For those of you who don’t know what a Seelie and Unseelie is.
Some versions of Irish mythology have the Daoine Sidhe eventually divide into two groups: the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. Though this separation is more commonly seen in Scottish mythology, Ireland also adopted this division.
The Seelie Court were considered the true aristocrats of the Daoine Sidhe. They were judges, dispensing justice to the other faery when it was required, and served as frequent arbitrators of the many faery quarrels. The Seelie Court was very political, complete with cliques, factions, gossiping, and rivalry.
Sometimes called the ‘Blessed Ones,’ the Seelie were often depicted as a procession of brilliant light riding on the night air. The Seelie Court, as a group, would often use these excursions to find those in need of help. The Seelie were also prone to a great deal of mischief, especially when bored. However, their pranks rarely caused true harm, for the Seelie were really very fond of humans.
The Code of the Seelie Court
Like many human courts, the Seelie Court had its own code of conduct, a code which all of the Seelie had to abide by. This code was:
Death Before Dishonor: A member of the Seelie Court would protect his or her honor to the death. Honor was the single source of glory for the Seelie, the only way to attain recognition. A true Seelie would rather have died than live with personal dishonor, and would never bring dishonor to another of the Seelie.
Love Conquers All: For the Seelie, love was the perfect expression of the soul. It transcended all other things. Though romantic love was considered to be the highest and purest form of love, platonic love was also encouraged.
Beauty is Life: Beauty was one of the first tenants of the Seelie Court. To belong, a faery had to be beautiful, and all beauty was to be protected. The Seelie were known to go to war to protect beauty, whether it was a beautiful person, place, or thing.
Never Forget a Debt: This tenant worked in two ways. The Seelie were bound by their code of honor to repay any debt owed as soon as was possible. This included both favors and insults. The Seelie would repay a favor in a timely fashion. At the same time, they would exact vengeance almost immediately.
The Unseelie Court or Unblessed Court contains the most malicious, malevolent and evil of the faeries, and a number of monsters of horrible appearance and fearsome abilities as well. They comprise the Slaugh, or The Host, the band of the unsanctified dead who fly above the earth, stealing mortals and take great pleasure in harming humans.
Often called the ‘Unblessed Ones,’ the Unseelie were depicted as a dark cloud riding upon the wind from where their unnerving cackles and howls can be heard. Though not necessarily evil, they were far from kind. These unsavory characters tended towards evil and were often malignant. Some Scottish legends claim that the Unseelie were fallen Seelie, those who could not live up to the strict standards of chivalry of the shining court. They have no method of reproduction, so they enslave mortals whom they think would never be missed and carry them along to become one of them. The Unseelie Court was almost always out to harm, or at least bedevil and trick, humankind.
Some of the members of the Unseelie Court included:
The sluagh (the Hosts of the Unforgiven dead, akin to the Wild Hunt)
Shellycoat (a trickster of the coasts)
Redcap (a vicious fairy who drenched his cap with human blood)
The Code of the Unseelie Court
Like many human courts, the Unseelie Court had its own code of conduct, a code which all of the Unseelie had to abide by. The details of this code were:
Change is Good: The Unseelie firmly believed that security was an illusion. They considered chaos to be the ruling force in the universe, and accepted that they had to adapt and change to survive.
Glamour is Free: Glamour was the magick of the Daoine Sidhe. Both the Seelie and Unseelie possessed its power. However, the two Courts had differing opinions over its use. The Unseelie believed that to have power and not to use it was near to sin. They used their power for whatever they saw fit.
Honor is a Lie: The Unseelie placed no stock in the ideals of honor. Instead, they pursued their own self-interests vigorously. The Unseelie felt as if truth could be only be reach through a devotion to self, not a devotion to others.
Passion Before Duty: Passion was considered to be the truest state of being. The Unseelie acted without thought on pure instinct and passion.
The words “seely” (with other forms being seily, seelie and sealy) and “unseely” are Scots, Northern and Middle English terms meaning “happy”, “lucky” or “blessed” and “unhappy”, “misfortunate” and “unholy” respectively. They are derived from the Old English sœl and gesœlig. The Modern Standard English word silly is also derived from this root and the term “seely” is recorded in numerous works of Middle English literature such as those by Geoffrey Chaucer. Many ballads and tales tell of “Seely wights”; a Lowlander term for fairies. In Wales there were said to be two fairies or elves called Silly Frit and Sili go Dwt whose names represent a borrowing of the adjective silly (in this case meaning happy) as applied to fantastical beings from its usage on the English marches bordering Wales rather than the Anglo-Scottish border; the former name being purely English while the latter is a corruption of English fairy names featuring “tot” (such as Tom Tit Tot) as an element.
Seelie and Unseelie Courts
The Seelie court are known to seek help from humans, to warn those who had accidentally offended them, and to return human kindness with favors of their own. Still, a fairy belonging to this court will avenge insults and could be prone to mischief.The most common time of day to see them is twilight. The Unseelie Court consists of the malicious and evilly-inclined fairies. Unlike the Seelie Court, no offense is necessary to bring down their assaults.As a group (or “host”), they appear at night and assault travelers, often carrying them through the air, beating them, and forcing them to commit such acts as shooting elfshot at cattle.Like the beings of the Seely Court who are not always benevolent, neither are the fairies of the Unseelie Court always malevolent. However, when forced to choose, they will always prefer to harm—rather than to help—humans. Some of the most common characters in the Unseelie Court are Bogies, Bogles, Boggars, Abbylubbers and Buttery spirits.The division into “seely” and “unseely” spirits was roughly equivalent to the division of Elves in Norse mythology, into “light” and “dark” distinctions.
In the French fairy tales of précieuses, fairies are likewise divided into good and evil, but the effect is clearly literary. Many of these literary fairies seem preoccupied with the character of the humans they encounter.
The Welsh fairies, Tylwyth Teg, and the Irish Sídhe are usually not classified as wholly good or wholly evil.
Trooping and Solitary Fairies
Yeats divided fairies into the solitary and trooping fairies, as did James Macdougall in Folk Tales and Fairy Lore. Katharine Mary Briggs noted that a third distinction might be needed for “domesticated fairies” who live in human households, but such fairies might join with other fairies for merry-making and fairs.
The trooping fairies contain the aristocracy of the fairy world, including the Irish Daoine Sídhe.They are known as trooping faeries because they travel in long processions, such as the one from which Tam Lin was rescued. But the trooping fairies also include other fairies of lesser importance; a trooping fairy can be large or small, friendly or sinister.
Unlike the trooping fairies, solitary fairies live alone and are inclined to be wicked and malicious creatures, except for beings such as the brownie who is said to help with household chores.
A Changeling is said to be a faerie that is exchanged for a human child, although the term can refer to the child who was taken. Usually (though not always) as a prank or an act of vengeance. Fairies are said to make this exchange if the human child’s parents have caused the faerie world a serious offence, or if the fae have been attacked in some way by the parents. Rarely are children taken because the faerie is in love with it, though that is a possibility. Most modern stories indicate that the exchange is performed as a means of vengeance, and it is almost never depicted as a generous act.
On some occasions instead of a faerie child being left the faeries will leave a doll made of sticks and grass that is glamoured to look like a human child. These are called fetches and usually have a very short life span. Faeries will also sometimes take people who are older into their realm. Usually they do this if a specific quality about the person catches their eye.
Once in the faerie realm, humans are usually made servants. Since time passes differently in Arcadia, their faerie master determines how quickly they age. As children they usually just play while the faeries watch. When they are older they may be made a handservant, an entertainer, a lover, or even an ornament.
The magic of the faerie world changes the nature of the humans taken there so that, even if they do manage to escape, they are no longer fully human. The type of change that happens to them depends on who their master was and what they did while in the faerie realm. They almost always have a weak to intermediate grasp of faerie magic when they leave, with the ability to glamour and do other things.
Methods of supposedly repelling faeries included leaving an open pair of iron scissors on the baby’s bed. The symptoms of a changeling includes unpleasant traits in the body, paleness, a green tint, bad temper, and/or a voracious appetite. “Positive” traits include an extensive vocabulary at a young age, which signified the changeling’s intelligence. Children suspected to be changelings were persecuted and/or murdered, and those responsible were rarely blamed or punished.
Some speculate that the reasons faeries want to swap their children with human babies is because they want to be baptized, and consequently possess protection from things like trolls.
