faeries on fridays #5

i am starting a new thing, it is called betwixt and between and it is a series of one post a week to explore the world of faery. this is an excerpt of a bigger post that you can get in your inbox once a week.

without further ado...

names are powerful things

... Many legends and tales of faery speak of the secret ways in which a faery will guard its true name. Often faeries will give you some way to address them or know them apart from others in a story.

These stories speak of how once the true name of the faery is known a person or other faery has control over the will and can control the actions and desires of the other.

To be in ones body but not in control of ones actions must be super uncomfortable and horrifying...

so i had a conversation about names... First off faeries don't tell you their names because they are long and don't translate well. We can't pronounce them and when translated into our language end up being  things like 'shining drop of dew in the moonlit forest' or 'she who walks like feathers on her feet'

Second there really is power in knowing a name and while you may not be able to harness control you do have power over the named object. Think on it this way, you travel to a foreign country and you spy an object you have never seen before. it captures your attention and is mysterious and you have no clue as to it's function or purpose. A local guide comes along and says 'ahh yes, that is a toaster. we use it to make bread crunchy.' and while this is fascinating and you might wonder why someone would need an object to make bread crunchy you  understand. But it's taken the mystery and potential and wonderment out of the object.

So to name something is to confine and define it. Super useful. But alas it makes the energy sticky around the person or the object and doesn't allow it to change. A toaster once it has been named and defined will always toast things. Don't name it or tell it's function and possibly it could be so much more interesting that the device which makes your wheat products crispy.

Faeries work with energy, they take the energy of potential and mold it into something and release it out into the world. When that energy is named they are delighted by the usefulness and practicality and delighted it has a purpose but they understand that this energy is now stuck in a form and will take many, many years to transform back into the potential state it originally came in. It's all locked up inside.

And faeries hate the idea of being stuck and all trapped inside.

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