Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Tackling the Thorny Issue of Bad Faeries


Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," home to mad faeries and glad faeries and bad faeries! You tell us your issue, we'll send you a faerie to solve it. If that faerie makes your issue worse, well ... it's a faerie. What do you expect?


The One God people have angels and demons. It's not hard to differentiate. Angels wear white and do good all the time. Demons like black and red, and they do bad all the time. So easy to remember!

Faeries, on the other hand, have no known legitimate color preference. They can be good one day and bad the next. They can be completely dedicated to good, or completely dedicated to bad, or just dedicated to mayhem and mischief.

Let's face it. A demon is not going to spend valuable time hiding your cell phone in the cat box.

That's why it has always bugged us here at "The Gods Are Bored" when someone equates Paganism to devil-worship. Faeries don't urge people to sneak into the woods and gut a cat in a circle of stones. That's the work of your One God demons.

Bad faeries have been known to steal infants and put changelings in their places. I'm not sure how prevalent this is anymore. Haven't heard much about it in the newspaper. On the other hand, my daughter just saw a gutted cat in a circle of stones, right down the street in the park. It's safe to say that demons are being badder, and working at it harder, than the worst of the bad faeries.

Yet the thorny issue of bad faeries remains. Even a modest cluster of them can piss you off. And oh, do they ever take glee in pissing you off! The more flustered you become, the harder they laugh. Your frustration is their fuel.

What's got Anne on this topic today? Well, today was my last day as a long-term substitute teacher. I've been attempting to instruct some young adults in the fine art of writing and reading. I give myself a C-plus. And that's not too bad for someone who never taught school before in her life and never took a single class in how it's done.

When I began this subsitute posting, I replaced a teacher who had the worst infestation of bad faeries I'd ever seen. The classroom was completely snarled with them. The situation was so dire that even the inclusion teacher recognized that something needed to be done. So when the regular teacher embarked for her time off, the inclusion teacher took it upon himself to re-arrange the furniture. And I took it upon myself to purge the room of any bad faeries that might have stayed behind.

Of course you can't banish 100 percent of all bad faeries from any locale. But I did a little better than C-plus. In three months they stole one pair of desk scissors and a reference book on insects valued at $23.00. And of course they took the assignments that some of the kids turned in. I mean, really. In what classroom in the world are you going to find not one single student who says, "But, Miss, I gave you that!" Bad faeries at work.

All in all, with the room more wide-open and the work spaces more tidy, the bad faeries were kept to a minimum.

Monday the regular teacher returned. Doggone if she didn't cart her whole legion of bad faeries right in with her again! She phoned the inclusion teacher and made him come down and "fix" all the "mess" he'd made. Within four hours, four hours, that classroom looked like a flea market on steroids.

Awash in her bad faeries' karma, the returning teacher complained bitterly and loudly when some of the students said they'd miss me. She complained about the lesson I'd planned for her return ("I hate group work. This is the last group project this year!"). She lost everything she put down. (Classic bad faerie, that.) She went through the 2006-07 curriculum standards meticulously and grilled me about what I hadn't covered.

Last week, hearing that state auditors were coming to the school, I stayed until way past dinnertime putting up a nice current bulletin board, as it seems that's what the state auditors want to see. First thing Monday, the returning teacher scrutinized my bulletin board, weighed it in the balance, and found it wanting. (I suppose she was nostalgic for the 95 papers she hung up in September and hadn't taken down by December 10.)

Fearing that bad faeries would steal more student work, I brought home the projects my students completed at the end of the last marking period. Returning teacher wants them brought back to the classroom, even though they've been graded for a previous marking period. She can't wait to get her clutches on these papers so she can prove beyond doubt how little I know about teaching.

Okay, I don't know butkus about teaching. But I do know faeries. Bad faeries will make you irritable. Good faeries make you happy. I don't think it's me the students will miss. I think it's my faeries.

As for the student projects, they will have to go back to the school. The students want them back. I think I'll give them to the inclusion teacher and let him distribute them. He's mighty interested in Druidry.

That's enough for today. Tomorrow, with all the time in the world at my disposal, I'll give you some hot tips on how to purge your surroundings of bad faeries. Or maybe I'll write about something else. Who knows?

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
"Rebel," by Seitou. Check out Seitou's latest faerie art by clicking the sidebar!

7 comments:

BBC said...

I don't have time to read that whole post.

But !!! As my mother always said.

When I'm good, I'm good.

When I'm bad.....

I'm terrific !!!

Hecate said...

I inherited a few fairies when I bought this cottage. I've mostly made peace with them. Sugar cubes and Stoli on my altar and I try to remember to speak nicely to them. But once in a while . . . .

Ambermoggie, a fragrant soul said...

We have Loki living with us. He loves it when we say I'll do this or I'm not doing that and forces us (VBG) to do the opposite. However bad faeries can turn good you know
amber in scotland

Tennessee Jed said...

I like the heck outta you Anne! I know all I know about færies because of you. That makes you a teacher.

Angela said...

Anne, I know how often those bad faeries like to hide things from you. I found this "Simple Spell to Find Lost Things" in an online magickal scrapbook:

Faeries/spirits that guard/dwell in your house are for some reason associated with corners. Maybe because lots of energy gathers there, or maybe it serves as a portal between the physical world and the other side. Faeries/spirits tend to hide thing from you, or play with them. This is when you search and search for something in your house and can't find it. If that happens, just put a sweet in one of the corners of your house (make sure the corner is made up by walls, not a corner of, say, a nightstand and the wall - I've discovered that doesn't work as well), and ask the faeries/spirits to return the item they hid, or help you find it. The item is usually found the same day. When it is found, throw out the sweet. Don't say "Thank You" to the faeries, they find it rude and dismissing, instead, if you do decide to do something (it's totally up to you), just tell the faeries how happy you are that you found the item. This spell works very well.

Anne Johnson said...

How happy I am that you visited my site, Angela-Eloise!

Rosie said...

Here on Old Maid's Aerie Farm, we leave a dish of goat milk out for them. It is always magically gone the next morning! Of course we have cocker spaniels who love goat milk, too...but that's beside the point. I have been leaving extra milk out since they did something with my dremel. I have high hopes that it will suddenly appear again.