"I love the idea that while Arthur is trying to get the fae to leave Alfred the fuck alone, Alasdair or Francis or even together, lighting yew-wood fires like 'Hey, mum, little help down here? This one's going through it again.'"
I have a series of questions, but first: I adore that idea too. I have a vision of Arthur on one side of the house carefully brokering deals to keep the fae away while Alasdair's on the other side summoning mom because Matt needs some support, and it is excellent.
1. Does Francis have anything to do with fae stuff? Rituals, know about them, see them normally? It's not usually talked about for his character but I think it sounds very interesting!
2. Would you mind talking a bit more about Arthur's relationship to his mother/the idea of her? You've talked about the statue incident, apparently Alasdair and Brighid honor her at Samhain, but you also talked about Arthur not necessarily remembering her very well, but he introduced the weans to her when they were tiny? Is that something that's evolved over the centuries (the Alasdair and Brighid thing was mentioned in a fic from the...16th, 17th century?) Are the older Island siblings closer to her spirit? Sorry, everything you wrote about the magic/fae stuff is absolutely gripping my brain right now.
Arthur literally shooting iron arrows into long since dead things because baby Alfred attracts the supernatural like moths to fire and hacking out a deal is going to be a fic as soon as I'm done putting the final touches with this one about Alasdair with baby Matt.
1.) So he really should. Almost every single flavour of British faerie has a French counterpart. They do however tend to run somewhat more chaotically and much more... Horny? There are a shocking amount of families who claim descendency from fae well into the 19th century. Children who survived drownings were said to be "kissed by Mélusine" or "touched by Mélusine." I think he can see them when he wishes but they tend not to interest him very much. There are much darker things that walk the fields and forests of France. There are all the same fae figures but many more folkloric entities who are much more powerful and more like forgotten Gods that crop up. Like what I called the Trench Creature. Which is based on a real phenomenon but not a specific one.
2.) So for a long time I've kept their mother kind of vague? Because I have ideas but they're probably the least realistic or historic or accurate thoughts in my entire universe where I'm not drawing from history or cultural practice as nearly as much as I wish I could. I am pulling things out of my ass because they're satisfying to me. Apologies if this is somewhat incoherent, I've never actually laid this all out before.
About 1,000 years before the arrival of the Romans at the end of the bronze age and the advent of the era of Iron, there might be what we now loosely group as Celts arriving in Britain and Ireland. And there were several peoples and many tribes but typically culture and religion was shared. When recorded history begins with the Roman arrival, there was one tribe in Northern England and Southern Scotland that reached politically into Ireland and Wales as well, the Brigantes. Their patron goddess, Brigantia was extremely popular across the islands. I made their mother Brigantia herself. She was a nation, just like them but who inserted herself into the public life of their people and absorbed their worship as they brought her into their identity. Brigantia the goddess contributed to Brittania the traditional armored personification of Great Britain and Saint Brighid of Ireland. Its kind of a bullshit take in my part but it works extremely well thematically.
Arthur is the youngest of his siblings, he got the least amount of time with her. His memory of her is very much wrapped up in memories of Brighid and layered into many human women who cared for him in her absence. Celtic traditions survived much more strongly in what we now call the Celtic Fringe, Ireland and Scotland specifically. England has a lot more going on with the Saxons and Normans and all sorts. He has participated when Brighid or Alasdair summon her, but tends to stay back a bit. When they meet, his memories do not match her presence and he is confused and somewhat upset but does not vocalize it. She is mother to him, and he has a much harder time reconciling her whole personality to the comfort he clings too.
He only became more interested when he became a parent himself, speaking to her somewhat more in the very first years after Alfred is born. But very quickly after Elizabeth I's reign ends, there is a clap back against all things supernatural and no amount of witch trials can burn the magic from him but for quite a long time after, he clings to trade and reason and much more earthly concerns and does not join Brighid, Rhys and Alasdair. There is also in this period, massive déforestation in England. He had presented Alfred to her in the 1580s or 1590s for her approval but that was almost the end of an era. He wouldn't really touch the spiritual until his last two children in the early 19th century. Zee might be the last time he's able to summon her as England is almost completely stripped of its natural beauty. But this is also when pagan revivals really took off. Almost nothing of original ancient practice survives and most modern paganism was... I don't want to say made up but also all religions are made up... I guess pieced together and codified? In the 19th century especially during the Celtic revivals. I was a practicing pagan at one point but it's interesting how so much if what is claimed to be ancient and holy was kinda just pieced together in the Victorian period.
The tldr version is: Is Brighid is the most comfortable with her mother's ghost followed quickly by Rhys, then Alasdair and Arthur in a distant fourth. These relationships fluctuate greatly depending on religious, interpersonal and societal conditions and Arthur only tends to seek her out upon a great change in his life.
