English Fairy Tales: Now Available!

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This nice volume is a compilation of fairy tales from England (as its title suggests) but it also contains a lengthy and helpful dissertation on the etymology of the fairy, its linguistic origins in Italian antiquity, and its similarity to the genii, the lamia, and the nymph. It is partly anthropological, therefore, and contains a number of allusions especially to Reginald Scott's "Discoverie of Witchcraft" in which the European adaptation of such folklore is noted to have affected adults, not just children, and that such superstitions as "Robin Goodfellow" and fellow beings was rife for centuries.

171 pages.

Fairies: Now Available!

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This little work is a dense collection of folklore about fairies (although it does include some content referring to elves, brownies, and similar beings)- part of it relates to poetry, some to prose both ancient and then-modern. It is a quasi-romanticist effort, openly encouraging the promulgation of such folk material as an alternative to the cold, secular boredom of industrial living. It also seems to insinuate that such beings are real, albeit otherworldly.

35 pages.

A Lyric of Fairy Land and Other Poems: Now Available!

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This is a second short collection of magic-related poetry by A E Waite. Unlike "Lucasta", which was named after his wife, this collection deviates from the more romantic side of poetry and is slightly melancholic in nature; one of the inclusions here is a sort of short stage play containing interaction between a man and a fairy, and appears to be a symbolic reference to the changing of the seasons and the death which comes with the entrance of winter. As his other poems, it is fairly obviously heavily influenced by mid 19th century romantic-era poetic works.

67 pages.

Lucasta; Parables and Poems: Now Available!

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This nice collection of magic-related poems comes from none other than AE Waite of tarot deck fame, notable as well for compiling English fairy lore, and for his famous Book of Ceremonial Magic. Most of these poems are quite good, and I have attempted to retain their format entirely. A few typographical errors were corrected and that is the only meaningful change save for the foreword and cover art.

The topics vary somewhat but every one of the pieces of poetry here is related to fairies or magic in some manner, and it is clear that Waite took significant inspiration from traditional romantic-era English poems.

70 pages.

The Supernatural In Romantic Literature: Now Available!

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This fairly short work was initially full length and 169 pages long; formatting in that era was often quite interesting. It's an extremely dense overview of many hundreds of bits of literature, the main point of which is to correlate and compare literary tropes, objects, and subjects across books and poetry. The author himself tries to restrain the lore to mostly the medieval and then-modern but gets dragged into some content from the Norse and Hindu systems of religion nonetheless.

As an occultist I see this as a very valuable work, more for its massive number of secondary sources to be used as a starting point to dig deeper into folklore and its cryptozoological and magical offshoots, than any value stemming from its own analysis; although the prevalence of Arthurian legend and the "Arabian Nights" and their enormous influence on then contemporary works is notable.

89 pages.

The Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare: Now Available!

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This short work is partially based on a lecture given by the author some time prior, which was then edited with a bibliographic appendix and some additional explanatory material.

It traces the history of the fairy in imagery from multiple sources to Shakespeare, drawing heavily (but not solely) on Grimm, pointing out the combination origin of Shakespeares' usage, being a fusion of lore from his own era, as well as material from up to some centuries prior. Both academic and interesting, and a must-read for the more spiritually minded theater fan.

31 pages.

Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland: Now Available!

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This particular book is an interesting combination of work that delves into folklore, civics, and what might be considered, beyond the strictly folkloric, spook stories, some of which are fairly fantastical in nature. Crafted at the end of the 19th century, it encourages the invasion of Ireland by the United States to liberate the island from British tyranny, and at great length condemns the English almost in entirety.

For occult purposes the lore of interest here is threefold; first, a treatment of simple remedies, often herbal or in the form of Christianized incantations. Second, fairy lore, significant in bulk. Third, folk stories involving both the dead and witches in a great deal of sometimes quite morbid detail. I must admit several of the stories about dead brides were bizarre even by my standards. It caps itself off with a nice little series of proverbs, which are sometimes religious.

186 pages.