The Fairy Festivals!
The fairies have 3 festivals: May Ever (April 31), Midsummer Ever (The night
before the Summer Sustice), and November Eve (or Halloween, October 31).
These three nights of the year are when fairies were thought to be particularly
powerful, and when magic and every form of witchcraft was believed to be
practiced.
May Eve
Every seventh year they fight all around, but mostly on the "Plaine-a-bawn", for
the best ears of grain belong to them from the harvest. All you may see if a
great wind whirling everywhere in the air as it passes. When this wind makes
straws and leaves whirl as it passes, that is the fairies, and the peasantry take
off their hats and say, "God bless them."
Midsummer Ever
When bonfires are lighted on every hill in honor of Saint John, the fairies are
their gayest, and sometimes steal away beautiful mortals to be their brides.
Puck is not considered a fairy in popular superstition, but as was some
other kind of spirit, who was a favorite of all the spirits that haunted the
English countryside, dispensing merry pranks.
The English fairy was believed to be the height of, or just below, that of a
normal human. They were uncanny, fearful, and mean in the English folklore.
November Eve
This is when they're their gloomiest because in old Gaelic Reckoning, this is the
first night of the winter. They dance with ghosts, the Pooka is abroad, witches
make their spells, and girls set a table with food in the name of the devil, that
if he fetch of their future lover may come through the window and want of the
food. After this day, blackberries are no longer wholesome because the Pooka
has spoiled them.
