Faerie Queen
The Queen of the Faeries is a folklore figure who was believed to rule the fae. Due to Shakespearean literature, she is often given the name Titania or Mab.
Folklore
There are many faerie queens noted in Irish folktales, including the last High Queen of the Daoine Sidhe - and the wife of High King Finvarra - was named Oona (or Una, Oonagh, Uonaidh, etc.) In the ballad tradition of Northern England and Lowland Scotland, she was called the Queen of Elphame. The Queen, according to testimony, has a husband named Christsonday.
She is represented as both beautiful and seductive, and also as terrible and deadly. The Fairy Queen is said to pay a tithe to Hell every seven years, and her mortal lovers often provide this sacrifice. In Tam Lin, the title character tells his mortal lover:
At the end of seven years
She pays a tithe to Hell
I so fair and full of flesh
I fear it be myself
Some believe that faerie queens are old pagan goddesses in “disguise” due to the prominent Catholic belief in Ireland within the modern era.
There are many instances of the association of cows with faerie queens. There is a faerie queen who watches over cows in the islands, and she is often seen. In pouring libations to her and her faeries, various kinds of stones, usually with hollows in them, are used. In many parts of the Highlands, where the same deity is known, the stone into which women poured the libation is called Leac na Gruagaich, ‘Flag-stone of the Gruagach’. If the libation was omitted in the evening, the best cow in the fold would be found dead in the morning.
In one part of Ireland, Midsummer is associated with a faerie hill called Knockane where the people (those practicing the faerie faith) have a procession and burn hay for the faerie queen.
There are historical accounts of faerie queens met by mortals.
In the 1600s, in the North of England, a man was taken into court on charges of witchcraft. He claimed to use a powder to heal sicknesses, and offered to lead the gentlemen of the court to the fairy hill where he obtained the medicine. He had discovered the hill when he was destitute, and agonising about how to feed his wife and children. A lovely woman had appeared to him and advised him that if he followed her counsel, he would get a good living from it. She led him to a little hill and knocked on it three times. The hill opened and they went in, coming to a fair hall, where a fairy queen sat in great state, with many people about her. She gave him a box full of white powder, and taught him how to use it by giving two or three grains to any who were sick, which would heal them. The Judge asked whether the place within the hill, which he called a hall, were light or dark, and the accused replied it was like twilight. Being asked how he got more powder, he said that when he wanted it, he went to that hill and knocked three times, and said every time “I am coming, I am coming”, whereupon it opened. Going in, he was conducted by the beautiful lady to the queen. The outraged judge said that if he were judged guilty, he would have him whipped all the way to the fairy hall, but the jury, since he had cured many with his white powder, acquitted him.
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