Posts on the Sidhe
by Arethinn
Posts from various places where I've had something to say when the topic came up. Many of these touch on the similarities, relationships, and differences between various kinds of elfaesidhe - that is, elves, sidhe, fae, and Tuatha De Danann.
June 2005 post on the moribund forum Embracing Mystery. Unfortunately, content posted prior to 2015 was lost when the board was reformatted.
Disclaimer: For ease of typing out my thoughts I am probably going to use "we" in a lot of places, but I don't think sidhe (or any faery "race") can necessarily be considered as a single thing. I think there are various types of sidhe, so the stuff I am about to say may not apply to others, and stuff that would be true about them may not apply to me. Also, I do not have extensive in-person interaction with other sidhe, and I haven't actually discussed "sidheness" itself very much at all with anyone, so. T(heir)MMV and YMMV.
The word "Sidhe", as I understand, is used to refer to faeries of Ireland and Scotland (yet not native to either region) who were descendants of the Tuatha De Dannan (People of the Goddess Danu) who lived in the mounds or hills of Ireland after being defeated by the Sons of Mil (Milesians).
As I now understand "sidhe", not exactly. There is definitely a relationship. I think that there were sidhe before there were Tuatha, but after they came there was intermixture, especially after the arrival of the Milesians; thus descendents of this also have come to be called "sidhe" (also since one meaning of the word is "hill", as you mentioned, and this is where the Tuatha are said to have gone to live - the hollow hills, or "Under-hill"). It is possible that sidhe have some other direct or indirect relationship to Danu herself, but I am not sure. I feel that I have a personal connection to her, but I don't know if it's of the nature of descent, or if she is more like an "in-law".
I am also not sure that sidhe are restricted to Ireland and Scotland, or even the Isles, but I can't really comment on this as I have no specific memories or information about the Continent or elsewhere in the world, and my strong positive reaction to "Irish Underhill" energy at Dancing might indicate that this is where I'm from, so that could make me even less helpful about talking about other places.
I have heard that "Sidhe" is simply another word for "faerie", or "faeries of Ireland".
Eh, well kind of. "Sidhe" can't apply to all faery races, of course. I think of myself as a kind of faery, or a very close relation. But there are many types of faery which are not sidhe. However, I think making a distinction is at least partly a result of having the words side by side in English. There is no word "faery" in Irish; that is an English word which descends from French. Thus I think in its context the word "sidhe" means anything fey, and you could say "it's just another word for faery". As borrowed into English, though, it becomes a little more precise because we are conscious of its linguistic origin, so it's not "just anything" but "something specifically in this place" (so maybe "sidhe" as such are restricted to the Isles, I dunno). "Faery" and "elf" describe the same general class of being, but things have the nature of the land they are rooted in, and are slightly different just as the humans who natively used these words were slightly different from one another.
I have also heard "Sidhe" being recorded as gentle, peaceful spirits (The "Good People", "Lordly Ones" or even "Shining Hosts")... and then I have heard that they are/were warriors and very fierce and ugly, at that.
*laugh*
I'd say little of column A, little of column B. You don't want to be on a sidhe's shit-list, that's for sure. I don't think we are "warlike" by nature, not in the aggressive-conquering sense anyway, but one can be "fierce" without being "warlike", if that makes any sense. But it's certainly not accurate to say we are all gentle and peaceful either. "Good People" is euphemistic - sort of like saying "nice doggy" in the hopes that it won't bite you. "Lordly Ones" and "Shining Hosts" work well, but these are neutral. They describe the regalness or awesomeness of sidhe, rather than saying anything about their peacefulness.
I doubt sidhe could be thought of as "ugly" although they might be strange to human standards of beauty.
What I personally feel in the energy of the word "Sidhe" is a peaceful calm nature spirit, something I level with the word "nymph"...
Respectfully, no. We are connected to land, and to "nature", and being less-physical or non-physical in essence can dwell within natural features... all of these can lead to an impression of being nature spirits, but we are not, any more than humans are "city spirits". (hmm.. an interesting metaphor branch there, heheh.) "Nymph" is way off, at least as I understand "nymph".
"Calm" perhaps, in the same way that... a cat is calm? You know, always being in "I meant to do that" mode?
As for "peaceful", see above. I may be mixing up my own personality with race characteristics here, but I do get a sense we like to do our own thing, are content with what we have, and don't go looking for trouble, or stirring shit up for the hell of it, but look out if you try to take from us what is ours, or attack our kin.
January 2006 posts to the Yahoo Group KinFrontiers
What do you mean by Sidhe (as distinguished from the other forms, if you know), and why do you call them "shining ones"?
In my personal spectrum sidhe fall somewhere between elves and "pure" faery. I personally feel elves as "silvery" or "crystalline" which is not shared by sidhe, but neither are sidhe quite as full "warm" or "chaotic" as faery. Sidhe are kind of... I dunno.. more "mature" or "serious" or something. Ugh. This is kind of squiggly and hard to put into words without standing two examples side by side (in person, that is) and saying "ok, first sense exhibit A... now exhibit B... do you perceive the difference?" It's not for nothing the words are often used interchangeably, after all. Some might say my insistence on calling elves, faery, sidhe and Tuatha all different things is splitting hairs.
"Shining ones" because that's what they do - shine. Faery beings are extremely commonly described this way. But not every last one does (for example, "brownie" types, little tree and rock beings, etc) whereas I can't think of any examples of sidhe that don't (although perhaps not all in the same intensity or magnificence).
Another post:
For years I noticed an energetic "mask" he wore, and what appeared to be an energetic "corona" around it, but I could not see through it (and had no idea what lay behind). I was very intrigued by just this (I had never seen anything like it and still have not), but never asked him about it. One day he entered the room "unseeming" [i.e. dropped seeming; without the illusion of his "seeming" up] (as I much later learned this was called), and it was *blazing*- even with my back turned to him it was like energetically staring into the sun. A mere ten minutes in the same with room with him, when he was doing this, was enough to leave me incapacitated for hours (I'm really sensitive, I told you). I don't think anyone else there noticed anything in his energy. After *that*, I confronted him about being an elf, and he said yes (though I now know there's more to it than that (he's some kind of elf/fae)).
Even the very loudest-minded of normal people isn't anything like this, in many ways. The energy was of a very foreign quality and quantity to me, and before my rational mind could kick back in, I was thoroughly convinced he was not human. Is this maybe what you mean by "shining ones"?
It sounds like it could be, but honestly it sounds like a perfectly normal state of being to me *laugh*. I am about the polar opposite of "sensitive" so I don't have a good perspective on this. To my knowledge I have never knocked anyone out in the way that you describe happened to you.
There are other things that shine too - angels, for instance (perhaps another point of confusion between faery beings and angels) - but angels are by definition in service or attachment to a deity of some kind, whereas this is not a defining characteristic for fae. Also, perhaps there are just "light beings" (sort of the opposite idea of "shadows", which are beings made out of darkness and shadow) which are not faeries, angels or anything else other than "light", or undifferentiated consciousnesses which might appear as light.
April 2007 post to my journal
I am referring to sidhe that are not of Danann kindred here, by the way (or at least, not entirely). And one thing I somehow missed out entirely was a discussion of the concept of sovereignty, which seems important. But here it is anyway:
[...]
When I say "sidhe", I mean something that has the following characteristics:
1. Sidhe are beings of faery nature that are non-solid (i.e., "a spirit") or made of insubstantial matter, much more rarified than what we touch in everyday life *knocks on table*. In our natural forms, we are generally of the tall, thin "body" type, about on par with moderately tall humans (say, 5'10" at shortest, to 6+ feet, though generally not more than 7).
2. Sidhe are ultimately of celestial origin, or have this somewhere in our spiritual ancestry if of mixed heritage. Thus, stars, starlight and "starsong" have a strong resonance for sidhe, and we have an extra, replacement, or redundant (WRT the human body's energetic system - I dunno about non-embodied sidhe) "chakra" which is essentially a star within. (I've picked up the term "core star" from Dan O'Dea.)
3. "Faery nature", loosely, means that we are from Faery. Since I think the origin of sidhe is ultimately from without rather than within or upon the planet, I might compare this to immigration - we moved toFaery from the celestial realms, and now after many generations are quite naturalized. Or to put it another way, celestial is the "race" or "bloodline" while faery is the "ethnicity" or "family group". (Note that I don't think "Faery" and "Earth's underworld realm" are wholly interchangeable terms. Faery, to me, is a much, much larger place and concept, like "the Dreaming" in Changeling. But locally, part of Earth's underworld is part of Faery. There are many other realms in Faery as well.)
4. Specifically, the parts of Faery that sidhe are from, or associated with, is Under-Hill, a place often characterized in stories as "hollow hills". There seems to be more than one Under-Hill, of different flavours or resonances. The only ones I have even secondhand experience of are associated with nations in the British Isles (specifically English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Under-hills), but though I don't know specifically of any others (I guess Breton, Cornish and Manx ones would stand to reason), I don't know anything that would prevent it. (Thus, some beings which the word "sidhe" could well describe are not necessarily Irish/Scottish in origin, although that's where we get the word.)
5. Sidhe are not related to Danu in the way that Tuatha De Danann are. There is some kind of relationship, I think, but it is not in the sense of being her direct descendants or descendents of her "family" (although nowadays, due to intermixing, I'm sure there are plenty who have her back there somewhere). I have a kind of reverence for Danu myself, but it is not the same sort of feeling by which I know that my (physical) mother is my mother. I do sometimes have a feeling that there is a sidhe "ancestress" (actually I am not sure that xe is female, come to that), but I don't know who or where xe might be.
6. Sidhe often "hold realms", which is something that distinguishes them from some other types of faery beings. A lot of Faery is naturally chaotic, and doesn't hold much form unless someone tells it to be a certain way. Sidhe impose our wills on a domain and "hold" it. (I have some thoughts about devices called "shining stones" that are part of this.)
7. Sidhe shine. (Like duh.) Elves sometimes glimmer, faery often sparkle, but sidhe outright radiate.
8. Sidhe need glamour like most animals need oxygen. Lacking it is death, or turning into some twisted hollow thing. We are used to being immersed in a magical environment. (By "glamour", here, I mean "the stuff of sidhe/faery magic", that *something* that makes something enchanted, rather than the art of illusion.)
9. Sidhe are beautiful. We consider ourselves manifestations of "the world's beauty" ("world" in a rather broad sense - I sometimes want to say "universe" but usually the word that comes out in my mediations is "world", sometimes used to mean "all of creation".) We might use glamour to change our appearance for fun, but never "to make ourselves prettier" because we think of ourselves as already perfect (although might look strange by human beauty standards).
10. I am undecided on the characteristic of wings. I want to say "sidhe don't have wings" but I seem to have some (etheric ones) in this current body, so I am not sure where they come from. (I have very few specific memory-glimpses in my head on things sidhe and faery, so I don't have enough even to disentangle them, really.) I wrote in one of the things on my website that if they are there, they would be not functional wings but more like an energetic shape-feature, the way that certain crystals are shaped certain ways. This seems reasonable to me but I do not have a definite opinion on it.
11. I am also unclear on the whole social structure. I have some inklings on something that is at least roughly comparable to "king/queen/court" type organization, and other bits that are me, alone, in my solitary "held realm" (albeit a small one - I have heard the term "smallsidhe" in my head occasionally, which I suppose might map to "sidhe bheag / sidhe mhor" as in the tune by O'Carolan, now that I mention it?).
However, in any case, there aren't Seelie and Unseelie courts as we usually think of them. The division or classification I remember has two aspects to it: one aspect more aligned with the four seasons (I think something like this is depicted in Dark Ages: Fae?) or directions, somewhat how the four/five Provinces of Ireland have metaphorical connections, and the other with the three realms, Over, Middle, and Lower, which is closer to the seelie/unseelie terms as those with an "overworld" affinity tend to "bright/good" whereas those with "underworld" are more the "dark/malice" type (though not always). I am not sure whether this had broad social implications, was something referred to only in ceremony (and whether serious or not - there's a difference between Mass, and the ceremonies of a social fraternal organization), or was even considered as trivial as one's zodiac sign. I just have some faint ideas that it was there.
December 2009, post to the defunct board Otherkin Community
Can't help you specifically about the Shiri; that's all I've heard as well ["elves who migrated into Faery during the Corruption"]. Re sidhe: "cousin" [to elves and to fae] isn't an unreasonable term, I suppose. We're like faery in some (many?) ways and like elves in some ways. If your question is whether Shiri elves and sidhe might be the same thing, my instinctive answer is no. There are probably some resemblances because Shiri are, loosely, faery-ish elves (as I understand it) and sidhe are faery which share some elven characteristics, but I think "sidhe" as their own "species" are unique to Earth (although there are probably analogues on other planets, the same kind of "celestials embedded in the planet" thing that is related to faery).
June 2010, private email with Jarandhel Dreamsinger discussing Anara's abandoned site The Groves of Annwyn
But here's one of the odd places where if I turn something she's said a little sideways, actually I can find points of identification: the feeling of being descended from or otherwise related to a shining, sometimes watery sometimes fiery, sometimes serpentine, sometimes feminine sometimes masculine power embedded deep in the Earth...? (see also: the faery races are the Shining Ones who fell with the "dragon" Lucifer, who's stuck down there... it's a lot of overlapping possibilities.)
[...]
I was like, "The Four Cities of the directions have the names of the quarter/elemental dragons from D.J. Conway's Dancing With Dragons? really?" I mean, I've got no problem using placeholder names from somewhere else that seem to strike some chord in your brain because you don't actually know what to call something [...] but these names seem to be Conway's UPG [unverified personal gnosis] [...]
I've got my own UPG on the names of the Cities, of course, but I didn't directly take them from anywhere. This topic is another place that Ifound myself agreeing with some of her [Anara's] PG, which is that there areactually six Cities, including one above and one below, not just four as appear in Irish lore (Gorias, Finias, Murias, Falias) and which she's here mapped to Sairys, "Faf'Nir" (Fafnir in the original, as from Norse lore), Naelyan, and Grael. Too, I agree that the rulers of these places would be called "Sovereigns", a non-gendered word since they themselves are either/both/between.
[...]
In my inklings, among the sidhe, the term that comes across as "queen" is not something so strong as it normally means in modern English; maybe "petty queen" or "chieftainess" or "lady/dame" would be better, because a queen of the sidhe is far from comparable to the queen of England and her vast empire. So if she said she were just a "queen" I'd understand what that meant (or assume that I did) and wouldn't find much need to challenge it. But a Sovereign of one of the Cities?
[...]
Here's another one, that there's some strange kind of resonance or connecty bits between these [sidhe, dragon, and celestial], sidhe and celestial particularly (although I dunno where she gets equating that to "seer/oracle", whatever that means).
August 2012 post in a thread titled "He Said, Sidhe Said" on the defunct board Otherkin Community
Some of these I also find true for me as Sidhe, some not.
Sort of Elvish, Sort of Faerie, Sort of Star-Person. A big bundle of wandering, wildish sparks.
Not sure I would describe myself as "wandering, wildish sparks", but the "sort of, sort of, sort of" is pretty accurate.
Walking Spirit Between Worlds. A tendency to slip in and out of dimensions absent-mindedly.
Hrm. I only wish I could. But not "absent-mindedly", for sure. I think this might be more a characteristic in native form than something carried over into human existence. Might just be me though (I've been pretty spiritually/energetically dead for some years now).
Bright blue and silver and gold energy, shimmering and pulsing with sap, wind, rain and stars.
I don't think I agree with the colors; I associate sidhe with silver especially, but not blue or gold. Gold is something I associate with the Danann. Secondarily I associate sidhe with green and with rainbow opalescence. (Ed. note 2021: I could agree with blue and gold now, or at least not disagree with them. Perhaps not as definitive, but certainly not incorrect. It may be somewhat individual.) Shimmering and pulsing, though, yes. Stars, of course of course. Wind and rain strike me as neutral; sure-why-not although they are not things I would have said off the top of my head. Sap is an odd one for me; I find myself thinking "ummm why?"
Embedded with celestial bits. My energy centers are like stars that spin in my spirit body and I have to work with them in a different way to 'traditional' Chakra meditations and visualisations I've seen/read or I feel strange.
Yes. I can work with a traditional new-age chakra exercise but it is not a good fit. (However, this is not uncommon for otherkin in general.) I find that system more useful as a psychological tool than anything representing energetic reality. Like Branethen I have observed a "core star" which appears silver. What would be the first and second and possibly even third chakras in the standard human system seem to all be one thing for me. Lots of little celestial bits sounds more like my "star-dragon" energetic anatomy but I could see it applying to some sidhe as well.
I screw up (or fix) electrical objects by walking past or touching them. I can't wear a watch, they stop (bizarrely, this is something my Mother does as well :) )
Bah, I wish I could. Would make me feel more "real." (Tongue in cheek of course. I'd rather my computers and all kept working well, thanks very much.) This actually is something reported by many otherkin and also many human energy workers or magical practitioners. I don't think it's necessarily related to being sidhe.
Being able to 'see' 'hear' and interact with other realms easily and able to imprint my actions upon them. This is how I work magick, I sort of...go into the picture in my head of how I wish things to be and *twist* it somehow whilst straddling worlds. That's a rubbish explanation but its really hard to put into words.
I kind of understand what you mean. You just ... impose your desire on things and Make It So? I call this magic by "sovereignty" and I think it is an important concept for sidhe.
A couple of psychic abilities found in human-souled folk too, but seemingly enhanced by Sidhe-ness. Hearing what people are thinking sometimes, reading vibrations from objects, affecting some physical objects (mostly electrical) with an intense mood and above all: serious spirit mediumship.
Not applicable for me.
I 'eat' magickal energy, like a vampire eats prana. If I don't get enough, I become sickly, unbalanced (more than I usually am, anyway) and depressed.
I don't think I'd call it "eating", but a need for magical energy as a basic requirement for life, yes. You put quite a fine point on it, I think, in this next item:
I know some Sidhe feel a deep longing for a Home-in-Other-place, and whilst I don't need that exactly, I do get confused sometimes because the world should be Breathes-Magick and it isn't. It's like wearing a lead suit, or ear muffs that make the complex music of River and Feathers and Tree-Bones all distorted and we can't communicate properly at times and that feels horribly wrong.
OH YE GODS YES. THE WORLD SHOULD BE BREATHES-MAJIK AND IT ISN'T. This, this, this. My opinion is that sidhe need this "glamour" (this magic-stuff; I use "glamour" here in kind of the Changeling-the-Dreaming sense rather than the sense of "illusion magic") like your standard Earth animal needs oxygen. Cut one off from it and we suffocate, sooner or later.
Attracting creatures from other planes. Needing quite a shield to stay 'invisible' from them and get on with life without weird visitations.
This has never been a problem for me. I have never attracted astral nasties, at least not so far as I have been aware. But then I also seem to be some kind of natural shield or "sink"?
Music sounds to me like a beautiful language and I am lucky because I speak it fluently and this brings me a lot of joy.
Hrmph. Ya lucky &@*&@ ;) I can carry a tune without a bucket, but my vocal tone is hardly pleasant and my range (or lack thereof) is a bit of a handicap. Nor do I have aptitude with any instruments. This is one of those frustrating "wrong" things - I feel like I should be able to, but can't. Song is definitely important. (I think this is a characteristic shared among several "elvish"-type kindreds, not so much other types like dragons or whatever. Angels I guess would have a different take on it.)
last updated 8/02/2021