One of the universal, recurring motifs of visitors to the surface world from faerie or fairyland is that of the fairy lover. One of the attributes of the fairy lover has always been illusion, or glamour--illusion and confusion of location, dilation or distortion of time, and most tellingly, illusion of identity. Glamour, in it's original Celtic sense, was the name for the seemingly transformative powers of disguise and illusion possessed and exercised by fairy-folk both benign and malignant, beings of the air, the seas, or the underearth. The willingness of the fairy lover to use this power, selfishly and without compunction, is a worldwide constant in ancient myth and folklore, as well as in modern UFOlogical and other paranormal accounts. Equally as selfish is the fairy willingness to kidnap infants and abduct fertile young people of both sexes, apparently for crossbreeding purposes. In many accounts, the faeries of the British Isles and Scandinavia would often be so bold as to tell their victims that this was the reason they sought human children, promises of marriage, or repeated visits to the terrified or enamored human being, for reproductive purposes and "fresh blood" or genetic material among their own families or tribes.
A record of human relations with an unhuman race or species has been available all along, but has been distorted by technologies or powers beyond our understanding--providing only a hazy view as if seen through smoked glass, or as if vaguely glimpsed, creeping up behind one in a warped and illusory funhouse mirror. The enormous amount of first-hand narratives and folk "traditions" have been dismissed all too often as primitive belief systems, superstition, or foolishness. There is a difference between "fairy traditions--" the first-hand, second-hand, or strangely-experienced knowledge and encounters of a tribe or people--and "fairytales," or stories, which mix "fairy traditions" with confabulation, fantasy, oral storytelling (itself a blender of sorts), and morality tales. Upon close examination and comparison, the "traditions" themselves seem to provide a cohesive and revealing framework from which much information can be obtained--information about the habits, appearances, customs, and so forth of non-human, more-or-less hostile, subterranean races. Often this information would find it's way into "fairytales," in order to lend an air of authenticity to the story at hand. Soon the researcher realizes, however, that this wealth of anecdotal evidence has influenced to some degree or other every folklore tradition of the world, and continues to influence our plays, our literature, our art and most other forms of expression. These things that so confound and fascinate us have become some of our most-constant, ever-present archetypes.
The British, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish subterraneans were believed to dwell in a variety of locations which connected directly into a larger, nebulous region, called by a variety of names: Tir Na N Og, Faerie, Fairyland, Elf(Alf)land, and many, many others. To the Norse these regions were known as Alfheim and Svartalfheim, and should not be confused by modern students of folklore with a deeper, darker place of greater terrors, called Nifleheim. Entrances to the regions inhabited by these beings could be found in raths (ancient hill-forts), burial-mounds (barrows, sitheans, knowes, brochs, duns, and so forth) and other ancient earth-works, caverns or clefts in mountains and hills, and at the bottom of deep lakes or lochs. Some confusion occurred, largely due to theorizing on the part of both victims and collectors of folktales, that the fairy-folk were fallen angels, nature spirits (elementals), or the hyperactive ghosts of the pagan dead. The problem with these theories is that they are contradictory to the activities described, and the purposes which obviously underlie these activities--that is, the gathering of genetic material, ranging from human and animal to plant samples, and the actual physical interbreeding which has been described. It would seem that "spirits" of any description would have no use for these things. This does not necessarily disqualify the existence or involvement of factors which would be considered "paranormal" or "spiritual" in nature; rather, it points out the consistent evidence that perhaps some aspects of the phenomena described are due to an unknown and non-human technological agency.
Collections of Celtic and Germanic fairylore and sagas are filled with such interactions between human beings and "others." Always, an influx of human genetic material seems to be at the heart of such activity, and the emotion of love seldom, if ever, enters into the equation. From the human point of view, such interaction almost invariably leads to suffering, hardship, and sorrow, and ancient taboos existed to provide warnings and reminders of the harassments from the "serpent (pre-Adamic) races" from below:
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." --Genesis 3:15.
This is believed by theologians to be a reference to the eventual birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it may have an additional meaning--it establishes the belief that humanity dwells "above" another race or species, that of the "serpent." Older versions of the Genesis story and the Fall of Man, from Sumer, leave little doubt that many in the ancient world knew of this "mystery" of old.
In Greece, the philandering Zeus, king of the gods, regularly descended from his palace/grotto on Olympus in order to seduce and produce offspring with mortal women. The God-Mountain, holy mountain or hill is a motif which appears in most mythic traditions, and is obviously associated with both the sky and the power of flight, as well as with the depths of the mysterious and unplumbed Earth. Zeus had his underworld connections, as his brother Pluto/Hades was in charge of the Underworld, and it was Zeus himself who had imprisoned the "fallen ones," the Titans or Elder Gods, there in the deepest and most-inescapable pits. One of Zeus's favorite tricks was to take the form of either a familiar person or an animal during his libidinous assaults, although how a woman can be seduced by a swan is still hard to fathom. At least Europa ran from the bull!
Similarly the sorcerer Merlin, himself said to be the half-human result of the union of an underworld being and a mortal woman, covered Uther Pendragon with the likeness of his enemy Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that he might impregnate his rival's wife Ygraine and produce the child which would become Arthur, the mythical king of Britain. Uther wanted pleasure; Merlin had an agenda of his own. It's meaningful that Merlin's father was said to have been an incubus, or a demon/underworld entity capable of having intercourse with human women and impregnating them. Merlin had to bring together the desired genetic partners, and this seems to have been simply underworld manipulation of human history and politics as usual, as far as subterranean interference in human affairs go. The fact that Uther and Arthur's standard was a crimson dragon is more meaningful than might at first seem apparent, as shall be seen. Further examination of Arthurian legend, based as it is on much older Celtic myth and archetypes, seems to indicate that it may in fact be a thinly-veiled fable concerning two warring supernatural or underworld forces, one more inimical than the other, vying for control or breeding-rights of the localized human gene-pool. This battle for dominance is perhaps symbolized by the warring dragons, one red and one white, and the manipulation of Merlin's emotions and lust by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. Nimue is synonymous with the cavern-dwelling Hindu Naga-folk, who dwell in palaces beneath the floors of deep lakes and oceans, and she is also very similar to the daughter of the Japanese Dragon-King, who falls in love with a human trespasser and removes herself from her undersea cavern-palace, long enough to leave a hybrid child--and perhaps political influence--in the surface world. Nimue represents the ancient matriarchal powers which seem to go hand-in-hand with underworld beings and deities, but there may be a more concrete reason for this recurrence of matriarchal themes, buried in the mists of time (as will be seen later). As for Merlin, outcast by humans and his own underworld tribe alike, this provides an explanation for his fascination and lust for, and willingness to obey and work with, the Lady of the Lake. Merlin not only had his own subterranean domain, but he was eventually imprisoned there by the treachery of Nimue, once his usefulness at genetic expertise and manipulation had been overshadowed by his attempts to affect events in the human realm. The direction of civilization--i.e., "Camelot--" may have taken a better route than it would have otherwise (if the invading "Saxon," or continental, forces had not been routed), but it was still designed to keep interloping genes out of the local pool (that of Britain), and keep the population rich in certain desired characteristics. Nimue's hand-picked (intentionally bred) proxy was on the throne, at least for a while. Arthurian myth and romance, with roots lost in the antiquity of pre-Roman Britain and derived from the Welsh Mabinogion and other Celtic traditions, seems to be desperately trying to burst forth with an ancient and mysterious message which is cloaked in more historically-recent, post-Roman, Christianized symbolic constructs.
The careful monitoring and maintenance of bloodlines or genetic groups seems to have been a major preoccupation of faerie folk and other subterranean beings, as well as of ancient gods and demons. Ireland also is filled with tales of fairy lovers: relationships between "Milesians" or ancient Irish human beings, and the Tuatha de Danaan, who were the underworld gods of old Ireland who have since dwindled into the Gentry, Sidhe (Shee), or Fairies. One encounter of this "pagan reality" was purportedly witnessed by St. Patrick himself, described in "The Colloquy of the Ancients;" while speaking with Caeilte, a member of the Fianna (a legendary group of Irish heroes), Patrick is astonished to observes a beautiful fairy woman coming out of the cave of Cruachan, wearing a green mantle and a golden crown. Although the fairy woman is youthful and beautiful, Caeilte is an ancient and withered old man. When Patrick asks about this, Caeilte answers:
"She is of the Tuatha De Danaan who are unfading...and I am of the sons of Mil (human Irish), who are perishable and fade away."
The question is, of course, at what price to humanity is this "longevity" or youthfulness purchased?
It would seem that it was always in the interest of these subterranean, older races or species to keep a relatively pure genetic pool of human beings near at hand for their own use or convenience. Recent scientific evidence from Ireland, reported by Reuters News Service and the science journal Nature, bears this out.
According to these reports, a group of geneticists at Trinity College in Dublin, led by Daniel Bradley, have determined that the oldest "pure" racial bloodline in Europe still exists in the West of Ireland, the furthermost western edge of Europe. According to the report (March 22, 2000), Bradley and his colleagues have used surnames along with the male Y chromosome in order to reconstruct a 1,000-year-old genetic map of Ireland, demonstrating that the Irish are truly representative of a "race" which is distinct from other Europeans--a race apart.
Bradley stated to the press that "When you look at this old genetic geography of Ireland what you find is that in the West (of the Emerald Isle) we are almost exclusively of one type of Y chromosome."
The Y chromosome, passed down exclusively from father to son, is an object of interest and study to geneticists, as it accentuates differences between populations. According to Bradley:
"It is inherited as a unit so the information you get from it is of a special type."
The researchers examined the Y chromosomes of men with Gaelic surnames from the western-most province of Connaught, finding that 98.3 percent had a group of genes on the Y chromosome known as haplogroup 1.
Bradley observed, "When you look at Gaelic surnames they are different in frequency of Y chromosome types from non-Gaelic surnames."
Furthermore, more than 98 percent of men with Gaelic names in the western half of the island had haplogroup 1, but numbers dropped significantly on the eastern side of Ireland, whereas there's a gradient of haplogroup 1 across Europe which starts at almost zero in the Far East and grows to almost 100 percent in the west of Ireland. According to Bradley and his team, this gives a snapshot of what the original ancient racial type of Europe once looked like, before successive invasions and influxes by other racial or genetic groups.
Was this what Nimue and Merlin were seeking to protect from "Saxon" contamination? What better place to maintain a genetically-pure control or access group or groups than on two large islands like Britain and Ireland? But the British Isles are not the only group of islands with such a combination of relative isolation, and legends of strange interbreeding activities.
Japanese legends of serpent/dragon and human marraiges, seductions, and liaisons abound. Sometimes the offspring of such unions were said to be either more human-like or more reptilian in nature or appearance. Such shapeshifting dragon-beings, appearing as beautiful men and women, would walk into the life of prominent samurai, warlords, or other notables, obtain the desired genetic influx, and then depart. Occasionally the offspring of such unions would be left in the surface, or human,world; the dragon-person would return to his or her abode in caverns beneath the mountains or under the sea.
One such story is an ancient Japanese tale which supposedly occured in the village of Siota, at the foot of Mt. Soba, one of Japan's many "holy mountains." A maiden named Mimoto, the daughter of a prominent merchant and civic leader, became enamoured of a handsome and mysterious youth whom she took to meeting in the woods at night. Lured by his flute and seduced by his advances, Mimoto lost her sense of discretion and caused great dismay for her parents, who planned a disruption to her affair with the unknown young man. At the insistence of her parents, she attached a strong red string to the young man's garments. After his departure before dawn, Mimoto, her parents, and several strong men followed the string through the vales and forests, until at last it led them to a cavern on the slopes of Mt. Soba.
At this point in the story, mythic elements of a more symbolic nature take over--the "young man" is heard inside the cave, moaning in pain, and when Mimoto calls to him he informs her that he has "a needle in his throat," presumably the needle which she had used to attach the thread to his garments. After some coaxing, he is persuaded to come out into the light of day, and the villagers of Siota behold his true form: that of a Ryu, or dragon. He is ashamed to show his true appearance, and the people are understandably distressed. The dragon informs his lover that he will die soon, due to the prick of the needle, and that she is also pregnant with his child, whom he apparently can't take with him into "his world" due to his imminent demise.
One interesting point here is that both the bright light of morning, and the "prick" of a needle, proved the undoing of a mighty, scaled, underworld entity. As a parallel of note here, as recently as the nineteenth century traditional Celtic belief in the British Isles held that iron pins and needles, stuck in clothing, blankets, and so forth, would protect people from abduction or from being replaced with "changelings." It might be worthwhile to theorize that this is indicative of a disruption of an electromagnetic field of some sort, resulting in the "illusion" or technology (hologram?) being disabled. But since most liaisons between underworlders and humans take place at night, the radiation of the sun is just as likely to have been the source of the "dragon's" distress as would a "needle" in his throat. Still, the Reverend Robert Kirk, an investigator of the "subterraneans," who died (or, as tradition holds, was "abducted" while investigating the Fairy Hill at Aberfoyle, a natural geological formation) for his nosiness, wrote about preventing kidnapping and seduction by the "subterraneans" in THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH (originally published in 1691, changed in this work to more contemporary English for ease of reading, and to satisfy those who lay claim to Kirk's own words as their own):
"Even to this time the Gaels place bread, the Bible, or something of iron in womens' beds when they are giving birth, to save them from being abducted. And they regularly report that all unclean supernatural beings are terrified by nothing on earth more than they are by cold iron. They (the highlanders) explain that the reason is that Hell, stretched between the frigid winds (of the North) and burning instruments of red-hot metal (the deep interior of the Earth?), as well as the Northern iron (magnetic pole?), causes an attraction to that region, which frightens these unclean creatures into fearing all such forces of that region, as they believe that from that location their punishment is either being prepared, or will come."
The mention of the lodestone, or magnet, would seem to indicate an electromagnetic connection. Another interesting fact is that iron is almost never mentioned as being a material seen in use by entities or in ships in UFO cases, whereas magnesium, aluminum, and other metals or alloys are, some of which may be mistaken by "abductees" for "stainless steel," due to color and sheen. Other modern researchers in this area have indicated that the "reptoids," or underworld coalition of reptilian and gray aliens, have a fascination with, and desire to own, all of the powerful, naturally-occurring magnets that can be found. Is this due to the natural ability of these objects to disrupt various fields which are generated by a prehuman technology? This may not be effective against all subterrestrial denizens, however, as will be seen later.
Also of note is the mention that the underworlders are in fear of another subterranean region in the far north, "as they believe that from that location their punishment is either being
prepared, or will come at some future time." Both the Norse underworld of Nifleheim, and the Finnish Tuonela or "Dead Land," were believed to be located in a vortex or void somewhere in the icy reaches of the Arctic Sea. In the biblical book of Job, we find:
Job 26: 7-8:
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place ("void" in the Revised Standard Edition), and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them.
Job 26:10:
He has described a circle upon the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness. (Revised Standard Edition)
and
Job 38: 17:
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death (translated "gates of deep darkness," in the Revised Standard Edition)?
In the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, Chapter XL, Verse 9, we find:
And I measured out the whole earth, its mountains, and all hills, fields, trees, stones, rivers, all existing things I wrote down, the height from earth to the seventh heaven, and downwards to the very lowest hell, and the judgment-place, and the very great, open and weeping hell.
The Book of Enoch relates the plight of the one who has been cast out and down, in Chapter XXIX, verse 4:
And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continually above the bottomless.
In Chapter IX, verse 1, is the approximate geographic location as well as a description:
"And those two men (angels) led me up on to the Northern side (of the planet?), and showed me there a very terrible place, and there were all manner of tortures in that place: cruel darkness and unillumined gloom, and there is no light there, but murky fire constantly flameth aloft, and there is a fiery river coming forth, and that whole place is everywhere fire, and everywhere there is frost and ice, thirst and shivering, while the bonds are very cruel, and the angels fearful and merciless, bearing angry weapons, merciless torture, and I said:
"Woe, woe, how very terrible is this place."
Is this the place that the "faeries," the sidhe, and the "dragons" fear, as their eventual destination? The New Testament book of Revelation (Apocalypse) 5:13 leaves no doubt from the Judeo-Christian point of view that subterranean races exist beneath both land and sea:
"And every creature (race or people) which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea,...."
Other New Testament verses leave no doubt as to the existence of a hidden race or races, or species:
"No man in heaven, in earth, neither under the earth was able to open the book, nor look thereon." Rev. 5:13.
"That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;" --Philippians 2:10.
This latter verse was verified by Reverend Kirk, who claimed to have extensively observed the habits of the fairies. He said:
"They are believed to have nobles and a system of law, but do not display
visible religious worship, love, or dedication to God the Blessed Creator of
all things. They vanish when His name is called upon, or the name of Jesus
is invoked, as all among them that dwell above or inside the Earth bow
either willingly or by force (as in Phillipians 2, verse 10), and are
rendered powerless at the instant they hear the Holy Name."
Further elaboration on and verification of the observed electromagnetic connection comes from "Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland" by John Gregorson Campbell (1900), from the topic under the heading "Protection against Fairies:"
"The great protection against the Elfin race (and this is perhaps the most noticeable point in the whole superstition) is Iron, or preferably steel (Cruaidh). The metal in any form--a sword, a knife, a pair of scissors, a needle, a nail, a ring, a bar, a piece of reaping-hook, a gunbarrel, a fish-hook (and tales will be given illustrative of all these)--is all-powerful. On entering a Fairy dwelling, a piece of steel, a knife, needle, or fish-hook, stuck in the door, takes from the Elves the power of closing it till the intruder comes out again. A knife stuck in a deer carried home at night keeps them from laying their weight on the animal. A knife or nail in one's pocket prevents his being `lifted' at night. Nails in the front bench of the bed keep Elves from women `in the straw', and their babes. As additional safe-guards, the smoothing iron should be put below the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. A nail in the carcass of a bull that fell over a rock was believed to preserve its flesh from them. Playing the Jew's harp (tromb) kept the Elfin women at a distance from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. So also a shoemaker's awl in the door-post of his bothy kept a Glaistig from entering."
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