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Faery Craft: Weaving Connections with the Enchanted Realm
Weave the Enchanted Realm of Faeries into Your Life Working with the Faery realm is not about escaping from reality―it is about engaging with it on every level. Prepare to embark on a spiritual journey unlike anything you've ever known! Faery Craft is a comprehensive guide to the modern Faery lifestyle and an essential handbook to human-faerie relations. Brimming with practical and spiritual advice, you’ll discover how to use Faery magick, create altars, and find a Faery ally. Learn about proper etiquette, find your unique gifts, use the Faery zodiac, explore Faery festivals around the globe, and much more. Enjoy nearly 200 beautiful photographs alongside original art, poetry, and meditations, as well as interviews with renowned Faery authors, artists, and musicians. R. J. Stewart, John and Caitlín Matthews, Brian and Wendy Froud, Linda Ravenscroft, S. J. Tucker, and Charles de Lint are all featured in this glittering introduction to the fae and the people who love them.
"This book shows us that to connect with Faery is to connect not only with nature, spirit, and the world around us, but perhaps most of all to ourselves."―Wendy and Brian Froud, authors of The Heart of Faerie " Faery Craft opens doors into other worlds and allows its readers to pass though them and experience the wonders beyond...This is a tremendous book."―John Matthews, author of The Sidhe and How To See Faeries "Carding invites you to find the real power in the woods and forgotten ways."―Caitlín Matthews, author of Celtic Visions and Singing the Soul Back Home
"This book shows us that to connect with Faery is to connect not only with nature, spirit, and the world around us, but perhaps most of all to ourselves."―Wendy and Brian Froud, authors of The Heart of Faerie " Faery Craft opens doors into other worlds and allows its readers to pass though them and experience the wonders beyond...This is a tremendous book."―John Matthews, author of The Sidhe and How To See Faeries "Carding invites you to find the real power in the woods and forgotten ways."―Caitlín Matthews, author of Celtic Visions and Singing the Soul Back Home
360 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
52 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
Emily Carding
23 books16 followersEmily Carding is respected internationally for their esoteric writings and innovative visionary divination tools. They believe in making hidden wisdom accessible and enjoyable to all who seek knowledge, always hoping to inspire, educate and initiate.
Emily Carding is also an experienced Shakespearean actor, having appeared in versions of over twenty of Shakespeare's plays, both on stage and screen. They hold a BA (hons) in Theatre Arts from Bretton Hall and an MFA in Staging Shakespeare from the University of Exeter.
Emily Carding is also an experienced Shakespearean actor, having appeared in versions of over twenty of Shakespeare's plays, both on stage and screen. They hold a BA (hons) in Theatre Arts from Bretton Hall and an MFA in Staging Shakespeare from the University of Exeter.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 24, 2012
Lately the Fairy path has been calling out to many people, myself included, perhaps even more so then the Pagan Gods and Goddesses. I have read many books on fairy some have been simple and others have been complex. This book strikes a balance often times giving a through review. of what may have been read previously along with new information and insight. To explain the world of fairy the author uses the Septagram or seven pointed star as an out line. The Septagram was held sacred to the Goddess Inanna of ancient Sumeria. Along with a layout of the fairy world there are interviews with such gifted authors as John and Caitlyn Mathews, RJ Stewart, Charles De Lint and a whole bunch of others. Interviews are also given to Brian and Wendy Froud, Marc Potts, Karen Martinez and a slew of others. Singers and musicians are well represented also groups like Dolmen and SJ Tucker are interviewed often giving great insight in to the world of fairy. For those new to the fairy community there are resources for organizations and faerie festival. Alas I am jumping to the end of the book.
Top start with the beginning we must go with knowledge. Chapter one tells us several possibilities of who the fairies are. Some theories trace them back to old gods, other people posit they are aliens and the list goes on to spirits of the dead, fallen angels to expressions of the world soul. Some deities associated with faeries are Freya, Morrigan and Hekate. The first chapter also gives a thorough discussion on etiquette. Faeries hate Iron, be careful as to when you [partake of faerie food. Give them the first offering of a nhewly opened bottle of water, milk or alcoholic beverage. Leave food for them. About thanking faeries well perhaps follow through is very important. Always be honest when approaching the fae.
The other chapters include Connection, Trust, Honour, Magick, Joy and Inspiration. The book gives a thorough how to an doing rituals, finding tools and building a relationship with the faeries. At the end of the chapter there are exercises which help your spiritual advancement. They are worth doing as they help connect you to the environment and the fairy world. The book does not sell it self as a bible or a must do but rather as a gathering of tools as there is no room in spirituality for absolute authority.
For those seeking to walking the path of the fae or build a closer connection to them. I would advise reading this book. What is said there in will not conflict with any previous held beliefs. All hail the world of the fae.
Top start with the beginning we must go with knowledge. Chapter one tells us several possibilities of who the fairies are. Some theories trace them back to old gods, other people posit they are aliens and the list goes on to spirits of the dead, fallen angels to expressions of the world soul. Some deities associated with faeries are Freya, Morrigan and Hekate. The first chapter also gives a thorough discussion on etiquette. Faeries hate Iron, be careful as to when you [partake of faerie food. Give them the first offering of a nhewly opened bottle of water, milk or alcoholic beverage. Leave food for them. About thanking faeries well perhaps follow through is very important. Always be honest when approaching the fae.
The other chapters include Connection, Trust, Honour, Magick, Joy and Inspiration. The book gives a thorough how to an doing rituals, finding tools and building a relationship with the faeries. At the end of the chapter there are exercises which help your spiritual advancement. They are worth doing as they help connect you to the environment and the fairy world. The book does not sell it self as a bible or a must do but rather as a gathering of tools as there is no room in spirituality for absolute authority.
For those seeking to walking the path of the fae or build a closer connection to them. I would advise reading this book. What is said there in will not conflict with any previous held beliefs. All hail the world of the fae.
October 2, 2014
I have been working with Faeries for quite a while, and this has helped me a lot! I highly recommend this.
August 3, 2013
This book, Faery Craft is essentially about modern practitioners expressing how they work to honour the fairy kingdom in a kind of arts/dance/interpretive expressive way. It unfortunately is light on Lore, light on ritual complexity, and tends to heavily focus on the Ren Faire scene in the UK. This was where I was disappointed. There are some Wicca 101 rituals and meditation spread lightly in the book, but this feels like it's an after thought done to add meat to a book that is thin on most things. I was also disappointed that there was not much historical exploration backed up with sources. I don't want to say this book is bad, because it has heart. Clearly the author, who is a talented artist has passion for the subject and her way of celebrating the fairy. But it doesn't venture much outside the narrow context of girls dressing up in wire coat hanger wings and dancing at Ren fairs type of expression. I wouldn't even say this is a fairy 101 book, it's more like an introduction pamphlet with the length of a 101 book.
The audience for this book, that will love the book are those already heavily in this scene. They will like the spirit of this book as it adds to their existing collection. But I feel that it could turn away certain pagans who are looking for a more serious approach with some more historical accuracy or exploration of old literature.
I wouldn't recommend this book to introduce people to incorporating honouring nature spirits in their pagan path, because I believe it will comes across as too fluffy. That being said, it seems to be a labour of love, and those not scared off by a bit of artistically applied fluff, will enjoy this book. It's why I'm giving it 3/5 stars. If I thought it was really bad, it would get a 1 or 2. This book is for the already converted to the Faery Realms.
The audience for this book, that will love the book are those already heavily in this scene. They will like the spirit of this book as it adds to their existing collection. But I feel that it could turn away certain pagans who are looking for a more serious approach with some more historical accuracy or exploration of old literature.
I wouldn't recommend this book to introduce people to incorporating honouring nature spirits in their pagan path, because I believe it will comes across as too fluffy. That being said, it seems to be a labour of love, and those not scared off by a bit of artistically applied fluff, will enjoy this book. It's why I'm giving it 3/5 stars. If I thought it was really bad, it would get a 1 or 2. This book is for the already converted to the Faery Realms.
October 10, 2012
As someone who has worked with Fae energies for a good number of years now as well as being active in the Festival community, I find this piece to relevant and well researched. A wonderful introductory piece for the initiated and a fond romp through the whimsical and fae for the more seasoned reader.
August 12, 2016
A beautiful addition to my faerie book collection! :) Review coming soon.
October 5, 2018
This is literally the most cringeworthy book on witchcraft I've read, ever.
It starts off pretty mediocre. There's the superficial Wicca 101 stuff, a section on making offerings (fortunately one that discourages glitter, which I've seen seriously suggested in other books) and information or Paracelsus' elementals. There's a fairy-flavoured reinterpretation of the sun signs. All in all, pretty much what you'd expect from such a book like this, nothing special.
It takes a terrible turn in Chapter 6, 'Joy'. In this chapter, the author goes though fairy festivals, lists awful fairy-themed magazines, fills a good 30 pages of the ebook with pictures of tacky fairy costumes, then pens a whole section about making the costumes for the kid's birthday parties she performs at, including pictures of her shopping (no joke).
Frankly, this part of the book frankly made me immensely embarrassed to share the label 'witch' with the author and her renfair friends. Apparently, the 'fairy lifestyle' is a thing, and it involves dressing up in a sexualized version of children's fairy costumes and going to festivals with all the clichés-- fire-twirlers, glowering goth girls in unflattering haircuts, bellydancers, corsets. Clearly, the Craft -- or what little of it there is in this book -- came after the LARPing. It's like everything (well, almost everything) I hate about pagan culture distilled into 50 pages. Even as someone who objects to magicians who deliberately hide their techniques so they can't be used by others, it makes me want to rip the fairy parts from my personal grimoire and bury them in the backyard so that no one who would read this book and think it has good ideas in it might ever mix any of what's in this book with my own work.
Although this chapter, supposedly on 'joy', is just a paper-thin excuse for the author to write about playing dress-up, I find the idea that joy and playfulness is an essential part of having relationships with fairies to be really vapid and infantile, even for the commercialized 20th century 'love-and-light' fairy that this book is about. It indicates to me that the author hasn't though about it with any depth for more than a couple seconds. As much as we like to project our longing for the innocence of both childhood and a bucolic rural past onto fairies, they are but fairy-fires. Nature, (both in the sense of trees, mountains or flowers and human nature) is pretty brutal at times. Even the dandelion so many fairies have perched on delicately in paintings has a dark secret -- dandelions poison the seeds of some other flowers so that they will never grow. Any well-rounded fairy-based witchcraft has to come to terms with this in an intelligent manner. It can't be covered up with glittery face-paint.
The final chapter is just a rather advertorial set of interviews of some artists and practitioners of various kinds of fairy-based 'spirituality' (for lack of a better word). It's fine for what it is, though sometimes it comes across as if the author is trying to wring a spiritual interpretation of their work out of the artists they are interviewing.
I know 'gatekeeping' is frowned upon in online pagan circles and we're all supposed to hold our tongues about other people's practices (witchcraft is, like, personal, man) but some things just do not deserve respect if we are to have any integrity at all. This is one of those things: it's childish, insipid, unintelligent, tacky and clearly born from a desire to play pretend rather than from respect of the spirits she claims to contact. I'm sure the author is a perfectly nice woman, but I can't help feeling intense frustration, even anger, at the fact this was published as if it were a serious pagan book. Even though I really dislike the dressing up, I could at least appreciate it a little if the author would acknowledge that she is playacting and that this isn't real witchcraft at all. But, no, there are no signs of that ever happening.
It shocks me that it has four stars. I hope most of the four and five star ratings are from people who just like the aesthetic and the art. I mean, if you want to know how to design a fairy costume for a festival, then this is the book for you.
Oh yeah, did I mention this book takes otherkin seriously? Oh dear...
It starts off pretty mediocre. There's the superficial Wicca 101 stuff, a section on making offerings (fortunately one that discourages glitter, which I've seen seriously suggested in other books) and information or Paracelsus' elementals. There's a fairy-flavoured reinterpretation of the sun signs. All in all, pretty much what you'd expect from such a book like this, nothing special.
It takes a terrible turn in Chapter 6, 'Joy'. In this chapter, the author goes though fairy festivals, lists awful fairy-themed magazines, fills a good 30 pages of the ebook with pictures of tacky fairy costumes, then pens a whole section about making the costumes for the kid's birthday parties she performs at, including pictures of her shopping (no joke).
Frankly, this part of the book frankly made me immensely embarrassed to share the label 'witch' with the author and her renfair friends. Apparently, the 'fairy lifestyle' is a thing, and it involves dressing up in a sexualized version of children's fairy costumes and going to festivals with all the clichés-- fire-twirlers, glowering goth girls in unflattering haircuts, bellydancers, corsets. Clearly, the Craft -- or what little of it there is in this book -- came after the LARPing. It's like everything (well, almost everything) I hate about pagan culture distilled into 50 pages. Even as someone who objects to magicians who deliberately hide their techniques so they can't be used by others, it makes me want to rip the fairy parts from my personal grimoire and bury them in the backyard so that no one who would read this book and think it has good ideas in it might ever mix any of what's in this book with my own work.
Although this chapter, supposedly on 'joy', is just a paper-thin excuse for the author to write about playing dress-up, I find the idea that joy and playfulness is an essential part of having relationships with fairies to be really vapid and infantile, even for the commercialized 20th century 'love-and-light' fairy that this book is about. It indicates to me that the author hasn't though about it with any depth for more than a couple seconds. As much as we like to project our longing for the innocence of both childhood and a bucolic rural past onto fairies, they are but fairy-fires. Nature, (both in the sense of trees, mountains or flowers and human nature) is pretty brutal at times. Even the dandelion so many fairies have perched on delicately in paintings has a dark secret -- dandelions poison the seeds of some other flowers so that they will never grow. Any well-rounded fairy-based witchcraft has to come to terms with this in an intelligent manner. It can't be covered up with glittery face-paint.
The final chapter is just a rather advertorial set of interviews of some artists and practitioners of various kinds of fairy-based 'spirituality' (for lack of a better word). It's fine for what it is, though sometimes it comes across as if the author is trying to wring a spiritual interpretation of their work out of the artists they are interviewing.
I know 'gatekeeping' is frowned upon in online pagan circles and we're all supposed to hold our tongues about other people's practices (witchcraft is, like, personal, man) but some things just do not deserve respect if we are to have any integrity at all. This is one of those things: it's childish, insipid, unintelligent, tacky and clearly born from a desire to play pretend rather than from respect of the spirits she claims to contact. I'm sure the author is a perfectly nice woman, but I can't help feeling intense frustration, even anger, at the fact this was published as if it were a serious pagan book. Even though I really dislike the dressing up, I could at least appreciate it a little if the author would acknowledge that she is playacting and that this isn't real witchcraft at all. But, no, there are no signs of that ever happening.
It shocks me that it has four stars. I hope most of the four and five star ratings are from people who just like the aesthetic and the art. I mean, if you want to know how to design a fairy costume for a festival, then this is the book for you.
Oh yeah, did I mention this book takes otherkin seriously? Oh dear...
April 12, 2013
I have flipped through this book and have decided I need to get two copies! YAY! In due time I will get them. <3
March 16, 2013
An interesting primer to the Otherworld and fae magick.
May 17, 2014
This book has a very promising start but unfortunately it does not really live up to it in the end. All in all it is good humoured and nice to read but nothing new under the sun. All the exercises and faery craft ideas are basic pagan things you can read in every single basic pagan book yet here they've been altered a bit to be more about faery.
If you love the faery (all the velvet & chiffon festival bling bling included) you will probably like this book but I wish there was more depth and substance to it.
If you love the faery (all the velvet & chiffon festival bling bling included) you will probably like this book but I wish there was more depth and substance to it.
May 5, 2015
Pretty useful tidbits, especially the visualizations. Most if it seems arbitrary but that is to be expected when dealing with an abstract concept.
January 25, 2017
Very informative, organized layout towards the idea of fairies. Includes modern day illustrations. Also activities, shrines, wands etc.
Fascinating!
Fascinating!
March 25, 2023
I love this book! I recently discovered I’ve been working with the Fae since childhood and was completely surprised when I started looking into it just how many others have throughout history. I was given inspiration to describe my experiences, insight into lore, customs and magickal practices regarding the Fae and also community! It seems in this time of ecological crisis, the Fae are reaching out to humans and perhaps they have a plan to inspire us to change the way we live to save our planet. It felt good knowing others have felt and heard this message and are taking action.
This book is a quality bound and printed paperback designed for ling shelf-life. The illustrations and layout add to the magical experience of reading this book. My only critique is I wish the pictures were in color.
All in all, a wonderful, inspiring read.
This book is a quality bound and printed paperback designed for ling shelf-life. The illustrations and layout add to the magical experience of reading this book. My only critique is I wish the pictures were in color.
All in all, a wonderful, inspiring read.
October 1, 2022
This book had a few interesting takes & ideas in the beginning... near the half of it, I kinda switched off. The last three chapters were irritating & what I was hoping *not* to get when I bought that book online.
July 22, 2023
Un po' pesante per un pubblico di lettori faery.
July 23, 2023
I thought this was a crafting book. It isn't. It's a book about being a fairy as a religious choice.
July 3, 2024
Review posted on my blog https://whiteroseofavalon.life/2024/0....
June 24, 2015
Loving Emily's work, especially her art on her card decks. I was asked to provide a written "interview" for the Tie eldalieva, the Elven Path, which is a spiritual path rooted in the Elven viewpoint of Professor JRR Tolkien's Middle-Earth stories (collectively called the Legendarium - www.elvenspirituality.com has the full article). I actually loved reading this book and it reminded me of when I was first exploring spiritual connection to the natural/elemental world. Well done Emily!
November 14, 2014
There is a lot of false information in here. Though it is written in a fun manner, be ready to double check almost everything you read to see if it's accurate or not.
Read
December 8, 2014DNF
December 1, 2015
It's a good book of basics re: history, stories etc. I couldn't finish it right away. I finally did. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Fae Lore.
May 26, 2014
Fluff. Too much derived of Wicca, not enough of how much Faery is an Otherworld.
April 12, 2017
I think that this books starts out really great, but then looses the reader in the culture and personal friends of the author's faire life. It became almost autobiographical, which is fun if you are at a local pub or wrote the book for friends, but I don't know her, so it was really hard to follow about 1/2 of the way in.
I think the author could follow it up with a more concise and in depth information of faire ways and life, especially the symbology/mediation aspect - fascinating part of the book.
Overall an okay read.
I think the author could follow it up with a more concise and in depth information of faire ways and life, especially the symbology/mediation aspect - fascinating part of the book.
Overall an okay read.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews