The land of Avalon is one of the most famous of the fairy lands across the sea. This is where some believe King Arthur lies sleeping, awaiting the hour when he will return to rule again.
In Old Norse mythology, there are Nine Worlds which are home to the various types of beings, including humans, elves, gods, and goddesses, that make up the Old Norse worldview. These worlds are held in the branches and roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Alfheim is the world of the elves. Asgard is the world of the Aesir tribe of gods and goddesses, located in the sky, invisible to human eyes but linked to the human realm by the rainbow bridge Bifrost. Midgard is the name given to the human world.
“Gard” is derived from the old Germanic idea of innangard and utangard. Literally meaning “inside the fence” and “outside the fence,” the terms applied to the physical or geographical location of a place as well as the mindset of its inhabitants. The human world’s name of Midgard, or “Middle Enclosure,” implied that humankind sat somewhere between the ordered, innangard world of the gods of Asgard, and the chaotic, utangard world of the giants of Jotunheim.
In-between Places
Just as fairies are often connected with thresholds and transitions in human lives, such as birth and death, so too fairy worlds are located at thresholds and borders. Woods and forests that mark the separation of a town or village from the wilderness of nature, seashores and mountaintops at the point between sea and land, land and sky—all of these are in-between places where fairies dwell. Domestic fairies traditionally make the hearth their home, which sits at the point of intersection between the cosy world inside the household and what lurks outside. Twilight, midnight, Samhain (Halloween), the times favored by fairies, are all in-between times, on the cusp of night and day, light and dark, summer and winter.
The Passage of Time in Fairyland
In many accounts of visits to fairyland, time operates differently there from in the human world. In some accounts, it takes on a dreamlike quality, expanding so that a year spent with the fairies is a mere few minutes in the mortal world. One such story is that of the Welsh boy who entered a fairy ring to dance and was transported to a glittering palace in a beautiful garden, in the middle of which was a well in which fish of gold and silver swam. His fairy hosts told him he could live in their realm as long as liked, providing he kept to one rule: he must never drink from the well. After a time, the desire to drink from the well grew until it became so strong, the boy could no longer resist and he cupped his hands and drank. Immediately, a cry shook the garden and he found himself standing back on the chilly hillside among his father’s sheep. Though it had seemed to him that weeks had gone by, hardly an hour of human time had passed.
More common are the tales of time passing so swiftly in fairyland that a person who thinks they have been away for only three days returns to find that 300 years have passed in the mortal realm. In the Japanese story of Urashima Tar, a fisherman who rescued a turtle was rewarded with a visit to the underwater realm of the dragon god, Ryu¯jin. He was a guest at his palace, Ryu¯gu¯-j¯o, but after three days, he asked to return to his village on land to visit his ageing mother. He arrived there only to discover that 300 years had passed. Then he opened a tamatebako, a special box, a gift from the underwater realm, which he had promised to keep shut, and released a cloud of white smoke. Instantly, his back bent, his beard grew long and gray, and old age and death fell upon him.
Adventures in Fairyland
The theme of old age and death coming to those who return from the fairy realm to the mortal one is common. The legends of Oisin and Bran are examples of two heroes who lived to tell the tale of their visits to fairyland. One was strong enough to survive the return to the human realm; the other had a lucky escape back to fairyland.
Oisin and Tir Nan Og
In Irish folklore, the story of Oisin is a famous example of how mere days or months in the fairy realm can add up to years in the human world.
Oisin was the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and a fairy woman of the Sidhe. With fairy blood in him, it was no surprise that he was a great singer, poet, and warrior, and he lived through many great battles. The fairy princess Niamh of the Golden Locks invited him to go with her to Tir Nan Og, the mythical Land of the Ever Young that lay across the sea to the west of Ireland. There they lived happily together for what seemed to him a few months.
Oisin wished to see his father and his people, the Fianna Finn, to tell them that all was well with him. Niamh was reluctant to let him leave, but in the end gave him a white horse to ride back across the sea. She told him not to touch the earth of Ireland, for if he did, he would not be able to return to Tir Nan Og. He promised and rode away across the waves.
When Oisin arrived back in Ireland, however, he found everything changed. The hills seemed small, the forests and woodlands had shrunk, and the great fort of Tara was reduced to nothing more than a hill. There wasn’t even a single voice or face anywhere that he recognized.
In despair, Oisin turned his horse to return to Tir Nan Og, but came across a group of men, who seemed to belong to a smaller, less mighty race than the Fianna Finn. They were struggling to move a stone. Even though they tried with all their might, they could not shift it. Feeling compassion for their weakness and courage, Oisin stopped to help them. Remembering his promise, he didn’t dismount from his white charger, but bent down and lifted the stone with one hand. The men regarded the shining golden warrior with amazement. But at that moment, the saddle slipped and he fell to the ground. The white horse thundered away to the sea. Where the great warrior had fallen, there lay an old man, the weight of hundreds of years heavy upon him.
Unlike many returning from the fairy realm, Oisin did not crumble to dust on mortal soil, however, but lived on and told the new Irish race about the heroic days of the Fianna Finn.
Bran and the Land of Women
The passage of time works in a similar way in Emhain, the Land of Women. It is related in the story of Bran mac Febail, as told by Lady Gregory in Gods and Fighting Men (1904).
One day the Irish king Bran mac Febail heard the sweetest music. It lulled him to sleep and when he awoke he held in his hand a silver branch covered in white blossom. He brought it to the royal house, where a woman appeared in strange clothes and began to sing:
I bring a branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the far island around which are the shining horses of the Son of Lir.
A delight of the eyes is the plain where the hosts hold their games; curragh racing against chariot in the White Silver Plain to the south.
She went on to describe a shining, many-colored land of blossoms, birds, and sweet music, without grief, sorrow, sickness, or death. When she had finished her song, the silver branch leaped from Bran’s hands into hers and she vanished.
Next morning Bran set out with a fleet of curragh boats to row across to the sea to find the Isle of Emhain.
After two days and two nights, he and his men encountered Mannanon, Son of Lir, in his golden chariot. He told Bran he would reach the Land of Women before sunset.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long afterward that they reached the Isle of Emhain,