Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 87

Nowadays, when most people think of fairies, neither fallen angels nor ancient gods come readily to mind. Many people today regard the fairy phenomenon as the conscious intelligence of the spirits of nature—whether that means spirits associated with specific plants or animals, or spirits linked to a place, or simply spirits who are somehow more linked to the natural world than we clumsy humans are. Given their history of living underground, the fairies appear to be chthonic spirits, that is to say, spirits of the deep earth—not to be confused with the celestial spirits of the sky and beyond, traditionally seen not as fairies but as angels. Fairy theorist R.J. Stewart suggests that fairies are the next step up the evolutionary ladder beyond humans; presumably one of the benefits of occupying a higher rung on the Darwinian ladder is a natural ability to live in closer harmony with nature. At any rate, just as angels are the messengers from the heavenly realm, fairies seem to play an oblique latter-day role as the messengers from mother earth.