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Origins of the Sidhe (High Fae) [CD spoilers]

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Serack:
In writing a response to a question in the topic discussing the possibility of Molly having Changeling blood, I ended up writing something pretty involved… Since it covers a lot more than issues with Molly, and I put a bit of work into it, I thought I’d start this new topic for it. 


--- Quote from: Rykel22 on May 07, 2014, 01:13:05 AM ---This idea that Molly was part Fae prior to becoming the Winter Lady is interesting but it also begs the question, it is possible that a human, wizard or not, can become a Fae. The last few changes in the mantle have been to changelings, but that's not to say that under the right conditions a human could become a fae. And when did Cold Days take place? Halloween, a major conjecture when immortal beings can gain and lose power, die or come into being.
And perhaps other conjectures, more minor than Halloween, had been played. Molly's abduction to Artics Tor, as well as her use of fear ind magic forged a link to Winter and her training by Lea, in which one aspect was using misdirection to defeat her foes, made her able to accept such a power, on the right day.

--- End quote ---

Good question. 

I came into reading the DF series with relatively little understanding of some of the Fae and Norse legends, and over the years, being a fan of the DF has motivated me to do a bit of research on the background influences like these legends.  The things that most influence my understandings of this material are Wikipedia (and other random internet reading), the book Mists of Avalon, The Iron Druid Chronicles, and DF research / theorizing / input from people on these boards.  However, I only consider myself moderately informed when it comes to the Fae origin legends.  I have managed to cobble it together in a way that I feel is informative about the DF mythos though, so this is an attempt to try to share some of that. 

First let me hash out a term…  Jim mentions that the Sidhe hate being called fairies.  The term Sidhe has a lot of variations of spelling and meaning behind it, and the below comments will use the terms Fae, High Fae, and Sidhe to refer to essentially the same thing.  Although I’ll interchange between the terms, I'll usually stick with “Fae” because it seems to be the most common term used in the DF.  However, the term I think holds closest to what I mean to communicate for the purposes of this post is “Sidhe” meaning the Fae nobility and a lot of other things, but that's what this post is about.  Notice that Lea’s fuller name “Leanansidhe” has Sidhe in it… there’s a reason for that.

Origins of the Sidhe (High Fae)

My understanding is that the Fae were a race of beings that were long ago prominent here on earth.  With the coming of the Iron Age, Humanity won some wars (I’m not confident that they were all martial wars) against them and a treaty was signed that the Fae would have dominion of either the inside of the Barrows, or under the ground period, while the wielders of Iron would get the top side.  (Sidhe literally means Barrow/Mound, short for dwellers/people of the mounds.)

Which sounds pretty bad for the Fae, except that they used their magic to alter reality and developed the Barrows into the Fae portions of the NN (this is blending the DF terms into the legends as I understand them, some sources I’ve read describe them building their own reality within the Barrows, others describe them retreating into an existing plane they had access to, which isn’t mutually exclusive of course).  During this transition, there were still humans that were hunter/gatherers living amongst the Iron Age farmers and craftsmen.  These hunter/gatherers had traditions that incorporated these Barrow dwellers into their religion, and there were farmers/craftsmen with heritage that also incorporated some of these traditions.  Conversely there were other farmers/craftsmen that were influenced by them in other ways where they were afraid of them (it gets confusing considering these relationships changed over millennia, it’s all distant history, and I’m relatively ignorant).

Well some of the druids and priests and rulers of these traditions were said to have blood ties to the Fae/Sidhe, (Merlin himself is said in many legends to have been half incubus).  Interestingly enough, in the Author/Camelot legends their seat of power, Avalon, is said to have had a much later, parallel regression from our reality (compared to the Fae Barrows) into an alternate (Fae) plane as our reality pulled further from the Bronze age.  Also interesting is that some of those legends seem to tie Greek Atlantis legends to the Fae/druids, although the relationship is really hazy to me.

Ok, now that I’ve given a bit of an essay on my understanding of the origins of the Sidhe and their plane of existence, I’ll mention that I understand that a lot of the lesser fairies are more like minions/decedents that originate more wholly from this… newish plane of existence (there are some details that confuse me see reply #4, especially since I’m bouncing back and forth between other legends, and the DF set of rules), while the more deific Fae/Sidhe rulers seem to have originally come from our reality.  The Fae/Sidhe could have originally been powerful humans or some such whose nature was altered by their magic (and taking up of certain responsibilities/being incorporated into mortal belief systems), and some say the Gaelic portions of humanity were their decedents that stayed on this side of reality.

In Fact, Jim has pretty much stated that Erlking used to be mortal, and got his position by doing some Darkhallow style rite. 

--- Quote from: jimbutcher on April 08, 2009, 10:58:03 PM ---
--- Quote --- 5. cowl with darkhallow - really? just a bunch of spirits...
--- End quote ---
If he'd succeeded, he'd have had the collective power of all of those supernatural beings and then some.  He'd have been clearly stronger than the Ladies, and a full-on equal to Mab.  I mean, why do you think the Erlking was summoned as part of that ritual?  Because that's how the big E got so boss in the first place. :)
--- End quote ---

Now the Mothers echelon… that is a bit different in my mind.

I wandered about a bit in writing all this up.  Hopefully I managed to keep it coherent.

As one final note, I’ll quote something Jim wrote about the Fae back in 2000 between the publishing of Storm Front and Fool Moon. (source)


--- Quote from: 8/3/2000 WoJ from Laura K. Hamilton email list ---On a related topic, any theories on why the fey hate 'cold iron'? There's an explanation in a novel I'll look up-- something about having ties only to the earth and not the other elements. Sounds muddled, but it made sense when I read it. (Definitely must go look it up.)

Well, strictly speaking, in legend the faeries did not like iron of any sort--not just cold-forged, but /any/ iron or iron compound, including steel.  Common ways to use this to your advantage included driving nails into the threshold to keep faeries from crossing it, or hanging a horseshoe above the door "for luck"--also to keep out unwelcome faeries.

The deepest reasons for Faeries disliking steel are rooted in the conflict of nature versus civilization, wilderness versus farmland. Hunter-gatherer cultures (generally speaking) did not have the same advanced metalworking capabilities of agricultural societies. Iron was used in /everything/ you needed to run a farm. You used an iron plow, iron was used in building, iron was used in harness and tack, to make tools, to make weapons--everything.

Iron is a metal uniquely symbolic of mankind (or personkind if you're the PC sort), and is used by nothing else in the same way. Many baneful creatures of folklore and legend loathed the kiss of cold iron (or cold steel) and some folklore holds that the presence of iron could keep a witch from casting baneful magic at a household or individual. Folklore from the late middle ages draws upon the image of the Crucifixion to provide substances baneful to creatures of darkness--the wood of the cross, which could be used to, among other things, stake vampires, and the nails that
pierced the Savior's hands and feet (wrists and ankles, technically) which became a bane to mischievious or malign spirits of nature.

Even in today's society, which draws further and further away from the 'natural' state at a geometric pace, iron is THE single most commonly used and available metal in the world. We use it for darn near everything, in one amount or another. Iron is the substance whose presence allowed us to develop from more primitive, dangerous cultures into larger and relatively safe ones. It's the soul of civilization, of bringing humanity's order to
the living chaos of nature.

Naturally no faerie worth the name would like it. 

Jim
--- End quote ---

Edit:  Side note that came up in comments below...
There is some conflicting information as to where some of the Sidhe came from.  There is book information that says that Mab and the Sidhe came from humans, and there are some distinct WoJ's that say that the Sidhe came from dew drop faries like Toot-Toot (Here are a few of those WoJ's quoted from my "WoJ compilation"

(click to show/hide)
--- Quote from: Serack on October 16, 2010, 03:06:55 PM ---Toot-Toot
2009 Lexington signing:
Q:  How big will Toot get?
A:  Depends on how much influence he has in the world.  That’s how the sidhe gain their size and power.  Mab wasn’t always as big as she is now.
2010 Bitten by Books Q&A:
#150 Is Toot-toot’s increase in size due to his actions, or the title and followers he has acquired doing Harry’s bidding?”
It’s due to /Harry’s/ actions, mostly. Toot done hitched his star to Harry’s wagon. As a result, he’s taken actions he never would have taken on his own, some of which had major consequences. Toot has effectively become a much more powerful being than he was as an independent dewdrop faerie. The physical growth is a reflection of that fact.
I mean gosh, where do you think the Sidhe came from in the first place? :D
2009 Kansas City Q&A @41:45
With all the things Toot Toot and the Za Lord's guard have done that made a difference, and with Toot getting bigger, is that going to upset the balance in the Summer court?
The answer is no, because they are not Summer anyway, they are wildfae.  And everybody over in summer is going to blame Harry for everything they do.  They regard them as a tool and Harry is the guy holding it.  Harry would tell you that he's probably the tool but...  Anyway Toot Toot's been growing because that's where the Sidhe came from to begin with.  They weren't always all tall and glamorous, they kind of got that way. 
--- End quote ---

As I said in reply #9 below, I have a couple other things that I desperately want to see Jim asked (things I've already seen him answer, just not in public forums), but the one thing I don't know, really want an answer to, and suspect he will actually answer is... (leme try to word this in the most concise way possible...)


--- Quote from: question for Jim ---You've said on multiple occasions that Mab and all Sidhe got the way they are through a process like former dewdrop faerie Toot-Toot's growth.
You've also said in the books and in interviews that all Fae have mortal origins (mostly in context of changelings).
Could you please reconcile these two apparently contradictory ideas?
--- End quote ---

Serack:
Ok, now that I've got that initial wall of text posted, here are some thoughts on how it applies to the DF. 

I'm pretty sure that most of the major, proginitor Fae/Sidhe along Mab, Erlking, Lea, EBG and the Red Cap's level used to be a part of our reality, and took upon themselves power and responsibility for their current roles and ended up as members of the Fae mythos through a process a bit like the post above, with individual origin stories that have some deviation. 

I have done a lot of thinking I'll label as "Mantle Theory" that also corresponds to this, in that some of these... positions are also related to other Mythos and even some primal, not necessarily entirely mortal sourced influences on reality, both NN and the Mortal Realm.

Edit:  Here are some further thoughts I hashed out in a later reply that build directly upon the above in this reply:

TCF and I are working together to do a major update to the WoJ compilation, and over the course of this work, several interesting WoJ's are coming forefront to my attention.  Two interesting ones that in some ways seem to be contradictory in my mind, and in other ways build off each other in interesting ways are:

(click to show/hide)
--- Quote from: 2012 AMA WoJ ---Dudesan: What we've seen of the cosmology of The Dresden Files seems very Earth-centric. Is that because everything really does revolve around the Earth[1] , or because we're seeing only a tiny slice of a much bigger picture? Are there other planets in real-space inhabited by extraterrestrial sentient beings? If so, do they have their own analogues of wizards, fairies, gods, etc? Are supernatural things influenced by their belief as it is by those of humans? If so, to what extent do these "spheres of influence" overlap?
Jim: 3) Everything revolves around /this/ earth, in the Dresden stories. But not necessarily around all (or even a majority of) the other earths that exist in the continuum of possibility created by free will. Other, parallel realities have other worlds playing a more central role, and some of them have earth in a nice quiet backwater, peaceful, relatively conflict free, and boring.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: 2012 AMA WoJ ---Dudesan: The same story [Backup] seemed to imply that entities could gain or lose power retroactively, in a wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey sort of way. For example, The Almighty is the Creator of the Universe, but He hasn't always been the Creator of the Universe[4] . Is there anything to this assumption, and if so, might we see it explored in greater detail later?
Jim: 7) You're assigning limits where there aren't any. In the Dresden Files universe, what changes really isn't the actual beings. It's our understanding of who and what they are.
--- End quote ---

And here is another, older WoJ that is also pertinent:
(click to show/hide)
--- Quote from: 2011 GS Release interview ---There is a rather long discussion as to what constitutes free will as an element in the back end of this book (Ghost Story).  Is what is presented and discussed as a concept, your own philosophy?  How did that come about, the idea that free will is making your choices based upon truth.
Right, and in the Dresden Files universe it's a vital component.  It's what divides mortals, human beings, from everybody else.  Is that we're the ones that have elements of both good and evil inside us, we're the ones who get to chose what to do.  And because that's who we are, we make the world around us through those choices.  The forces of the universe, these cosmic forces are always balanced against one another, and we're the ones who can tilt that see-saw one way or another with our actions.  I think that is largely true in real life, but it is certainly a very fun, dramatic use of the concept of free will for writing with.  It's very important in general, and that's why Harry, as he's gotten more mature, he's striven so much harder to make sure that other people have a choice, you know, he's not trying to make choices for people any more, he's trying to make sure that they know what's going on, and can make an informed choice.
--- End quote ---

What does this mean, and how does it apply to the origins of the Fae?  Welllll, in terms of "the cosmic forces of the universe" these forces could be considered beings who "don't change"  yet, apparently Mortal, Free Will driven choices can determine their prominence in reality, to the point of altering which forces in a particular version of reality hold sway over that reality... 

Now for the actual theorizing...  This is dipping into my "Mantle Theory" ideas, something that I'm working hard to make a major post about in the next month or so.

Edit:  I finally got around to building that "Mantle Theory" topic and it's a doosie.

So what if some of these choices made by those with free will that cause certain cosmic powers to come to prominence in reality also involve taking on some of the aspects, powers and responsibilities of these cosmic powers/entities.  And one of the flavors of how this could have happened in the past, could have involved changing some of these pivotal mortals into Sidhe.

(click to show/hide)Now for another what-if, which IMO is not as pivotal.  What if there was another ancient human-like race hewn from the muck of Earth in parallel with the human race.  This hypothetical race also possessed free will, and in making some of these reality deterministic choices they were the ones that morphed into the Sidhe and took on those roles and responsibilities.  I don't necessarily think this is how things work/worked in the DF considering the info about fae coming from mortals, but the recent Bigfoot stories (and especially Big G's presence in Skin Game since he was "mortal" enough to wield a coin) show that there may be Free Willed beings in Harry's plane that aren't human.  Although the Bigfoot stories have one procreating with a human so it is a bit confusing.

Lost Merlin:
I thought the Fae level of power was directly related on some extent to who knew about your or those under you? IIRC Toot-toot is a great example of this.  Is it possible that he would be able to ascend to the ranks of the High Fae if he accumulates enough followers or renown?

Mira:

  Then there is the matter of reproduction..  Mother Summer in Cold Days related that the Fae reproduce with humans, > changelings > who then decide whether to become full Fae or mortals..   

Serack:

--- Quote from: Lost Merlin on May 07, 2014, 03:54:17 PM ---I thought the Fae level of power was directly related on some extent to who knew about your or those under you? IIRC Toot-toot is a great example of this.  Is it possible that he would be able to ascend to the ranks of the High Fae if he accumulates enough followers or renown?

--- End quote ---

My interpretation:  Toot is getting bigger because he is taking on responsibility (some WoJ's use the term influence, others say "taking action").  Part of this responsibility does mean that he is taking authority over some other dew-drop fairies, but he is also taking on responsibility in more ways than just leading the Guard.  For example, he has started associating this role as having certain duties to Harry, and now to Winter as well. 

The responsibility thing is key in my aforementioned “Mantle Theory” thoughts as well.

On the other hand, I am quite confused about one detail (I mentioned being confused about some details in the OP). 

On the one hand, we have multiple references to the Sidhe and Faeries coming from mortal origins.  Jim has said “All the fae are part mortal.  There is some bit of mortal in every single one of the fae.”  Mother Summer discussed with Harry about how “we conceive our children with mortals.”  Mab says she was mortal once, and Jim has talked about her having been a mortal.

On the other hand, it is hard to imagine dew-drop fairies procreating with mortals.  Especially the extremely tiny one that guided Harry to Maeve in Summer Knight.  And Jim has commented over and over that Mab and all the Sidhe come from origins like Toot’s.  Confusing.

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