Star Made Witch: Fairy Witchcraft Book List

Fairy Faith is a set of animist customs of working with a group of creatures whose spirits are intertwined with human fates. These creatures are known as fairies and elves in Northern European traditions and have different names all over the world. They are generally encountered in a liminal space that is induced by either or both in-between locations and trance consciousnesses. While there are many kinds of “other” spirits, fairies seem to have the more interest and relationship with humanity than others and therefore appear and endure all throughout world mysticism and mythology in various religions from animism, to polytheism to monotheism.

One of the most frequent requests my blog gets is for book recommendations for fairy faith and spirit magic practices in traditional witchcraft. Considering that fairy tales and religion are the theme this March, I will seize this opportunity to share my favorites books with you:

• Faerie Mysticism by Ari Devi. This text covers the history and migration of fairy lore in Indo-European cultures as well as complete practices for interacting with the Faery realm and meeting your familiar.
• The Living World of Faery by RJ Stewart. This compilation of texts about fairy faith and practices is a good introduction to fairy faith practice with a mixture of song, story, history and folklore and grimoire material to inspire a personal practice.
• Another good introductory text is A Deed without a Name by Lee Morgan as it has many excerpts from academic books about fairy faith, interviews and modern practices for the witchier side of fairy faith. I especially liked the information on familiar spirits and spirit flying.
• Morgan Daimler, who writes the Irish-American Witchcraft column here on the Agora, has a good book on her fairy faith practices called Fairy Witchcraft. I really like how this book is organized with sections on beliefs, plants, animals, spells and holidays like most introductory witchcraft books, but with a very simple and personal approach.
• Faeries by Brian Froud is an illustrated kind of encyclopedia of fairy races and types. It is whimsical and full of articles and excerpts from experts on fairies.
• The Sister’s Grimmoire is a spell book of magic based on Grimm’s fairy tales. They charm us with spells based off of well known classics like Cinderella as well as more obscure tales are great at connecting to that fairy way.

Fairy tales hold a large portion of witchcraft lore and in fact witches are sometimes considered a type of fairy. Fairy tales generally are about negotiating with dangerous liminal forces in an enchanted animist worldview. Witches, fairy godmothers and Rumplestiltskins all there to cause or solve problems with tricks and potions. Next time you hear a fairytale see if you get any ideas for witchery.

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