The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/faery)
It had been seven years since Anaar and I had traveled to Europe to offer this work. In many ways, we expected it to unfold much as it had before: a celebration of community, of poetry, of ritual, of art. And while it did indeed fulfill all that, there was another, more global reality that inserted itself into the mix: Covid-19.
Why then, given the volatile history between humanity and faery kind, would we want to pursue a relationship with them? Why not simply follow the cautionary advice of our ancestors and do our best to avoid them altogether? The short answer is, “because we’re Witches.”
Guest columnist John Kruse introduces TWH’s readers to the faery lore of the elder tree.
Mat Auryn is our guest columnist this week. An initiate of Sacred Fires tradition, Mat lives in New England. Find him at his Patheos Pagan blog, For Puck’s Sake as well as his personal website. As someone who has studied with various traditions and taken many courses on magick over the years both in person and online, I’m constantly asked what the difference is and how it’s possible to learn magick online, especially when it comes to the idea of initiations. While there are a few differences between learning online and offline, it’s important to clear up some misconceptions about learning the craft from a teacher online.
For over a hundred years, from the middle of the 19th century to the postwar period, the indigenous Sámi minority of Norway was the target of an official policy of forced assimilation, essentially an attempt at ethnocide, which brought the Sámi language, way of life, and society to its knees. The painful process, very similar in many ways to the boarding school system of Canada, was however fiercely challenged by a new generation of young Sámi activists that ultimately brought the government to acknowledge the rights of the Sámi nation and the need for official representation. This liberation movement, which arose in the ’60s and ’70s, ultimately lead to a dynamic revival of Sámi culture that can still be experienced today: from summer arts festivals to academic representation and the spread of traditional crafts, contemporary Sámi culture, despite still facing numerous challenges, is more vigorous than ever before. In this teeming milieu of cultural development, numerous young Sámi figures have sprouted up in the past couple of years to showcase the intersection of their unique artistic vision and their traditional background. It is in this context that Elin Kåven, a singer, artist, and dancer from Karasjok in Arctic Norway has grown and developed her artistry, all the way from the frozen expanses of her hometown to the country’s most famed stages.