Faery Lover (Sensuality)
The faery lover (suitor) is a beautiful man or woman who comes (often in the night) to rouse and seduce us. The faery lover's presence signifies unexpected pleasure and delight, and sometimes danger.
Invoking the Qualities of Pleasure, Delight, and Danger.
A faery lover disguises his or her identity and appears as a beautiful man or woman. Approaching by night or in secluded places, the faery lover courts the intended with poetry and song, plays games that delight the senses, or promises riches and happiness as the rewards of marriage. Sometimes a human visits a faery castle beneath the ground and meets a comely lover there. These otherworldly liaisons are short-lived, usually foiled by amiable but cunning trickery.
Passionate love affairs often take place between otherworldly lovers and humans in old Celtic myths. Gods and goddesses seduce human men and woman, usually bringing them back with them into their realms. Children born of these unions are exceptionally beautiful and possess extraordinary powers. In the Irish folk stories, supernatural lovers are typically faeries who come to court and seduce human men and women, especially those who are forlorn or cut off from society."' In Scottish tales, the lovers are faeries, selkies, or beautiful seal men from the sea. Always, the lovers are comely and seductive, appearing as human. A selkie lover slips into a lonely man's bed by night to make love tenderly.
In a typical Irish tale, a young orphan girl encounters a handsome faery man while alone: "Day in and day out, she is driven out to mind the cows on every windblown headland and down to Elly Dunes as well. One day she was down there, a young lad came up to her and joined in the conversation with her and when she came home that evening, her stepmother said: 'You must have been playing a lot today, you look terribly worn out.' 'I wasn't doing anything,' says she." The next day and next, she goes out with the cows and each day she fails the more. When finally she confesses the tryst to her stepmother, she advises: "'When he comes to you tomorrow ... say that there is a very sick calf at home and ask what would cure it.' So the lad told her: `Tell your mother that hen dung, stale urine, a black-hafted knife and last year's burned palm, all mixed together and sprinkled on the calf, will do the trick."' Using the magic potion to get rid of the faery man instead, "the stepmother made up a posset and she gave it to the orphan girl." The next day when the girl met the lad, she had the ... bottle in her pocket. "When the lad sat down beside her, she splashed some of the posset over him. He rose up in a mist and disappeared westwards out over Achill."
The old mythic tales of encounters between Celtic gods and goddesses and human lovers are boldly and playfully erotic. Unlike these ancient stories, tales told in more recent times are sensual and erotic, but rarely directly sexual. Rather than welcomed, otherworldly lovers are typically feared and driven away. Humans rarely visit the faery realms to find lovers there. With passions no longer easily shared between the supernatural world and the human inhabitants of the Middle World, the bold passions of the supernatural realms stay hidden in the Otherworld.
The oracle also suggests that now may be a good time to nourish the normal sensual and sexual needs of the body with comfort, pleasure, and delight. Comforting the body's needs will bring you joy and strength.
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