Irish Fairy Beliefs: Interview with Folklorist Dr. Jenny Butler

Here is an excellent interview with Dr. Jenny Butler about the living traditions of the Creideamh Sí ("Fairy Faith"). She discusses those who have maintained these traditional ways of interacting with (or at least respecting) the spirits, along with some discussion of Irish polytheism in general.

At the end the interviewer also seems to know about those of us involved in the preservation, revival and reconstruction of the old Irish ways and asks about the modern communities. While I wish she would have made a bit more of a distinction between the various folks who either observe these ways now and those who are simply inspired by them, as that only came up in the last segment and was not the focus of the interview it's understandable there were only generalizations.

Definitely worth a watch, especially as an intro to the Creideamh Sí.

Go raibh maith agaibh, a Jenny (agus a Mhícheáil for posting this)!



A bit more detail about the Creideamh Sí:

The Creideamh Sí is the foundation of our spiritual work in Gaol Naofa. The Creideamh Sí, aka "the Fairy Faith" is a collection of customs and beliefs which make up the living Gaelic ways of interacting with the local spirits. Most of the people who have maintained these ways down into the present day consider themselves to be Christian. I think it is very important to respect the living traditions and not try to redefine these terms to fit modern, American pagan sensibilities. So, the Creideamh Sí is a part of most contemporary Gaelic Polytheist paths. But any attempt to redefine "Creideamh Sí" to only mean "Modern Gaelic Polytheism" kind of misses the point and is offensive to those in the living cultures, without whom we would have nothing.