For today’s post, I have decided to discuss how my love of horror actually fits well into my Faery lifestyle. I realize that many people may interpret my testament of living the Faery life as just being all about the light and sparkly things in the world.
In truth, when we learn about the darker folkloric tales about faeries in general, we can see that faery lore is full of the truly terrifying fae. Some filmmakers, like Guillermo del Toro, even use horrific faery figures as their monsters. In Pan’s Labyrinth, we see a huge array of scary faery figures. Faery stories are not that far from the dark origins of faerytales or of Gothic Romance novels. Guillermo del Toro also has proved to be deeply inspired by Gothic Romance as well, like with his film Crimson Peak.
Now that I have given some basis for faery darkness and it’s being related to horror I will go deeper. Horror is something that is very often linked with the supernatural, making it closely related to faery lore, to begin with. Hauntings are prime events in much of horror fiction and films. Ghosts have long been associated with faeries generally speaking. Much that we know about Faeryland shows it to be both a place of the faery beings as well as a land of the dead. This is why the Faery Otherworld of Avalon is where Morgan le Fay takes King Arthur as he is dying of his wounds after the Battle of Camlann!
In some folklore, there are even tales of human people becoming faeries when they died. In going to Faeryland after dying they eventually became faeries by prolonged exposure to other faery beings.
I personally adore horror in many different formats. I love it in fiction and film, as well as in short stories or poetry. I also am a fan of different types of horror, like slashers in addition to the supernatural horror I have been discussing. I believe that watching horror is psychologically healthy in that we get to process the full range of emotions in a safe space. This emotional expression can likely add to the connection to my Faery lifestyle. In that, faeries are often either depicted as connected to emotions or as having emotions that are misunderstood by humans. This is where we get tales about faeries who cry at weddings and laugh at funerals. I hope that you have enjoyed this slightly rambling post about how horror and faeries relate. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
White Rose of Avalon 