Product Description

Discusses the existence of faeries and the ways in which our Pagan ancestors may have interacted with them. This book also contains a dictionary of more than 230 faeries, including goblins, gnomes, elementals, angels and even Santa Claus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #370568 in Books
• Published on: 1994-07-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

Yes and No
This book is most valuable for the several sections that integrate Wiccan pathworking with faeries. Particularly useful is the guided meditation into Faerieland, which is quite an original piece of work. McCoy also blurs the distinction between meeting faeries on the Astral plane and in the physical world, which is probably pitched just about right. Faeries are ultimately remnants from our own collective subconscious (or whatever you'd like to call it) and are quite real when encountered in an altered state, but such altered states needn't be too far out of the physical world. The 'Working with Faery Beings' section is thus quite helpful, especially for Pagans following solitary paths. However, this only just makes the book worth its asking price. As another reviewer points out, there are some pretty awful factual errors in the text that are cringeworthy: apparently Yorkshire borders Scotland (p.29), James I was king of England from 1567-1625 (p.28), and best of all Chaucer was the author of Beowulf!!!! (p.323). Well maybe he was on the astral plane, but these kind of errors do not give the reader much confidence in some of McCoy's other pronouncements. The dictionary of faeries is useful for non-British/Irish elementals, but if you want to know about British faeries there is no better place to start than Katherine Briggs' Encyclopedia, which is more detailed and authoritative. Overall a useful addition to pagan faery literature, but only in parts.

Informative but also misinformed
Whilst I found this to be an excellent book full of information about faery folk, it also had some very wrong information that the author stated as fact. I nearly fell off my chair when she said Yorkshire was the most northern county in England! Well lets just ignore the other counties inbetween Yorkshire and Scotland then shall we?!

I also believe that a well built site of enormous earthworks circles (I think in N. Ireland)that she refers to, is actually a Neolithic causewayed enclosure not a faery ring as she stated.

Elf shot arrows made of stone as well are usually of Paleolithic/Neolithic origin and not the former property of elves(again this is my personal feeling). Interestingly enough at the time of the Anglo Saxons, a sharp pain in the body or stitch in the side was thought to be caused by invisible arrows from the elves or 'devils helpers' as christianistion took over.

Enough of the lectures although wrong information that is easy to check and verify does let me worry about her other information and guidance. Is she certain that particular friendly faery is actually friendly? There's only one way to find out!

I'm Wiccan and a mature student studying archaeology. I did find the book a very good read despite the errors and I really value the fae folk dictionary at the back which I have not seen anywhere else. Interesting book.

Good, even if you're not a witch!
I'm not a witch or even into wicca at all, but of the dozen or so faerie books I've read recently, this is probably the best. It actually amounts to two books in one. The first half of the book is full of useful and interesting info, and the second is a dictionary of faery creatures worldwide. Highly Recommended.