Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   Today’s blog post is about the phrase ‘off with the faeries’ and what it has meant historically, relating to the folklore of being trapped in Faerylands, as well as what it can mean today.   I do want to note that this phrase is also said as ‘away with the faeries,’ with both meaning the same thing, but to prevent confusion, I will be using ‘off with the faeries’ for this post.   This topic is part of the often darker and more fearful nature of the Fae, crossing over with stories of Changelings.   However, while folklore is almost always very negative when speaking of those who are Off with the Faeries, I think this is mostly a demonization of the Fae brought forth by the incorporation of the Fae Folk with the dawn of Christianity.

In times gone by, being Off with the Faeries was often attributed to people who were not understood due to not living by society’s standards of the day.  We have examples like Bridget Cleary, remembered as Ireland’s Faery Wife and the last woman burned as a Witch in Ireland in the nineteenth century.   She was burned to death by her husband all because he believed she was a Changeling, and he claimed he was torturing her to get his ‘real’ wife returned to him from Faeryland!   When we look into the case, we can see that Bridget Cleary was talked about by those who knew her in similar ways to others who are accused of being Off with the Faeries are spoken of.   Her interest in Faerylore and love of visiting the Faery Mounds did strike fear in those who knew her, as did her decision to participate in entrepreneurial endeavors and the fact that she had been married for several years and did not have children.    She is but one tragic example of many people who were actually stated to be Off with the Faeries.

There are also cases of the phrase being used for people with mental health issues that were misunderstood.   So, yes, in the past as well as in folklore, being Off with the Faeries was not a good thing at all.   This was based on fear and a lack of understanding and empathy, and to be blunt, sheer ignorance when we look at historical instances like the case of Bridget Cleary.   However, I want to end this post on a more positive note.

Let’s discuss how being Off with the Faeries need not be a bad thing anymore!   Working with the Fae is an incredibly enriching and beautiful experience, but not one to be taken lightly.   While much of the oldest folklore has too much of an emphasis on the danger of the Fae, making it seem like all Fae are evil, that is just as much a misnomer as the idea that all Fae are simply Tinkerbell-like Victorian Flower Faeries.   So, yes, there are dangerous Fae, and yes, there are Flower Faeries, and yes, there are countless species of Fae that exist on a very broad spectrum!   After all, it must be remembered that the Fair Folk are not simply one type of spiritual being, the words Faery (in its various forms) and Elf (in its various forms) were originally used in Celtic lands to describe the land which they resided and all the various types of beings therein.   So, Faery and Elf were often used as very broad catch-all terms!

In the modern day, those of us who work closely with the Fae, and like myself, are devotees and Priestesses to the Faery Queens (or Kings), know that being Off with the Faeries is a very lovely experience most often reached in meditation and astral projection.   I want to finish this by noting that when looking up the phrase in modern dictionaries online, either shown as ‘Off with’ or ‘Away with the Faeries’ (as I noted at the beginning of the post),  the sources seem to focus on the more ethereal and dreamlike element of Faeryland and the Otherworld in a less literal sense.   Both the literal being Off with the Faeries and the dreamlike whistful lost in thought energy are equally valid definitions of the term.   The less literal and more dreamlike definition was also used in the past, but I chose to focus on how this often metaphorical term had roots in Faerylore and could lead to some tragic circumstances due to fear. 

I hope this post has given you some food for thought on the evolution of Faerylore and the idea of being Off with the Faeries.   Are you ever Off with the Faeries, either literally or figuratively?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a lovely Brian Froud artwork that I found on https://wackykate28.wixsite.com/pmp-unit3-level5/brian-froud.

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries

Further Reading

• A New Dictionary of Fairies by Morgan Daimler
• The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story by Angela Bourke
• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/be-away-with-the-fairies
• https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/off+with+the+faeries,+be
• https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/away-with-the-fairies.html