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There is something inherently magical about ferns. Perhaps it’s because they’ve retained their prehistoric look. Ferns took root long before animals walked the earth and over a hundred million years before dinosaurs made the scene. Groves of one-hundred-twenty-foot-tall fern trees with fifteen-foot fronds shaded a world crawling with exotic creatures that seem to us more mythical than real. Today, many ferns remain unchanged from their primeval beginnings and can be considered living fossils, having long outlived those massive “terrible lizards”: it’s as if their development was frozen in time. This could be why ferns seem right at home in the faerie realm. It’s no surprise the name FernGully was chosen as the name of an enchanted faerie-inhabited rainforest in the 1992 animated movie of the same name. Many nineteenth-century paintings of faerie kingdoms are embellished with ferns and fronds, lending an otherworldly and fantastic sensibility to these enchanted landscapes.

Fittingly, ferns have rather fanciful names: moonwort, fairy moss, maidenhair, Christmas, and ostrich; there’s the lady fern, the sensitive fern, the royal fern, the licorice fern, the cinnamon fern, the Venus-hair fern, and the bird’s-nest fern. In fact, there are over eleven thousand different species that range from the small South American aquatic fern marsilea, which looks like a four-leaf clover, to the sixty-five-foot Norfolk tree fern of Norfolk Island in the South Pacific. Ferns are also mysterious. They are classified as Pteridophytes, which comes from the Greek root pteri, meaning feather, which aptly describes the look of many fern fronds or leaves. Indeed, the word fern comes from the Anglo-Saxon fearn, which also means feather.

Ferns are cryptogams like mosses, lichens, and algae, bearing no flower or fruit. Flowering plants didn’t appear until two hundred million years after ferns. Since ferns have no flowers, they yield no seeds. This confounded scientists for centuries and led to a lot of confusion and conjecture as to how ferns propagated. It seemed they sprung up by magic. Legends were created to explain this great mystery. It was assumed that, since no one could ever find the elusive fern seed, it must be invisible. This notion led to the folklore that anyone carrying a fern seed would likewise be rendered invisible.

Apparently, this was common knowledge in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so much so that two of its most famous English Renaissance playwrights have characters bandying about this wisdom. In William Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part I, a scheming highwayman tries to set his accomplice at ease by explaining they will not be caught; he assures him: “We have the receipt of fern seed; we walk invisible” (Act II, Scene I). In Ben Johnson’s comedy New Inn or The Light Heart, a servant ordered to lay low explains to his master why he’s been discovered: “Because indeed I had no med’cine, Sir, to go invisible: No fern-seed in my pocket” (Act I, Scene VI).

The folklore of ferns has as much to do with seeing as not seeing. Ferns supposedly have the power to restore sight. In Martin Martin’s A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703), there is a remedy for “eyes that are blood-shot or become blind for some days.” The cure is to apply the blades of a fern frond mixed with egg whites to the face and brows while the patient lies on his back.

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924), an eclectic nineteenth-century scholar, author, and Anglican priest best known for penning the hymn “Onward Christian Soldier,” wrote among other works a sixteen-volume series of The Lives of the Saints, a collection of ghost stories, The Book of Were-Wolves, and a volume titled Old English Fairy Tales (1895). One of these fairy tales, “The Shepherd’s Daughter,” tells of a duchess who goes out sailing on a large lake while she lazily knits with her ladies. Every so often she thrusts a knitting needle into the water to see how deep the lake is. Eventually, an angry merman surfaces alongside the boat, startling the duchess and her entourage. The creature reproaches the duchess for foolishly blinding his three mer-babies with her knitting needles and places a curse on her young single son. Later, the distraught duchess has a dream in which she is told to collect fern seeds and sprinkle them over the lake. The very next day she and her ladies-in-waiting gather the fern seeds and the duchess scatters them upon the surface of the water as she sings:

“The fern-seed right and left I strew,
Mer-man, for your babies three;
I grieve that I did wrong to you.
Fern-seed maketh eyes to see.”

The merman appears again, thanks her for restoring his mer-babies’ sight, and so agrees to lift the curse … but only after the son gets married. Ferns can also give the gift of second sight. A Russian folktale tells of a farmer searching for his lost cattle. While he’s traipsing through a fern field, a seed accidently falls into his shoe. He immediately knows where his cattle have gone and is able to recover them. On his way home with his herd, he has a vision of a vast treasure beneath the ground and knows exactly where to dig to retrieve it. Unfortunately, after he gets his shovel, he changes into his boots and instantly forgets where the treasure has been buried. Austrian and Slavic folklore tells that anyone who finds a fern flower becomes omniscient, can see buried treasures, and can understand the language of animals and birds. In Finland there are remote spots called Aarnivalkea where will o’ the wisps glow phosphorescently, identifying the locations where faerie gold is buried. Anyone carrying a fern seed will be led to these hidden treasures under the cloak of invisibility and become infinitely wealthy. In some old countries, such as the Czech Republic’s Bohemia, holding fern seeds guaranteed you would always have money.

So how is it that one can acquire a fern seed, especially an invisible one? We need to look first to the flower, but ferns don’t have flowers. Or do they? Since no one had ever seen a fern flower, it was rumored that they must bloom at midnight. In England, during the Middle Ages, it was believed one could harvest the magical fern seed by stacking twelve pewter plates in a bed of ferns. At midnight, a brilliant blue blossom opened, producing a single golden seed. The seed would pass through eleven of the pewter plates and come to rest on the twelfth. Other myths said the flower was a bright red blossom that lit up the woods when it opened at midnight. At this moment the devil would snatch it for himself.

Many folktales across Europe proclaim that the fern blooms just one night a year—on June 23rd or St. John’s Eve exactly at the stroke of midnight, the time St. John the Baptist is supposed to have been born. In different tales, this day is sometimes referred to as Midsummer’s Eve or the summer solstice. A story from Poland tells about St. John’s Night, said to be the shortest night of the year and the only night the fern flower blossoms, vanishing at the first crow of the rooster. A young boy sneaks into the woods and tries to steal the flower on this magical evening for two consecutive years, but fails both times as the rooster crows before he has time to seize the stem of the flower. On the third attempt, he finally succeeds. His every wish is immediately granted but according to legend, whoever takes a fern flower cannot share his wealth with anyone else or he will lose it all. The boy in turn is forced to become selfish and cold-hearted in order to retain his power and fortune. When he loses all the people he once loved and is quite alone in the world, he realizes the mistake he has made and wishes to die. As all his wishes are immediately granted, the ground splits open and swallows him into its depths.

In Russia, St. John’s Eve is called Kupala Night and because of the differences between the eastern Gregorian calendar and western Julian calendar it takes place on the eve of July 7th. The Ukrainian/Russian author Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) wrote the story “St. John’s Eve” based on the Kupala Night legend and the quest for the fern seed. A young man who is too poor to be given his sweetheart’s hand in marriage is told by an old man the secret of acquiring the fern blossom. After a frightful night in a forest teeming with unseen demons and echoing with thunder, the young man plucks the red flower and, as it opens, it shines like a flame. The old man—who turns out to be the devil in disguise—appears with the witch Baba Yaga, who stamps upon the ground, illuminating jewels, gems, and cauldrons filled with gold. But before the witch will allow the young man access to these treasures, he must first give her human blood. Needless to say, the young man and his beloved do not live happily ever after. The one thing all of the St. John’s Eve fern tales have in common is a be-careful-what-you-wish-for ending. The moral being: if you ever see a fern flower at midnight, best leave it alone.

It is more usual for ferns to protect against witches, especially the common bracken or brake fern, which grows all over the world in wooded thickets, open pastures, and moorlands. When the bracken stem is sliced at an angle it reveals a pattern that is interpreted in various ways and gives rise to its many names. Linnaeus, renowned eighteenth-century Swedish botanist, called it the eagle fern, others call it “King Charles in the Oak,” and it’s known in Scotland as the devil’s hoof. Some see the Greek letter “X,” which is the initial of Christ. This alone is said to keep witches, werewolves, and other evil spirits at bay. Ferns also reputedly protected the carrier against magical charms and incantations. Waving a frond before a witch was like holding a cross before a vampire. Shepherds in Brittany and Normandy used to create crosses out of ferns to protect themselves and their flocks, and in the Slavic countries, whenever anyone wanted to bathe or swim in a lake they would weave ferns in their hair to protect them from the legendary Rusalki, freshwater sirens that would drown a mortal if given the chance.

There is a fantastical fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called “The Traveling Companion” (1835) that illustrates both powers of invisibility and the anti-witch properties ascribed to the fern. An orphaned young man who is so “good and harmless among men” that he is able to see faeries sets out to find his fortune in the wide world. He soon happens upon a kindly traveler. Hitting it off, the two decide to journey together. As they stop to eat their breakfast one morning, an old woman carrying a heavy load of willow twigs and three fern stems approaches them, slips, and breaks her leg. The young traveler’s companion takes out a salve that magically knits her bone. All he asks for are the woman’s three ferns. The young man is as bewildered as the old woman at this request. Later in the story, the kindly traveler puts the ferns to good use; under the protection of invisibility, he chases a killer witch and thrashes her with the ferns until her welts bleed.

In the end an evil spell is lifted and the witch reverts back to her kind-hearted, beautiful self. In an experiment that sounds like a St. John’s Eve tale, Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554), a German botanist, laid out white cloths beneath the ferns in the middle of a forest and camped out around a large bonfire on four consecutive Midsummer nights.

There were no enchanted flowers but in the early morning he found small black poppy-like seeds on his linens. Of course, these were not fern seeds but the spores that were released from the brownish-grey spots known as sori (singular: sorus) located on the underside of the fronds. A fern can have up to twenty million spores, sometimes as small as dust particles.

Scarcely visible to the naked eye, fern spores scatter on the wind like faerie dust, mingle in the clouds with volcanic ash, and can be found at the heart of snowflakes, or nestled in the dense fur of a stoat, or riding the feathery tufts of a horned owl. They can sail on a current of air for hundreds even thousands of miles over oceans to be deposited on distant shores.

In 1848, Michael Jerome Leszczyc-Suminski, a Polish count with an interest in botany, finally discovered the missing link that completed the life cycle of the fern, which is as magical as any of their myths or fairy tales. When a fern spore finds the right balance of temperature, light, and moisture, it begins to germinate—but does not grow into anything that looks like a fern. This is because fern spores develop into an entirely different plant: a small dime-sized, green heart-shaped leaf that bears no resemblance to its feathery looking parent. It’s as if the fern-child were a changeling. In fact, it doesn’t even have roots; this new plant is called a prothallium and contains the sex organs of both male and female on its leaf-like underside, where egg and sperm are produced. As in humans, the sperm of the prothallium has a flagellum, a whip-like tail that helps it swim through water to fertilize the egg. (Interestingly, this makes humans more like ferns than flowering plants whose sperm lack flagella.) The fertilized egg grows into an embryo complete with roots, stem, and leaves. In time, the baby fern sends out fiddleheads coiled as tightly as a pugilist’s fist. They rise up from the soil and unfold into the recognizable lacy fronds of a fern similar not to its parent but to its grandparent. It takes three generations for a fern to give rise to another fern. Imagine if your parents were different creatures from yourself and that you only resembled your grandparents in appearance—now you begin to understand what it might feel like to be a fern.

That such a peculiar method of procreation has worked for eons is a testament to the fern’s design. There has been no need for ferns to change. They are masters of their environment just as they are. Since they have no pollen, ferns are not reliant upon the help of birds and bees in reproducing, something that puts many flowering plants at a disadvantage. The intrigue of the fern has not diminished over the centuries and perhaps its biology and natural history are even more magical and mysterious than its mythology. It seems something amazing is always being discovered about them—they are great at tidying up the environment; some pull arsenic out of the soil, while others like the Boston fern are known to detoxify the air, removing formaldehyde and toluene. It’s no surprise ferns have survived through many cataclysmic planetary events. And they will likely continue to unfurl their fiddleheads if humans should ever go the way of the dinosaur.

Article from Issue #30 

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There are other compendiums of animal parables: The Physiologus, an anonymous text written in ancient Greek in Alexandria between the second and fourth centuries, was a collection of forty-nine animal tales that served as instruction for correct Christian living. It was something of a bestseller second only to the Bible. The animals mentioned are described with little scientific observation, and mythical creatures are found next to conventional farmyard animals. The work’s focus was on the alleged characteristics of these creatures that supported various Christian teachings, either morally or mystically. In Job 12:7, we read, “Ask the beast and it will teach thee, and the birds of heaven and they will tell thee.” This book set out to do just that.

Isidore of Seville (circa 560–636), a scholar and an archbishop, added to the wisdom about animals with his Etymologiae, an early version of an encyclopedia compiling the knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman authors from Aristotle and Theophrastus to Pliny the Elder and Gaius Julius Solinus. Out of the twenty volumes, Book XII, De Animalibus, concentrated on the nature of beasts and birds. This, along with Physiologus, became the foundation of medieval bestiaries, the pseudoscientific and spiritually striving set of texts that mapped out the animal kingdom.

The medieval era was an age of faith and superstition, and it is under this aegis that the bestiary was created. They combined material taken from classical sources with information from naturalistic observation and traditional folklore or myth. All was considered viable and valuable knowledge and held to be equally true. In a 12th century English bestiary we have entries of unicorns next to lynxes and griffins next to elephants, as if it were a zoological study of real animals that roamed the earth, a medieval Where the Wild Things Are. Added to this were allegorical observations tying creatures to particular Christian teachings.

Medieval bestiaries were written predominantly in England, in Latin, and in France in the Anglo-Norman or Norman French dialects. They reached an artistic zenith in 12th century England. These luxurious volumes were illustrated with jewel-tone colors and gold in the manner of illuminated manuscripts, and were usually penned by scribes in a religious order.

Read the full article in the 2017 Winter Issue Print // Digital

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Depending on where you live, spring can be a little early to start incorporating local fruit into your cooking and baking. Many trees and bushes are just blossoming, so summer berries and fall fruits are a long time off. California and Florida oranges, however, are consistently ripe from winter through spring and beyond, and they can pack easily and ship anywhere. The Romans named this sun-kissed citrus pomum aurantium, or the “golden apple.” In Norse mythology, golden apples are similar to the ancient Greeks’ ambrosia and impart perpetual youth and immortality.

The orange, it seems, is a fruit worthy of gods. In Greek mythology, there was a famous marriage celebration and all the gods were invited except Eris, the goddess of discord. Eris had been snubbed because she always caused problems. When she discovered this slight, she decided to crash the wedding. On making her entrance, she rolled a golden apple into the center of the room. It was addressed to “the most beautiful.” Three goddesses were each quick to argue that it must be meant for her: Hera (queen of the gods and Zeus’s wife), Athena (goddess of wisdom and war), and Aphrodite (goddess of love). They brought their dispute to Zeus, asking him to determine which of them deserved the lustrous fruit. Not wanting to get mixed up in their quarrel, especially since his wife was involved, Zeus appointed as judge one of the most impartial mortals alive, the Trojan prince, Paris.

The three Olympian beauty contestants immediately set out to bribe him. Hera offered to make Paris king of Asia. Athena promised to make him an undefeatable warrior. And Aphrodite swore she would give Paris the most beautiful mortal in the world as his wife. Paris handed the golden apple to Aphrodite. Unfortunately, the most beautiful woman, Helen, was already married to a Spartan king. After Helen was abducted and brought to Troy, her Spartan husband vowed to bring her home, and so began the ten-year Trojan War. It turns out that the face that launched a thousand ships was all due to a “golden apple”—a simple orange.

Whether sweet or savory, appetizer or dessert, any of the dishes here are a good way to add zest (literally) to any spring meal. Just make sure you give all your goddess guests their fair share of the “golden apple” or there could be unwanted repercussions.

Recipes and photos by Sara Ghedina, a.k.a. One Girl in the Kitchen
Introduction by Paul Himmelein

Orange Cake

This moist, fruity cake is surprisingly light and works well for breakfast or a glamorous afternoon tea. And even though every bit of orange is used in the making, it’s not bitter at all, but sweet, refreshing, and goddess-approved.

For a 9-inch-diameter cake pan

1 organic orange, large
1¼ cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
½ cup vegetable oil (such as sunflower seed oil)
¼ cup water
1¾ cups flour
¼ tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt
¼ cup powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Puree whole, unpeeled orange in a food processor until smooth. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat egg yolks with sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy, then add oil, water, pureed orange, and salt. Mix well, then add flour sifted with baking powder and baking soda, and stir well. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff and then fold them gently in the yolk mixture. Grease a 9-inch cake pan and lightly dust it with flour, pour the batter in, and bake for about 45 minutes until the surface is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cake rest for about 10 minutes, then remove it from the pan and let it cool off completely. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Try another recipe here: Orange and Fennel Salad with Hazelnuts and Raisins Recipe

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Text and Photography by Paul Himmelein

Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jan Vermeer—think back to the days of the old Dutch Masters, when cultured men and women of the Netherlands dressed in somber black tones and wore white lacy ruffs and jabots about their necks. Most formal portraits of this class show them with stern countenances and a conspicuous lack of joy. But things seemed to have lightened up a little in winter when the canals froze. With the exuberance of a London Frost Faire, people from all classes and walks of life took to the ice.

Imagine them balancing upon the frosty banks of a frozen canal on a cold winter’s day, beneath a sky the color of tarnished silver, strapping themselves onto wooden platforms atop long iron runners—the rustic version of ice skates. Picture their breath condensing into tiny clouds as they push off onto the shimmering pewter ice, gliding past windmills and the flat quiet countryside. After miles of sliding over frozen canals, lined by naked trees with their thick trunks and spindly vertical branches shivering in the wind, dodging hockey players,  gangs of laughing children, and ducking under bridges, our exhilarated and exhausted 17th century skaters are in need of refreshment. It was Anijsmelk to the rescue! That’s anise milk if you prefer the English translation, a simple concoction of milk, crushed aniseed, and honey.

Vendors set up little roofless three-sided huts made of reeds to protect skaters from the whipping easterly winds. In the center, a stove sits warming a large pot of anise milk, its licorice scent rising up on a curl of steam. Rough-hewn wooden benches provide seating for the tired skaters as they warm their hands around a hot cup of this sweet herbal restorative until they feel they are ready to skate on.

A lot has changed in three centuries. We have modern, state-of-the-art ice skates, brightly colored polar fleece, and Thinsulate gloves, and the canals of Holland no longer freeze that frequently. There is one thing that hasn’t changed: the tradition of Anijsmelk.

Whether it’s taken while skating the canals or as a nightcap to encourage sleepiness and sweet dreams, this centuries-old elixir is a Dutch treat that is just as popular today as it ever was. Free of alcohol, it’s a great winter alternative to mulled cider or hot cocoa. It has a subtle—in no way overpowering—licorice flavor. (I don’t like licorice, and I love anise milk.)

Here’s a fairy-friendly version of the Dutch original to help spice up the Solstice and get you through the winter doldrums: 

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MERMAID MURMURS
Cornwall is bordered by the sea on three sides. You can scarcely get more than twenty miles away from the thrashing waves, precipitous cliffs, and Caribbean blue waters—or from the siren’s song for that matter. With so much ocean, there was bound to be a mermaid tale or two.

After relocating from Whiteford Temple to the Egyptian House on Chapel Street in Penzance, an early 19th century building designed in the style of Egyptomania popularized by Napoleon, we explored the western extremity of the Penwith peninsula. We started with Sennen Cove, as popular with the pirates as it was with the mermaids. It was a siren hangout for centuries where the fishtailed femme fatales frolicked upon the rocks doing mermaid things such as singing, combing their hair, and luring fishermen to their deaths.

The most famous mermaid story in Cornwall happened in the village of Zennor. In the Norman church of St. Senara, a beautiful and mysterious stranger known as Morveren would come in the evening to the church to listen to the angelic voiced churchwarden’s son, Mathey Trewella. One night Mathey sang particularly beautifully and heard the stranger in the back row gasp and let out a soft sigh. Mathey’s eyes met hers. He saw that her hair was wet and shining. While their eyes were locked, he had fallen in love with her. Morveren’s limpid eyes flashed with fear and she slipped from her pew into the twilight. Mathay pursued her toward the ocean, but she became tangled in her dress and tripped, revealing a fish’s tail. “I must go. I am a creature of the sea,” the beautiful Morveren said, “and have to return to where I belong.” Mathay was lost to love and replied,

“Then I will go with ye. For with ye is where I belong.” Mathay lifted the mermaid from the ground and jumped into the ocean. They were never to be seen again. However, on calm fair days his voice can be heard soft and high, but on days that would turn stormy, he sings in low deep tones. It became so that the Zennor fishermen knew when to keep their ships at anchor in the harbor and when it was safe to sail out.

To commemorate the mermaid’s visit to the church, in the 15th century a pew was decorated with a carved mermaid holding a mirror and comb. Some say it is the same pew that Morveren sat in when she listened to Mathay. The pew can still be seen in the church today. Before returning to Penzance, we had a sunset dinner nearby on the terrace of the Tinner’s Arms, a pub where D.H. Lawrence, the English author of The Rainbow (1915), stayed for two weeks before moving into a cottage nearby.

ROCK STARS
Cornwall is freckled with Neolithic and Bronze Age dolmens and standing stones. Those ancient burial and religious sites composed of megaliths and flat capstones remind one of Stonehenges in miniature. Piskies and guardian fairies are said to dwell among and watch over these ancient stones. Not far from St. Nun’s Well, we found the stone circle of Duloe: eight quartz-rich

rocks standing tall in a sheep field. It’s renowned for its small diameter (less than forty feet) and large stones (up to eight and a half feet high). In the 18th century, during the winter of an especially long hard frost, a poor farmer ventured out to the stone circle and prayed to the piskies of Duloe to help feed his starving family. The next morning a feast large enough to  feed the town was laid before his door. The farmer returned that night to thank the piskies and ask what he could do in return. When finally a pisky showed up, the farmer was horrified to see it trembling and dressed in scanty rags, huddling by his lantern for warmth. The pisky was not allowed to ask the human for help. The farmer ran to fetch a blanket for the shivering sprite, but when he returned, the pisky was gone. All the next day the farmer had his family toil to make a grand plush outfit for the freezing fairy. They left it at the stone circle for the pisky, who eventually snatched it up, thanking the farmer for answering his prayer.

Just beyond the Madron Well stands a Neolithic tomb known as Lanyon Quoit. It resembles a large three-legged table and is said to have housed the bones of a giant. Another legend claims that it was the place where King Arthur had his last meal before the battle of Camlann. The large quantity of cow pies we had to tip-toe around somehow diminished the dignity of this landmark.

Mên-an-Tol is a group of relatively small stones around 3,500 years old. The center stone resembles a large granite doughnut. Indeed, Mên-an-Tol means “hole stone” in Cornish. There is a myth that its pisky guardians help heal those that pass through the center of this stone. In one story they helped a mother become reunited with her real child when she passed a changeling through the hole. It was also believed that women passing through the stone would increase their fertility to the point that barren women would conceive. It was also believed to cure back problems (for this reason it was also dubbed the Crick Stone), rickets, and tuberculosis and said to break evil spells and be a charm against witchcraft. Just as a preventative, I crawled through the stone myself. So far, it seems to be working

MINE READERS
Cornwall is mining country, or rather it was mining country until the copper faded in the 1840s and tin peaked in the 1870s. Abandoned mines litter the landscape. We saw them on the horizon, along the roadside and dotting distant cliffs. They are the scabs covering the wounds left by 18th and 19th century capitalist  industrialism. Yet even so, there were fairies called Buccas or Knockers that populated the mines. These piskies were reported to be between eighteen and twenty-four inches tall and lived deep down in the remotest areas of the tunnels. Most believed they were benevolent sprites that would “knock” upon the walls of the mines to direct miners respectful of them to rich veins of ore. The Knockers were also said to warn miners of tunnel collapses and other dangers by knocking in advance of these disasters. To secure the Knockers’ favors, miners would toss the last bite of their meals down the shaft as tribute to the fairies before they surfaced. Many Cornish miners wouldn’t work a mine at home or abroad unless they were convinced that Knockers had already taken up residency within its shafts and tunnels.

A FAIRY FUNERAL
On our way toward Carbis Bay on the north coast of Penwith, we stopped off at a church in Lelant that dates back to the 11th century. We wanted to visit because we heard the area around the St. Uny church was favored by the fairies for their midnight revelries. Unfortunately, most of the sandy surroundings have been transformed into a golf course. But putting greens and driving ranges were a long way off when, centuries ago, a man walking home well past midnight heard the bell of the church toll and saw candlelight flickering through the windows.Curiosity drew him to the granite church so that he could peer inside. He could scarcely believe the proceedings that were unfolding. A funeral procession was making its way slowly down the aisle toward the altar. The corpse was a beautiful woman covered with white flowers, her flaxen hair coiled about the blossoms. Yet the most difficult thing for the man to comprehend was the tiny stature of the participants; they were smaller than a child’s doll. He watched as a group of tiny men opened the floor near the altar. They laid the blossom-laden corpse down into the grave and began wailing that their queen was dead. The man spontaneously cried out himself. Instantly the candles were snuffed and a strong wind was whipped up outside. The man felt himself pricked and pinched in the moonlight as the shrieking fairies flew past him.

Fairies travel in the most magical ways. They can fly or they can just appear. On the southeastern coast of Cornwall, a farm boy was heading back home at twilight when he heard someone cry, “I’m for Porthallow Green!” The lad repeated these words and found himself directly on the green in the company of laughing piskies. They then cried out, “I’m for Seaton Beach!” and vanished. The boy repeated these words and immediately found himself upon the shore with the dancing piskies. Then one of the elfin creatures shouted, “I’m for the King of France’s

cellar!” In a heartbeat, the group was in Louis’s wine cellar, where the boy lifted a silver goblet and tucked it beneath his shirt as proof should anyone doubt his story. Eventually he returned home using the same pisky method that brought him there. If only we could say, “We’re for New York,” and find ourselves back home, having avoided the return flight and the security and customs lines, our fairy trail would have ended as enchantingly as it had begun.

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The post Mermaid Murmurs: A Fairy Trail Through Cornwall appeared first on Enchanted Living Magazine.

After researching Scottish fairy sites from the lowlands of Edinburgh and Stirling to the Highlands of Bute and Argyll, Faerie Magazine editor at large, Laren Stover, and editorial director, Paul Himmelein, were drawn to explore the wild coasts and romantic moors of the Cornwall peninsula looking for tales of fairy-human interaction. From subterranean mining sprites known as Knockers to singing mermaids to the myriad piskies (Cornish pixies) that guard the legendary sites of Penwith, the two were charmed to discover that Cornwall literally is a fairyland.

LED ASTRAY
I didn’t know much about this corner of Britain that jutted into the north-flowing jet stream aside from the surprising fact that tropical-looking palm trees speckled the landscape. Everything else I knew about Cornwall came from literary references such as the Pirates of Penzance, those sherry-swilling, kindhearted brigands in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera (first performed 1879) and the band of cutthroat wreckers that lured ships onto the rocks so they could carry off its valuables in Daphne du Maurier’s mystery Jamaica Inn (1936), and Winston Graham’s twelve-volume, 18th century Cornish saga about a man called Poldark.

It was obvious there was something enchanted about this journey from the outset. A free upgrade from coach to business class with our own reclining beds made the transatlantic flight a breeze. We landed on a rare sunny morning at London’s Heathrow Airport. I gathered up my unwieldy road maps, bracing for the nearly four-hour drive from the airport to our lodging in eastern Cornwall, but a free upgrade to a luxury Mercedes with a satellite navigation system rendered my highlighted maps moot.

There’s really nothing quite like a weekend road trip with blue skies, plenty of coffee, and no traffic. I felt we were making good time and obeyed the pleasant female voice that guided me from the madness of urban intersections and harrowing roundabouts to the smooth motorway that unfurled before me through the countryside. I followed the orders of the disembodied voice onto an exit ramp. I hadn’t realized I had made such quick time, yet there was something that didn’t feel right. Sure, I had pored over my maps trying my best to commit them to memory. My plan was to take the M4 to the M5, the fastest route to Cornwall, but how could I argue with the GPS? It didn’t take long to realize I had been directed off the motorway and was being shepherded into the center of Salisbury. I instantly regretted falling prey to technology and forsaking my trusty printed maps. Why would this artificially intelligent lady tell me to take this route when it would clearly delay my travels? Apparently, there was a ghost in the machine … or should I say pixie? Soon the fairies’ machinations revealed themselves when we saw signs pointing the way to Stonehenge.

I had visited the prehistoric standing stones over a decade earlier, but Laren—whose deceased father, Dr. Leon Stover, was an anthropologist and H.G. Wells scholar who wrote extensively about Stonehenge—had never seen them in person. There was definitely a force leading us to this iconic Bronze Age site. When the unseen world takes over, it’s best not to resist. Laren was able to finally visit the legendary stones that her father had spent so much time exploring and writing about. It turned out this was the perfect route to take to Cornwall.

Just before twilight, we arrived at the remote, late 18th century folly known as Whiteford Temple. This was to be our first camp as we explored the pixie possibilities of Cornwall. Built in 1799 for Sir John Call, who earned his fortune working for the East India Company, the temple is designed around a large center room with three glazed arches looking over the green patchwork valley of the Tamar River.

OF SPRITES AND SAINTS
The next morning we started in pursuit of piskies. We had heard of a sacred well known as St. Nun’s Well, also called the Piskies’ Well, that was guarded by a benevolent elf not so far away from our folly. There are many wells and springs in Cornwall that are supposed to be enchanted in some manner or another, whether they have healing properties, divination acumen, or merely gain the favor of a fairy or the promise of a pisky. The waters of sacred wells have been used as eyewashes to restore sight, drive away madness, or find out how loved ones living at a distance were faring before the age of the telephone:

“Water, water, tell me truly,
Is the man that I love duly
On the earth, or under the sod,
Sick or well? In the name of God.”

Depending upon how the water bubbled up, the person in question was either in good heath, ill, or dead. As Christianity took hold of Britain, the Church saw the futility of shutting down these superstitions and beliefs and so adopted them by using these pisky and fairy wells for sacramental rites and swapping the sprite for a saint whose miraculous powers could absorb the piskies’ magic.

Finding St. Nun’s Well was a challenge and caused us to inquire after its whereabouts at the Jubilee Inn in Pelyant. Thankfully, the well wasn’t so far away. A barmaid remembered walking there a few times when she was younger to make wishes for long thick hair and told us the way: “Make a left and then take the second left and go straight down … you’ll see signs.” These simple directions took several attempts and even brought us to an old abandoned lime kiln in the shade of a dense forest alongside a road that was scarcely wide enough for our sleek Mercedes, yet it was a sobering moment to discover this was indeed a two-way road as a large SUV came at us head on. Another inquiry at a guesthouse at the end of a dead end yielded better directions and eventually took us to a gate marked “Hobb’s Park.” We walked down the private drive still wondering if we were heading in the right direction until we finally saw a small wooden sign painted with the words  “St. Nun’s Well” and a pointing hand directing us onward.

A steep path beneath the shade of an oak tree led us to a bramble- and bracken-covered stone structure. Inside the stone house the walls were dripping wet and covered in vibrant green liverwort, dangling spleenwort, and hart’s tongue—fairy flora, indeed. A spring at the back oozes water like teardrops into a granite basin. It’s still believed the elf that guards the well inside this grotto-like dwelling dispenses wishes to those that leave an offering such as a coin or bent pin, but beware to those that damage or vandalize the well or its surroundings. Then the pisky will send nothing but ill their way.

There’s a famous story about a well-to-do farmer in the region who, after seeing the granite basin in the grotto, got it in his mind to drag the basin off and use it as a trough in his pigsty. He drove his two strongest oxen to the well and chained the sacred basin to his beasts to wrench it free from its ancient site. The oxen toiled diligently to drag the heavy granite up the hillside but the chains could not hold the enchanted basin and it broke free and rolled back down the slope, turning as if guided by an invisible hand only to come to rest in its original position where it has since remained unmoved. The unfortunate farmer became instantly lame and dumb and never prospered again.

We next traveled across Bodmin Moor on our way to Dozmary Pool to visit the famous Arthurian location where Sir Bedivere tossed the king’s sword, Excalibur, into the lake and we stopped near the church of St. Neot for lunch. Once our interest in fairies was made known, the paunchy, barefoot landlord of the pub opened up and told us of an ancient fairy well with magical properties within walking distance. Like St. Nun’s Well, this fairy well was hidden inside a stone house too. It was renovated in the mid-19th century when the roots of oaks and willow trees had caused the ancient structure to crumble. Behind a latched wooden door was another damp and dripping interior, though this one was not lush with greenery. The well looked shallow and was carpeted with copper coinage, attesting to heavy wishing. There is a legend that marries the well with the fairies’ dislike of hunting. Once when St. Neot was at the well praying, a deer ran up to him to seek protection. When the snarling hounds arrived, they immediately quieted and lay down at the feet of the saint. Shorty after, the hunter stepped from the forest with bow drawn and saw this unexpected scene of tranquility and animal harmony. He became so moved that he renounced hunting evermore.

Though there were many more enchanted wells to explore, we made it to only two more during our explorations: Madron Well—called so after St. Madern—and the fairy well at Carbis Bay. Dr. William Borlase (1669–1772), author of The Natural History of Cornwall , commented on Madron Well: “Here, people who labour under pains, aches and stiffness of limbs come and wash, and many cures are said to have been performed … Hither also come, the uneasy, the impatient, and the superstitious, and by dropping pins or pebbles into the water, and by shaking the ground round the spring, so as to raise bubbles from the bottom, at certain times of the year, moon and day, endeavor to settle such doubts and enquires as will not let the idle and anxious rest.”

Two and a half centuries later, pilgrims to Madron Well still leave votive offerings or clouties, strips of fabric dipped into the water of the enchanted holy well. They are then tied to branches of a nearby tree while a prayer is said to the spirit of the well. We arrived at Madron Well after the sun drove the morning rain away. Shafts of golden light illuminated trinkets—tied ribbons, knotted rags, tarot cards, beaded necklaces, gemstone pendants, and even a Barbie’s head—all dangling from the canopy of leafy branches and twigs. It looked either like a Mardis Gras piñata had exploded or a contemporary art exhibition had been installed in the middle of the woods.

The final well we visited was the Carbis Bay fairy well. Down a steep lush green hillside, just above the turquoise waters of Carbis Bay, the well is set in the most enchanting surroundings. Here visitors are expected to leave something silver behind if they wish the favor of the fairies. Some say if you throw a crooked pin over your back and it lands in the well, your wish will come true. If not … well, keep trying.

The post Finding St. Nun’s Well: A Fairy Trail Through Cornwall appeared first on Enchanted Living Magazine.

In the shadows of mountains and in the wind on mountain-tops
She loves to take her bow
Her bow made all of silver
And shoot off her shafts of woe.
The peaks of great mountains tremble
The forest in its darkness screams …
The whole earth starts shaking even the sea, the sea-life …
And when she has hung up this unstrung bow,
When she has put away her arrows,
She puts on over her flesh a beautiful dress
Then she begins the dances …

This excerpt from the Homeric Hymn to Artemis shows the goddess’s dual nature of terror-inspiring immortal as well as beautiful deity partaking in the refined art of dance, which she does at her twin brother Apollo’s house along with the muses and the graces. Artemis is a goddess of contradictions. Indeed, she is much like Apollo. Although born in the shadows of palms and cypress trees, both Artemis and Apollo are bearers of light. Where Apollo carried the sun across the daytime heavens, Artemis (or Diana, according to the ancient Romans) carried the moon across the star-dappled night sky.

As moon goddess, Artemis is often shown wearing a full-length robe and holding a torch; she looks cool, white, and pure with a crescent hornlike diadem upon her veiled head. But in her other role as a goddess of Nature and of the chase, the tall small-hipped huntress wears a short tunic similar to a modern minidress and shows her bare legs.

Artemis is also a goddess of childbirth and is said to have the power to alleviate the pains that come with delivering a new life in the world. This is, in fact, the first task she undertook.

Artemis and Apollo’s beautiful mother Leto had to give birth in secret as she was being relentlessly hunted by a giant serpent that Zeus’s wife Hera had sent. Zeus had fathered the twins, and Hera’s jealousy was inflamed when she discovered this. Shortly after Artemis was born, she became her mother’s midwife and helped deliver her twin brother Apollo. This will give you an indication of how quickly a goddess can grow up. Her brother Apollo, renowned for his golden bow and piercing arrows, killed the python that

When she was three years old, Artemis asked her father, Zeus, if she too could have a bow and quiver full of arrows. Zeus consented to all that his daughter asked. The three Cyclops were to fashion her bow, quiver, and arrows according to the goddess’s specifications. To let the one-eyed brutes know she meant business, she grabbed a fistful of chest hair and yanked it out of one of their breasts—a small foreshadowing of the wrathful temperament this enfant terrible would come to exhibit.

Artemis was a strong female who would not be seduced— feminist on Mount Olympus. In addition to a silver bow, Artemis asked Zeus that she should remain untouched by men, a virgin forever. Woe to the man or god that wanted to have his way with her. She was deadly serious about her virginity. Artemis was the patron goddess of the Amazons, the ancient race of women warriors from Asia Minor who mixed with men only to have offspring, keeping the infant girls for themselves and sending the baby boys back to their fathers. Yet Artemis also led an entourage of sixty nine-year-old nymphs and twenty virgin handmaidens to watch her hunting dogs and bow when she needed to rest.

Even as childbirth is sacred to Artemis, she would just as quickly shoot down a young girl or woman with her arrows. The sudden deaths of maidens were said to be a result of her far-reaching arrows just as Apollo’s arrows were responsible for the sudden deaths of young boys. Sometimes the fearsome twins would team up and slay together, especially if their dear mother was ever slighted. There is a myth that tells of Leto being disrespected at her very altar by the pompous princess Niobe. She claimed that the goddess Leto could not be so great with merely two children while she herself was fortunate enough to be blessed with seven sons and seven daughters. Even if she lost a few, she said, she would still surpass the pathetic goddess. Niobe should’ve thought before she spoke. Perhaps she forgot Leto’s twins were expert archers. Before Niobe could finish her bragging, Apollo was sending a shower of arrows into all of Niobe’s young boys in what amounted to a bloodbath. Artemis then stepped in and did the same to the girls. Niobe pleaded to the moon goddess to save her last, littlest daughter. Unmoved, Artemis let loose a final arrow. Niobe, now childless, turned to stone through her grief. But those who revered

Artemis would be healed or given the gift of a long healthy life. Another request that Zeus granted Artemis was to be ruler of the stormy mountains. She was queen of animals and lady of the wild beasts. The woodlands and forests were sacred to her as well as the creatures that dwelt within, but especially sacred was the stag. She had four of them—all larger than bulls and with antlers of gold—to pull her chariot. She was said to have chased these magical stags down on foot and then harnessed them to her cart herself. But the goddess that was the protector of animals was also the goddess of the chase and hunted the very animals that were sacred to her. She is even depicted as wearing the pelt of a deer across her body. The goat-footed god Pan, of Arcadia, supplied her with her famous hunting dogs: seven bitches and six hounds.

The goddess dealt harshly with those mortal men who did not revere her or, worse, bragged that they had superior hunting skills. The king of Calydon, Oeneus, forgot to include Artemis in his harvest offerings. All the other gods were given gifts except for her. This filled her with an avenging fury. She  sent a giant boar to terrorize the king’s countryside, ravaging the farms, ripping up orchards, swallowing the fruits of vineyards, and devouring flocks of sheep and cattle. Even the peasants weren’t safe from the beast. Stopping this monstrous boar resulted in the deaths of Oeneus’s wife and son. Artemis demands a personal sacrifice from those that dare forget her during religious rites. Only then is the score evened and her wrath assuaged.

While making his matrimonial sacrifices, Admetos, one of the princes of Thessaly and one of the hunters of the Caladonian boar, somehow forgot to include Artemis. The goddess did not take kindly to this omission and left a horrific wedding present in the bedchamber. When Admetos swung the doors open to enter with his bride, he saw that the room was wall to wall with writhing snakes. Artemis’s brother, Apollo, finally came to Admetos’s aid and told him how to placate his vengeful sister.

Just as it was dangerous to forget Artemis during religious offerings, it was also unwise to go boasting that you were better than her. We already saw what happened to the princess Niobe when she bragged about the number of children she bore; kings were dealt with just as harshly. Agamemnon, a noble Spartan  warrior and king, was chosen to lead the Greek forces against the city of Troy. The young Trojan prince, Paris, had stolen the Spartan queen, Helen, the wife of Agamemnon’s brother. While all the troops and ships were gathering at the Port of Aulis, Agamemnon went hunting and killed a stag with his arrows. He claimed that Artemis herself couldn’t have made a better shot.

Just as the thousand-ship fleet was ready to depart and sail  to Troy, the wind died and the sails slackened. The sea was like a mirror—not a ripple disturbed the surface for days and weeks. The men became restless, arguments broke out, and spirits waned. The army’s food stores were depleted. Some warriors even talked of abandoning the adventure altogether. In desperation, Agamemnon consulted a seer to ask which god had quelled the winds that would carry the Grecian flotilla over the sea. The seer revealed that Agamemnon himself was the cause and that Artemis would not summon the wind again until the Spartan king sacrificed his most beautiful daughter to her. Seeing the Greek alliance and expedition to Troy start to crumble, he directed a messenger to carry word to his wife, Clytemnestra, ordering she send his daughter Iphigenia to Aulis immediately, pretending that she was to be married to the great hero Achilles. Elated, Clytemnestra brought Iphigenia to Aulis herself but learned something was amiss when she ran into Achilles, who knew nothing about this fake wedding.

At this point, the Greek troops were beginning to openly revolt and demand the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter so that Artemis would be appeased and the winds would return so they could begin their heroic journey to Troy. When Iphigenia finally discovered the true reason behind why she  was summoned to Aulis, she bravely declared that if Artemis demanded her virgin blood be spilt upon the altar, then she would walk freely to her death. Hearing this, the Greek troops were stunned by the young woman’s courage as she walked to the temple and exposed her neck to the priest’s blade. Blood splashed everywhere as the deadly sacrificial cut was made. Miraculously, in an instant, Iphigenia had been replaced with a stag. The goddess Artemis took pity on the young virgin and whisked her off to Tauris on the Black Sea to become a priestess at Artemis’s temple. Some myths say the goddess made her immortal, and in another story Artemis transforms her into the goddess Hecate, a lesser deity who had similar functions as Artemis, such as being the nocturnal goddess of the moon.

Adonis, the handsome lover of Aphrodite, once made the error of announcing that his hunting skills were as good or better than Artemis’s. The angered goddess sent a wild boar that ran him down, piercing him with its tusks. His weeping lover Aphrodite turned him into a flower called the anemone so she could gaze upon his beauty forever.

Pity the man, whether pious or humble, that inadvertently happened upon Artemis bathing in the woods. Actaeon, a renowned hunter of a royal family, was deep in the forest concluding the day’s hunt when he saw a group of women in a pool in front of an enchanting grotto. What Actaeon stumbled upon was the virgin goddess herself being bathed by several of her nymphs. Never had a mortal’s eyes seen her naked in all her Olympian beauty. The nymphs saw Actaeon first and tried to shield their goddess’s body with their own, but it was too late and Artemis knew it. She wanted to grab her bow but it was out of reach, so she splashed Actaeon with water, saying, “Now you can tell how you saw the virgin goddess naked … if you can!” With that curse, antlers started to sprout from Actaeon’s forehead. Hooves grew where his hands and feet used to be, fur covered his skin, and pointed ears grew out from his head. Soon his transformation into a stag was complete, and seeing himself reflected in the pool of the grotto he panicked. His hunting dogs saw him sprinting off and started to chase their prey, not realizing that it was their master they were hunting down. It wasn’t long before the pack caught up and cornered him, all sinking their sharp teeth into his flesh, tearing the muscle off his bone. Only when Actaeon was finally left lifeless on the leafy forest floor was Artemis satisfied.

The chaste goddess, Artemis, is the antidote to the voluptuous Venus. There are no flirtations in her mythology, though she  is depicted as young, beautiful, and athletic. She has fertility aspects as Nature goddess and goddess of the moon yet is herself a virgin. It is easy to provoke her wrath, and she takes swift action against those whom she feels have insulted her in some way. She is a goddess of contradictions that inspired Lord Byron to write:

“Goddess serene, transcending every star!
Queen of the sky, whose beams are seen afar!
By night Heaven owns thy sway, by day the grove,
When, as chaste Dian, here thou deign’st to rove”
—from The Episode of Nisus and Euryalus

Article from ISSUE NO. 38 Spring 2017 – Print || Digital

The post Artemis of the Silver Bow appeared first on Enchanted Living Magazine.