Faerieworlds

From Summer green to fallen leaves,

Oh light the sylvan pyre,

For the day is red and ripe upon the branch

Verses quoted in italics throughout this feature are by Kelly Miller-Lopez, from her song ‘Shadows’ on the CD Seasons in Elfland by Woodland. I was honoured to be a guest singer on this album.

This article appeared in an Australian magazine Spheres, after my first performance at Faerieworlds in Oregon, USA, as an invited guest on the main stage, 2009, halfway through their establishment of nearly two decades. Their 20-year Anniversary is 2021.

Imagine thousands of guests in costume, sharing mythological knowledge, recipes and wares, weaving a beribboned pentacle and uniting in a Spiral Dance. Aromatic scents waft between tents: from Casbah teahouse to the Kava bar, your nostrils are assailed by vegan sushi, eggplant marsala, pineapple, Castle Kettle Corn, Turkish coffee and homemade chocolate with local berries. Your sensibility is flung, in eddies of enchantment, into one realm after another: Narnia, Earthsea, Middlearth, Elysium, Camelot, Wonderland, Woodstock; Knauf’s Carnivàle; or during Myth Maker fire rituals, that cult classic The Wicker Man (minus the sacrifice! – however, a band called The Wicker Men really is playing).

Strangers shake hands, embrace, or smile into each others’ eyes, perceiving mutual recognition that some explain by past lives, others by the collective vibe of a great event. Welcome to Faerieworlds! We are at Buford Park Range by Mount Pisgah in Eugene, Oregon, USA, 2009, for the world’s largest fairy festival.

As Eugene’s media sees it, Faerieworlds is ‘where goths dance with hippies’. Many more scenes grace the fair: folk-rock, darkwave, modern primitive, psychedelic punk, ambient, contemporary medieval; with environmentalists, vegetarians, vegans, folklorists, fantasy writers and pagans including wiccans, native healers, classicists, or fusions of the above. In one sweeping glance you’d see a shock of coloured hair, studs, boots and tattoos of dragons, beside flower children in garlands, middle-aged dads with pixie ears or wizard staffs, Pre-Raphaelites, ancient wise-women in flowing skirts, stilt-walking fauns, beach babes in starfish bikinis, teenage centaurs, magicians in top hats and green-men clad in leaves.

Myth Maker gives thanks to the elements and other resident spirits.

The summer’s gift, the fire in the wood

Sometimes a breeze rolled down the mountain through forests of fir and pine, to relieve the searing heat, lifting tent flaps, flags and banners. We first felt it during the Opening Ceremony: an invisible kiss, carried by sylphs of the air, or summoned from Ceridwen’s cauldron and the music of Woodland, while visitors, vendors and performers took each other’s hands in greeting, or raised their arms to the sky. We felt the forest had bestowed its blessing.

and the circle grows each time around for all within are spiral bound

Guests of Honour were Brian and Wendy Froud. Since childhood I’ve loved Brian’s book Faeries, now in its 25th Anniversary edition. Its co-illustrator, Alan Lee, went on to design sets for The Lord of the Rings movies. Froud joined Jim Henson on the pre-digital film classic The Dark Crystal, where he fell in love with puppeteer Wendy Froud. She handed her craft on to their son Toby, who was the baby in the film Labyrinth, starring David Bowie as the Goblin King. Froudian books include The Runes of Elfland, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries, Goblins of Labyrinth and Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairies. My first meeting with them was at Trolls et Legendes festival in Belgium where, as with Faerieworlds, we presented a video created by Brian and Toby for my music. Their imagery illuminates lightshows by Woodland, the folk-rock band that founded Faerieworlds.

Below: photos by Byron Dazey of me (Louisa John-Krol) with puppets & puppeteers at Faerieworlds 2009

Below: Woodland with my guest appearance, 2009

For there is a summer in each life,

‘Til the shadows ride the samhain wind

To a twilight celebration

Woodland’s hometown Eugene is no stranger to folk festivals. The Grateful Dead’s Oregon Country Fair, a sort of Woodstock attracting around 40,000 attendees in various states of consciousness or undress, dating to the 1960’s, is an American icon. Faerieworlds leapt to national attention when Fox News reported the outbreak of a ‘hippy virus’. (Apparently the notion of fairies urgently squatting in bushes amused O’Reilly’s gang, but was greeted with the quip, ‘we took our wings off’.) Ironically, as Faerieworlds hosts braced for an onslaught, membership soared; apparently for liberal Americans, anything Fox attacks is worth exploring.

Since its inception eight years ago, under stewardship of Woodland musicians Emilio and Kelly Miller-Lopez, the festival has expanded from 1,000 attendees to 15,000. Robert Gould of Imaginosis later joined. Together they employ more than 400 people. [NB: these figures were current at the writing of this article a decade ago.] Whilst marketing is based on the internet, its community is in tune with ancient methods and organic materials. Wood-turning, sculpture, puppetry and storytelling, call upon crafting long held by pagan cultures. In keeping with the aim for a soft carbon footprint, there was scarcely any litter: proof that with enlightened effort, large crowds may ‘harm none’. As hosts advised, ‘look and listen… you will see soaring hawks, ravens, owls and flights of geese, you may even hear the howl of a coyote. And as you dance under the stars and rising moon, remember… the wonder of nature that is the true essence of faerie. This is why we come together to dance and celebrate the turning of the seasons and the enchantment imbued in wildness.’

Never shall I forget faces glimpsed high in windblown trees, or flights of birds as we sang of them. Mysteries of a fairy field… the natural playground of Kelly Kelly Miller-Lopez, co-founder of Faerieworlds & Woodland: lyricist, singer, harpist, dancer & now soloist of RosaMundi.

She seeds dreams within her herbs,

And ancient grains of wisdom in her wine

Below: Kelly Miller-Lopez (Woodland) while I sang with them at Faerieworlds 2009; photos by Byron Dazey, USA

Recommended links for more info & updates:

Faerieworlds website

Faery Host band Woodland

Faerieworlds Live From Home 2020 at their new platform, PORTL

Author’s note: This article was printed in an Australian magazine, Spheres. I wrote it after performing on the main stage at Faerieworlds (solo & with Woodland) in America, following a shared billing with them at Trolls et Legendes in Belgium during 2009, all by invitation of the hosts.