You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[davem]

That makes it synonymous with Eden for me, but I suppose that's just one of many myths with a once-upon-a-time unfallenness. But your view of Faery seems a tad idealized to me.

Originally Posted by Bb

So it seems to me also, lmp, very idealised. However, I would ask davem just what he means by "perfect 'unfallen' world". As he has pointed out, many of the original 'fairies' are contemptuous, cruel and malicious and it is Tolkien who sanitizes them. (See his first post in this thread.) Perhaps davem could clarify what he means by this unfallenness.

'Fallen' away from its archetypal state. My problem is that you're both asking me to explain my experiences - I can't - I can only theorise about them & my theories may be wrong.

I feel that Faeries are 'children' of the earth & that Faery is not the human imagination but the imagination of the earth itself. I also feel that Tolkien spoke quite literally when he stated that the 'Secret Fire' was sent to dwell at the heart of the world, & that this is a 'spiritual' (ie conscious) fire & is the life & soul of the earth itself. If it has life & soul it seems reasonable to conjecture that it has imagination as well.

As for the traditional antagonism of the Fairy races to the human, I suspect that can be accounted for by our own antagonism towards the earth. As the 'primary' races of the Archetypal (Fairies) & devolved (Human) worlds, our task is perhaps to find a way to re-establish the harmony that once existed - perhaps that original harmony was what Tolkien was describing in his mythology. The two worlds are 'out of synch' & that may be the explanation for the disharmony.

Or I could be completely wrong - as I say, I'm attempting to construct an explanation for something that happened to me.