Even before we leave Earth we must remember that we share the planet with a race of elementals: beings made up of the subtle essences of the elements rather than the physical matter that makes up our own bodies. Today it often escapes our perception, but some individuals, and even entire races such as the Celts and Scandinavians, are an assumed reality, often felt, heard, and sometimes even seen. People see and hear them as fairies, goblins, elves, gnomes, and in many other colorful forms. This brief anecdote from the Isle of Man, taken from Evans-Wentz‘s The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, contains in essence the favorite themes of fairy musical traditions:
William Cain, of Glen Helen, was coming home in the evening through the mountains near Brook’s Park, when he heard music under a glen, and saw there a great palace-like glass house, all lighted up. He stopped to listen and when he had caught the new melody he went home to practice it on his violin. He recently played the same fairy tune on Peel at Miss Sophia Morrison’s Man party.
Here we have a mysterious music heard at sunset, the crystalline palace of the other world, and fairies as a source of inspiration for mortal musicians. It is something that is heard in places of ancient and highly magical lineage, such as the Hill of Tara, the spiritual center of all Ireland, and near megalithic structures: stone circles, burial mounds… In Tara an old man told Evans -Wentz::
I am as sure that you are sitting, as that I heard the flutes there in the forest… I often hear them in the forest of Tara. Every time the “good people” play, the music is clearly heard throughout the field; and it’s the most wonderful kind of music. It can last for half the night, but once the sun rises, it’s over.
Sometimes fairies are as much seen as heard.
(Excerpts from the book entitled: Harmonies of Heaven and Earth. The spiritual dimension of music from Antiquity to the Avant-garde, written by Joscelyn Godwin).
