway.  

“You’ll never believe what I just did,” Saga said, a laugh forming on her lips.

“Something terrifyingly obnoxious,” Ella responded, a little smirk on her face.

“Me? I’m all sweetness and blackberries. I just kissed a boy.”

“And did he know what he was doing?”

“He might have thought I was his secret lover,” Saga said with a mischief filled giggle.

“Obnoxious.”

“I prefer to think of it as playful and full of mystery. I’m really trying to keep people’s sense of wonder alive before cold reality takes it away.”

“You know we’re supposed to keep the fact that magic is real a secret. We can’t trust humans.” 

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Hearth Knights

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Anyone who knows me, knows I'm obsessed with house fairies. When I was a child I'd wake up really early in the morning so I could pretend to be a brownie sneaking around the house.

This is the story of a magical cat stray cat who's adopted and so joins the house fairies in protecting humans against the things that go bump in the night.

It's also about a witch who works for the house fairies. 

And of course it's about a number of different fairy traditions, as the fairies followed people to the U.S. from basically every country in the world. 

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Autumn and her familiar crept through the sleeping house, carefully searching every shadow and tiny crevice. Halloween was fast approaching and this year something was stirring up the ghosts and goblins. Autumn ducked down to peek under the couch. Dust bunnies peered back out at her. There were a few tiny toys, some coins, but nothing else. This particular house had a lot of little nooks for things to hide. It wasn’t filthy by any means. It was just that a lot of people had lived in it for a long time. So it was filled with memories. There were shells and bits of wood collected from the beach, wheat from the Midwest, and a dozen other little nick knacks from dozens of family trips and hobbies.  

Her familiar spirit, was checking the box of toys kept under a coffee table for when the nieces and nephews visited. The familiar’s name was Fabian, a Puk. He usually appeared as a tiny woodland spirit, and sometimes a ten foot long dragon. Right now, though he was in the form of a cat so he could sniff out trouble a little better. His pink little nose twitched in the way that made Autumn want to pet him until he was grouchy. Which usually only took about three seconds.

They crept carefully over the worn carpet. It wasn’t the sleeping humans they were being quite for, a simple spell insured that everyone would stay asleep. It was always easier to find curses left behind if you could catch the one leaving them. So they padded silently around a corner and into the kitchen. Lewis tapped the hem of Harper’s skirt with his tail, using his nose to point to the thing standing on the counter. The boggart was rummaging through the cups. He wasn’t more than thirty inches tall. His legs were so thin and his body was so fat it looked like he should have toppled over. His head and his arms were almost human. Though is face looked like someone had smashed a wolf’s face flat with a hammer.

Most boggarts had the good sense to run when they were faced with a witch and a puk. But Harper was young, not much more than fourteen. Boggarts are used to tormenting the young, not fearing them. He stood there staring at them as if uncertain what to do.

“You have no business here,” Lewis snarled, his voice coming out in an angry cat yowl. The boggart showed his teeth in a twisted grin. He dropped something onto the counter which clattered like hollow plastic. A baby bottle, Autumn realized a snarl forming on her own lips. She lifted her wand. The boggart had been placing a curse on the bottle. What kind of foul monster would place a curse on a baby?
Her wand started to glow. The boggart’s eyes narrowed. Autumn whipped a spell at him, but he leapt over it.

“This is our territory now,” the boggart snarled as he rushed towards them, snorting like an angry bull, claws clicking on the ground.

Fabian leapt into to meet him, unsheathed claws flashed wildly. The boggart tried to catch the furious cat. Fabian used the boggart’s outstretched hand as a spring board. Cat claws ripped into the monster’s face and chest.

The boggart screamed as he tried to grab Fabian, but the familiar had already dropped away from him.

Autumn’s next spell knocked the boggart back against the counter. He was snarling with blind rage. Trying to stumble to his feet.

“The stalker will devour every bit of you,” he was screaming.

A knot formed in Autumn’s racing heart. The stalking? She already felt on edge. Her wand hand was shaking. Fabian slammed into the side of the boggart’s neck. The boggart’s screams turned into a yelp of pain. Harper fumbled with a bag of salt, spilling some of it across the floor.

“Get out of the way Fabian,” Autumn called.  

He jumped back down, and she flung the salt in the boggart’s face, chanting words of magic. There was a sound like frying bacon and the boggart ran. He leapt out the window, crashing through rose bushes. Howling in pain.

Autumn sank to the floor, her hands pressed to her chest. She’d only been doing this for a month, so everything was still fresh. Fabian was in his old man form. He did that when he wanted to be reassuring. Right now, however, Harper would have felt better with him in his dragon form. Unfortunately that form was exhausting, so he couldn’t spend too much time in it. She was fiddling with the acorns and stream smoothed stone neckless she’d made. Each item painted to represent one of the fairies that had promised to help her.

“You did very well,” Fabian told her. Witches like her worked for their familiar spirits. He was her connection to the fairy courts that ruled over the magical world in the area.

Autumn nodded, more on reflex than because of any actual agreement. “What do you suppose he meant, by the stalker?”

“Something’s trying to push into our town. Give the bad guys a little more free reign to place their curses, spread illness and despair.”

Autumn sat there a little while, her chest rising and falling heavily. Finally, a little calmer she got up and went to the bottle. The curse he’d placed on it was a nasty little thing. Like a long black slug coiled in the bottom. It writhed when she poured her purifying salt on it.

“Do you think that it really could…” She stopped herself from repeating the boggart’s threat. A shudder running down her spine.

“The boggart was most likely just talking trash,” Fabian said in his most reassuring voice.  

Autumn washed the bottle out, twice. “Do you think I could have tomorrow off? She asked as she blew the bottle dry with a flick of her wand. “The Court of Cats invited me to their little dance.”

Lewis’s leafy mustached twitched. “I’m still nervous about letting you run off to play with the fairies and cat court unsupervised.”

Autumn deflated. “Most of my friends party with them almost every night.”

“And you wonder why I worry about letting you be unsupervised?” Fabian said, his face turning grandfather stern.

“Not bad partying.” Autumn said. She got up on her toes to check the rest of the cups in the cupboard for any other nasty curses the boggart might have left behind. “They play Scrabble, stuff like that.”

Lewis let out a puff and chuckled. “Scrabble? Was that the best you could come up with? You hate Scrabble anyways?” He was searching through the plates and bowls for any curses.

“No, I hate playing Scrabble with you. Your way to competitive. Though I suppose it does suck when a little child beats you.”

“When have you ever beaten me at anything?”

Candyland? Harper reminded him, barely able to contain her laugh.

Fabian’s voice took on a slightly grouchy edge. “Yeah, we must have been bored out of our minds to play that silly game.

They finished searching the kitchen and he lead her back out.  

“So, can I go?” She asked as they made their way up the stairs.

They crept into one of the children’s rooms, checked under the bed and in the closet. As usual there was nothing under them. Despite the stereotype bad things preferred the kitchen, but it was always good to check.

“Fine,” Fabian said.

Harper clapped her hands together in rapid excitement. The Court of Cats had been planning this party for a month. They’d invited the brownies and pixies, and so many more court’s she’d never even meet before.

“But,” Fabian continued. “You need to make at least one knew friend.”

“In one night?” Harper asked. Knowing that Lewis wasn’t talking about someone to have playdates with. He meant a friend she could call on if she help in a fight. Any given person only had so much magical energy. When they ran out they would borrow little bits from fairies who’d agreed to share with them. That’s what her neckless was for. She had twenty seven fairies willing to help her. That had taken her almost a year. About two weeks per fairy. Finding a new ally in one night seemed like a bit of a stretch.

“Halloween is still a month away, and things are already getting intense. So we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

She really wanted to go so she just nodded. She secretly hoped more help would just land on her doorstep. 

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Seluna and the Starless Night

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Why this project

I love the Winter Court of Welsh fairies. The best holidays belong to them. From Halloween and Christmas to Easter. This is the story of two witches who come to work for these fairies. A few years back when the cold snow and rain of winter didn't come to Wales their crops almost died. Without winter we don't get water. For winter means rain in the jungles, it means the cold that helps apples blossom when spring comes. The winter court can be destructive however.

A thousand five hundred years ago the English water spirits went from being kind creatures to man eating hags. That is happening again, with fairies turning into monsters. Seluna and Karen must find out way and stop it from taking over.

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Rain fell in thick sporadic waves, washing down the back of Seluna’s silvery violet hair, and over her blue animal print dress. She took a deep breath. Smelling the rain cleaned world and the popcorn from the theatre she’d just stepped out of helped to calm her. She tossed the last of her own popcorn on soaking wet lawn. Before the rain could make it vanish a dozen Wichtelmänner fluttered down from the roof of the movie theater like pidgins to collect her offering. The tiny exquisite fairies ran about, playfully sliding through the soaking grass like otters, even as they gathered the, now wet, popcorn.
“It’s moments like these,” she whispered to herself, “that I realize how truly lucky I am.”
Most of the humans in the small crowd that was chatting and laughing about the movie they’d just seen under the awning behind her would never get to see any of the fairies. “I’m lucky indeed,” Seluna smiled, even though an anxious knot still sat in her stomach. She handed the last piece of popcorn to a little Wichtelmänner boy who beamed happily at her. A moment later he followed his family home to squirrel away the food for the winter Seluna knew would start tonight. Seluna felt bad for them, the winter which was coming would be a cold one, and they had no clothes. But unlike the shoemaker who’d made the mistake of giving clothes to some Wichtelmänner generations before, Seluna knew that if she did they would lose their caring, generous nature. Human actions and words had power over fairies. Seluna understood that, she understood them. What she was on a mission to discover was her own human heritage. The few shows she’d seen on one of the new witch’s cell phones told her that teenagers often went on dates to learn about other people. So she’d decided to try that. It had been fairly easy finding someone to go out with. She knew hundreds of house fairies which kept secret watch over the people who lived in their homes. So she’d arranged an ‘accidental’ meeting with someone they’d recommended to her. Not knowing the person she was dating at all had been part of the adventure. And it had been intriguingly fun. Now on their third date she found herself worrying about what he thought. Which meant she was worried about the fact that she’d truly hated the movie they’d just watched together. What was the protocol for hating a movie? Should she say something, keep quite? If the people passing her by were any indication humans talked about the movies they’d just seen pretty extensively. They laughed, they made jokes. She wanted to do that, but she couldn’t think of any funny moments in that awful, awful movie.
Seluna peered around the corner to see if he was out of the bathroom yet. The line outside the door had been long and he’d drank so much during the movie she’d thought he was obviously done and looking for her. She waved at him and a few moments later he slid outside beside her.
“That was the worst movie ever,” Kevin laughed the moment he came out the door. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into that.” He popped open his dark black umbrella for the two of them.
Seluna gave him a bemused, all be it, somewhat confused smile. He’d laughed when he’d told her how awful the movie was. That had to be good right? She tugged gently on her silver purple hair. She’d thought that watching this movie was his idea. Was it normal for him to claim otherwise? The few TV show’s she’d watched did seem to indicate that women like her were always befuddled by their boyfriends, so maybe they were supposed to do confusing things? The two of them stepped out from under the awning and sloshed through the parking lot, the rain pattering against the black umbrella overhead. What a bizarre puzzle, trying to understand a human, Seluna mused to herself. This was exactly the type of silly puzzle she needed to get her mind off of the second time she’d died. She shuddered and turned her attention back to trying to understand the adorable problem at hand.
“If you remember you were the one who wanted to see that movie,” Seluna told Kevin. “You showed me the trailer three times during dinner, and all I could think was that it looked ridiculous. “
 “It was ridiculous, I showed you the trailers as an ironic joke,” Keven told her.
“Really? Seluna asked with some surprise. She laughed at the idea. We need to work on our communication, because I didn't get that at all.”
They crossed the street, and Seluna could see people through their car windows, families just coming from the movies, the children in the back seat. She found herself wondering, about their lives, their hopes and dreams, and what it might have been like if she’d grown up as a normal human.
She discreetly dropped a pastry from a pocket of her light blue raincoat into the wet grass for the swarm of curious fairies, mostly tywelth teg, sith and pixies that secretly made their homes in the neatly trimmed hedges along the edge of the suburban yards. No matter how fondly she might recall the child she’d once had when she’d been an ordinary person, she would never really trade it for being a part of this world.

The red hand shaped light stopped blinking when they were halfway across the street so they started running, Seluna’s foot splashed in a cold stream of water running down the gutter.
“I can’t believe you thought I wanted to see that movie,” Kevin said. I laughed through the whole trailer,” He laughed a little before Seluna could respond.
“Exactly, you never stopped laughing, you kept quoting it. I thought it was supposed to be one of those comedies I didn’t get,” Seluna said. She wracked her brain to understand why anyone would laugh at something they hated.
 “It wasn’t a comedy,” Kevin told her.
“Yeah, I know that now. What I don’t know, is how your crazy mind works,” Seluna allowed herself to fall a little behind so she could toss a pastry into a tree for a little dragon known as a niskepuk. She flicked a little meat to coyote who was denning in some shrubs. “Who makes someone watch a trailer for a movie hate over and over again as a joke?” Seluna laughed. “Couldn’t you just wait around a corner and yell boo when I come by?”
“Doesn’t that seem a little immature to you?”
“Well, at least if you did that, I’d have the pleasure of slapping you in surprise,” Seluna told him as she slapped at the air to emphasize her point. “At this point I just feel whelmed.”
“Whelmed, you mean like overwhelmed or underwhelmed?”
“No whelmed, sort of like just blah,” Seluna tried to stop herself from grinning, so she could look – whelmed - but she just couldn’t do it. This whole conversation had become so wonderfully ridiculous. It was nice to chat about nothing, to think about, essentially, nothing.
“Who uses words like whelmed?”
A troll queen, disguised as a toads was resting on the lawn ahead. Seluna watched her closely. She never even considered not introducing herself. It was important to be on good terms with the trolls. Besides, a King had once snubbed a Fee Queen in France and so had had his baby cursed to sleep a hundred year slumber on her 16th birthday. Seluna shuddered to think a Queen would do to a peasant like her if she snubbed her. So as she passed she turned as formally as she could towards the toad, and bowed low. “You look especially lovely this evening.”
“I don’t know,” Kevin’s voice startled her. But not as much as his laugh.  “She looks like she could use a bit of wart remover and maybe a bit of plastic surgery.”
Seluna’s heart lurched. The toad scowled. How stupid could I be? Seluna thought, of course Kevin thought it was a joke. As far as he knew a toad was just a toad. And it would be ridiculous to bow to a toad, they don’t usually care about such things. In fact the few time’s she’d talked to toads, they’d been too lazy to say much of anything.
“He didn’t mean it,” Seluna cried out, though she was already pulling her bell and blackthorn wand from her purse for the fight she knew was coming. She could see her father now, in the form of an owl standing in a nearby tree, ready to step in now that she was about to need help. Perhaps he’d been right, perhaps she was too interwoven with the fairy world to go out with someone as normal as Keven was.

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Cute Fairy Art

Masks

About my Art 

I grew up in a tiny Yupik village of only a few hundred people and no roads in or out. Since there was little to no TV access I spent my youngest days playing outside and listening to stories about Raven and the spirit world, in essence about fairies. It was here where I learned about art, including the ever important art of masks. In the Yupik culture masks were a way to make the unseen world visible, a way to tell a story about something magical. It wasn’t just the Yupik people who viewed masks as door way into the spirit world, into the real of fairies, this was true in Ancient Greece, in Indonesia, Japan, and more. 

Like these masks my art is meant to be a doorway into the fairy realm, into imagination.

(Also See Cute Fairies that Should Be in a Children's Books)

I have also come to realize the importance of cute things.

Art should make people’s lives better, and I seek to do this. So while many may not understand symbolism of art, or don’t pay much attention to such symbols, they do know how something makes them feel. I want people to feel better with my art, to escape the mundane. In this sense cute also acts as a doorway into the fairy realm, into the imagination. 

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Under the Midnight Sun

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My name is Ty Hulse. I'm a folklorist who grew up along the Kuskokwim River in Alaska. As a child I daydreamed about meeting the creatures from the stories the village Elder's told. I heard strange sounds coming out of the ground while hunting on the tundra. So my thinking on the other world was shaped by the fairy tales of  of Western Alaska.

I've been writing an urban fantasy / cozy mystery that takes place along the Kuskokwim River.

The story follows Tracy. A woman who the little people are teaching magic to so that she can help them deal with the quickly changing world, and protect humans from the things they can't see. So when some of the normally passive ghosts begin to attack people, she has to team up with an old flame to find out why.

Although most of the creatures in it come from Yupik lore, there are tales from all over the world of fairies and trolls fleeing their home. So part of what's happening in this story is that these fairy refugees are finding their way to Alaska.

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I’d never seen a troll before, but I was pretty sure that’s what the forty foot tall beast wading towards my little skiff in the Kuskokwim River was. He looked exactly like I’d always imagined a troll should. From his dirty beard, to the massive nose which bloomed out of his face like a wrinkly Yukon gold potato. My brain began checking off everything I knew about them; Trolls come from Scandinavia, are afraid of the sound of drums which remind them of thunder, and oddly enough the Yukon gold potato is from Ontario, Canada. Stay focused I scolded myself. My mind tends to flutter like a moth trapped in a house when I’m nervous, such as when I’m being approached by a King Kong sized monster. I tried to focus on what I’d read about trolls, but since this was the first troll I’d heard of in Western Alaska, I wasn’t certain how many of the myths were accurate.

I hefted a large dip net out of the dark water and dumped half a dozen five inch long smelt into a bucket. I’d been catching the tiny fish for eight hours now. So long it was hard to open my aching hands. “There’s probably nothing to worry about,” I whispered to myself. My brain knew that but my heart, was still tying itself up in knots. Odds were the troll, like so many of the other beings from distant lands was a refugee looking for a new home. Which meant he would try to be as nice as a lost puppy. The image of him trying to act cute brought a brief smile to my face. Even as the large ripples he was making started sloshing against my little boat.

“If he says fee-fi-fo-fum, I’m out of here,” Emma said a twinkle of laughter in her voice. Of course she thought this was funny. She was a Ircenrraat, one of the magical little people that dwelt in the underworld beneath the tundra. So named because they were about the same height as a toddler. She was perched on one of the boat’s seats so that she could reach her own dip net over the side. Her little skirt like kuspuk had been made from the best parts of a dozen t-shirt’s she’d found funny.  Her foxy ears and wet black tipped nose twitched with eager interest as she watched the approaching troll. I was curious too, but the image of the troll popping me into his mouth like a piece of popcorn shrimp kept intruding into my thoughts.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a troll, not a giant,” I said. “In the fairy tales, only giants and elves say fee-fi-fo-fum.”

“I thought trolls were cute little things, like the dolls, or in “Frozen?” Emma asked.

Talking was good, talking helped me pretend I was calm. My hands were still shaking though, as I swished my long dip net through the river, only sort of paying attention to what I was doing.

“Troll dolls are based off Denmark’s trold, not trolls. And ‘Frozen,’ is a cartoon. I think trolls are supposed to be big, like he is.”

I gave the troll another quick glance. The water was up to his chest now, making his eight foot head, and the mouth that came with it look so much larger. The troll’s clothes were made up of dozens of pieces of discarded human clothes. There were t-shirts, dresses, pants, and bits of underwear all roughly sewn together. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ripped those clothes from his victims. I found myself whispering the words to the song calling for my tuunrat, magical beings that had agreed to help me. Although they were far away, they could give my spells a little boost, in case I needed it.

“Are you doing okay Tracy?” Emma asked.

“Sure, of course,” I said. “Why?”

“Your typical Velma geek girl look has been replaced by the way Daphne looks when she realizes she’s about to be kidnapped.”

“It doesn’t seem matter how many times I’ve faced monsters and giants, having one walk towards me makes me nervous.”

“I can fly us out of here,” Emma offered.

I was seriously considering it when I noticed that he was cradling a baby troll. I didn’t know much about troll babies. But I did know that the sun was bad for trolls. His child probably needed to get underground soon, and he needed Emma’s help to do that. Besides, if the troll turned out to be hostel, I’d have to deal with it sooner or later. As one of the awakened humans, that was my job. To protect the humans from the things they didn’t know existed, such as trolls that threatened the villages, and help the little people with the ever changing Otherworld. I was pretty much the little people’s five foot nothing magical bouncer for the region.

“I don’t think he’d be walking out here with a baby if he was planning to fight,” I said, cursing the stupid quiver in my voice. Gandhi had stage fright so bad his vision got blurry, but he became one of the greatest leaders in the world. I had anxiety too, but I was at least okay at dealing with it.

Emma waved at the troll with a tiny hand and a bright smile. She at least didn’t seemed at all worried. Though she was more use to things like him than a newb like me.

I deposited a few more fish into the bucket, while trying to keep my eyes off our visitor, and failing for the most part, but at least I wasn’t staring slack jawed the way I had when I’d first learned that the magical world was real.

“Hello, esteemed one,” the troll rumbled its voice was deep but gentle, almost a whisper. “I was hoping to find refuge in one of your villages.”

The formal way the troll spoke threw me off. Like he was addressing a queen. Relief that washed over me, and all at once, I felt the urge to laugh. Instead I settled for flashing Emma quick grin and mouthing the word ‘esteemed?’ at her.

She winked back at me, but remained focused on the troll.

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Notes on Werewolves

Article by Ty Hulse

Werewolves are some of the most captivating characters in lore, though most of the original tales about them were short encounter stories, (i.e. A wolf attacks someone and rips off a piece of their clothing. Later the person meets a friend who has bits of their clothing in their teeth.)

As with everything else, however, there are many aspects of werewolves which can be understood by piecing together these many tiny pieces of lore. For example, there seems to be some connection between werewolves and the Forest King and or water spirits. I've state previously that the idea of the devil appearing to someone and bargaining with them for their soul is based on previous ideas about forest fairies or water fairies. These fairies often needed human workers for various tasks and so would pay them in advance for this work, which was often hellish in nature.

These same forest spirits seem to have given people the magical belts they used to turn into wolves. In France werewolves would transform by going into fairy pools during the full moon which would also seem to indicate that the fairies were involved in this transformation somehow. Finally there were werewolves who were clearly shaman figures, again connecting them to the world of fairy. However, despite a few vague connections it's hard to say exactly what this relationship was at what time. All we truly have is 19th century understanding of the idea of werewolves, which pretty much ignores the existence of anything but devils.

Still there is something to be said for 19th century beliefs, and in the spirit of that I'm providing some of my notes on werewolves in this blog.



Categories of Werewolves

Werewolves are among the most complicated of mythological creatures because they have so many backgrounds and types. Indeed, just as every person is unique every werewolf is unique as well. Further each village could be said to have some of their own traditions regarding werewolves. For example, silver bullets were one common way to fight them but in some places a gold bullet was required, in others the silver had to be blessed, while in others a person could force a wolf to turn back to its human form by using its name. Just as there were different ways to kill a werewolf there were different reasons a person might become one which I’ve broken down into a number of different types.


The Serial Killer

There are some few bloodthirsty humans who choose the darkness willingly, people who enjoy doing evil. It was believed that such people would at times study necromancy in order to give themselves body and soul to the devil in return for the power to commit murder. It was said that one such man desired neither wealth nor promotion, instead he wanted to find a way to cause suffering and pain to all people. Seeing the evil in his heart the devil granted the young man his wish.

Yea, often it came to pass that as he walked abroad in the fields, if he chanced to spy a company of maidens playing together or else milking their kine, in his wolfish shape he would incontinent run among them, and while the rest escaped by flight, he would be sure to lay hold of one, and after his filthy lust fulfilled, he would murder her presently. Beside, if he had liked to known any of them, look who he had a mind unto, her he would pursue, whether she were before or behind, and take her from the rest, for such was his swiftness of foot while he continued a wolf that he would outrun the swiftest greyhound in that country; and so much he had practiced this wickedness that the who province was feared by the cruelty of this bloody and devouring wolf. 

Stories about such serial killing werewolves aren’t common, however. Indeed its difficult to find many. More common are stories of people who become a werewolf in order to kill specific targets.


Vengeful

There are some people who learn necromancy and gain the power to become a werewolf in order to get revenge on specific people. In one story a man was courting two sisters, cheating on one with the other, but he wasn’t really interested in either and eventually he left them both. Shen they found out what he’d done they got together and swore revenge. In order to get their vengeance they studied magic until they were able to turn into wolves at which point they sought the man out and devoured him.


Cursed

The most famous type of werewolf are those who are cursed to become one. Such people might be cursed to become werewolves for a number of reasons. Some would inherit the magical belt that allowed them to become a werewolf, once they put it on, however, they wouldn’t be able to take it off for seven years and and would have to remain a wolf for that entire time. Other times the act of putting on the belt seems to have been an addition, for while some people seemed to dislike putting on the belt they couldn’t help but do so every once in a while. Finally there were some few people who were cursed to become werewolves by a jilted lover, angry rivel, or the devil/forest spirit. One girl in Japan, for example, began to act fox like and dangerous after being cursed by forest spirits for damaging a sacred tree. Oddly enough the only place I know of where the full moon factors regularly into such stories is Southern France. In “Le Folklore de France” Paul Sebillot says that;

The fountains are related to lycanthropy. Around 1820, a writer of Perigord reported a superstition that was common in this country and in neighboring provinces that some men, including the sons of priests, were forced every full moon to transform into werewolves. 

In this case the people don’t just transform into wolves, however. Instead when the power of the moon takes them they go running into one of the fountains of water, jump in and come out in their animal form until day time. Exactly how or why they are cursed to become werewolves isn’t said nor is it explained exactly how the sacred fountains are involved. These fountains, however, were home to the most important fairies and goddesses in France so there may in this sense be some connection between the often jealous fairies who were very much like nymphs and werewolves.



Shaman

At one time werewolves in Northern Europe were believed to be the enemies of witches and the servants of the devil. One old man told how he and an army of others would send their souls from their bodies in the form of wolves in order to fight the devil and evil spirits who were trying to blight people’s crops. Another picture depicts an old man with wolves claws fighting Baba Yaga, (the guardian of the underworld) which may mean that previously to the devil these wolves protected people from other underworldly beings. In another case a young man had seziers during a feast, after which he said how an invisible witch had entered the room so he’d sent his soul out in the form of a wolf in order to kill her.

Berserker’s and certain Celtic warriors were also said to be able to send their souls out of their bodies in the form of wolves or other animals in order to do battle.


Desperate

Starvation was the greatest villain in fairy tales. There are many stories of parents even eating their own children because of starvation, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that some desperate people would turn to darker powers in order to get food. In the form of a wolf a peasant could eat the cattle and sheep of the wealthy or steal other food. These people didn’t always seem to have complete control over themselves, however, and so would, at times, attack other people, even those they loved.


Born

There are some people who are born and raised as werewolves. In Ireland there is a story about a man who helps a young wolf. Later when this man gets lost in the forest he comes across a hut of people who turn out to be werewolves. They promise not to harm him, however, for while they normally would eat people in the forest it turns out that one of them was the wolf the man helped. In some ways I view these werewolves as a bit like the family of cannibles in “Texas Chainsaw Massacure.” They grow up in isolation, their culture built on the idea of eating people, while they develop their own twisted form of honor.



Further Notes on Werewolves

Sagen, märchen und gebräuche aus Meklenburg, Volumes 1-2

 A young woman whose husband was often absent unknown reasons, became suspicious that he was Werewolf. One day when they were working in the fields he left her again. Suddenly a wolf came out of the bushes, running toward her. It grabbed her red skirt and began ripping at it. She managed to drive it away with her pitchfork, however. Some time later her husband came out of the bushes and notices that he has pieces of her dress stuck between his teeth. 

This story about someone finding out that someone is a werewolf from the bits of cloth between their teeth is one of the most common stories about encounters with werewolves. Unfortunatlly as you’ll see most stories with werewolves are very, very short, and lack in any detail about the werewolves themselves.



Certain people may be by means of a folded belt, which is cut from the skin of a hanged man and is held together by a buckle with seven tongues transform into a wolf. Such wolves are black and the size of a calf. If someone can break this buckle the werewolf will turn back into a naked man
In Erichsburg the balif kept many old things which had been confiscated includingrifles taken from pochers. There was also a belt that was said to be able to turn a person into a wolf. Once the baliffs servant was wondering with another man if the belt could actually turn someone into a wolf. At last he decided to find out, he strapped the belt on and immediately turned into a wolf. In the form of a wolf he began chasing his friend. The ballif who had seen this got on his horse and chopped the belt buckle so that his servant stood before him once more.

During the seven years war seven men were stayin in a farmhouse with a farmer, his wife, and their child. During the night the woman noticed that one of the soldiers got up, put on a belt and turned into a wolf. He went to the cradle to devour the child, but having been suspicious the woman had put the sleeping child somewhere else where it would be safe. Eventually the werewolf gave up, took his belt off and went back to bed. Later when he and the soldiers where leaving she reminded him of that night. 

Several men were reaping the fields. When they were done they lay down to rest. Not far from them a horse was grazing. One of the men got up and by means of belt he turned into a wolf and fell on the horse devouring it. He then turned back into a man and layed down as if nothing had happened. One woman had seen everything, however. Later when the man awoke he complained of stomach pain, at which poin the woman told him that if she’d eaten a horse her stomach would hurt as well. 




Sagenschatz des Luxemburger Landes, gesammelt von N. Gredt. By N Gredt

One day a boy noticed that an Austrian soldier passing through his town was in fact a werewolf, so the boy stole his magical book. The Austrian tried to find out where the book was, but no one could tell him anything so he had to leave without it. The boy zealously read the book in order to lure the art of turning into a wolf. A few years later he would turn into a wolf and creep into people’s houses in order to steal their ham, butter, eggs, etc. 
At home he told a maid that if a wolf came at her she should throw her skirt at him and it would leave her alone. One day a large grey and red wolf came running at her and she throw her apron at him. The wolf fell on the apron. Later she noticed that the boy had a bit of this same apron in his mouth. When the boys mother found out about this she grew enraged and threw his book into the fire. 
After this the boy disappeared intoe the forest and wasn’t seen again in his village. There was talk from a neighboring castle that a Baron had started to loose many sheep to a wolf which couldn’t be killed as each bullet would fall harmlessly to the ground without hitting the animal. Finally  the Baron got a silver bullet which had been blessed. At last eh baron was able to shoot the wolf, which turned into an injured man who begged for his life. 

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Cute Fairy Art

Cute pictures improve productivity, that has been scientifically proven. It's also likely that they increase happiness. In other words, while most art is meaningless, cute stuff does something to make our lives better and the world a better place.

This is my buffardello singing with a bird.

Having grown up in a Yupik village in Alaska with no roads for 200 miles I learned a very traditional style of art. Although I have since studied other forms of art I am still very inspired by this traditional way of drawing.

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