The Changeling

May Day and Equinox, white and red, innocence and experience: the Changeling’s cycle is twofold. She is spring and autumn.

(Doubling shows her underlying Lunar-ness, and it’s possible she is linked to a moon cycle)

This is often alongside a Fairy Prince – who is generally, conspicuously, not her partner – who sometimes has a parallel cycle; or is the Spring when she is the Autumn and vice versa; or possibly, is lord in Winter and Summer.

We have already encountered one myth of the seasons – that of the Landmother and Sun King – the spring rains, summer sun, and winter’s storms permitting and denying the weather for living things to grow. The Changeling represents a second one – one more directly related to fertility – of seeds, fruits and flowers; creatures who shed and change their furs; things that flourish, things that rot – the visible signs of the season in the wildwood. I find the Wiccan myth of the year somewhat stretched with a single God and Goddess narrative across the year, so in Fencraft we have multiple overlapping ones.

There’s has been pushback in Pagan circles about fairies as nature spirits – noting that, in folklore history, they are generally NOT seen as related to nature. This is what we mean by fairies as Lunar – as independent from any cycle or “mythic job”, independent beings that are not human but speak and think and will as we do. This will be addressed in a separate essay.

Nonetheless, the Changeling and her counterpart are part of that fairy-in-nature tradition, related to the visible signs of the seasons – not necessarily the bringers or rulers of nature, but those who luxurify in it. In many ways, it’s a very aesthetic vision of nature – focused on its sensory changes – but that is right for these spirits, and their celebration of abundance and pleasure. This is flower-crown folklore, the joy of the dance and of the sensory world.

There is a general convention to present him as the lord of beasts and leader of the wild-hunt, and her as the lady of play and witchery, but this is only a convention, and there is no real need to stick to it; just focus on a pleasure so immense it encompasses everything, be that the brilliance of leaves in autumn or the delight at the first of the hawthorn flowers.

Cycle in Summary

Winter, sometime?

If you are very Erte-focused, then her birthdate is sometime in the winter, following the Snow White tradition – with her colours at this time white, black, red. At this time, she is isolated under the rule of her step-mother the Winter Witch

April

I have in my notes reference to a Perchta/Wild Hunt legend in which she is the spring, and must evade hunters until May Day. I cannot for the life of me find an actual source for this. This is an Erte myth, linked to her role as Queen of Spring, and to the sequence in Snow White where she escapes the huntsman. If you wish to start her sequence very early. White, black and pale yellow.

Despite the overwhelming cultural associations between spirits of this kind and May, for several years I have known that her real presence is throughout April - so that is when I begin my cycle. By May, nowadays, the weather is too warm and 'stable' for her playfulness, and April is when I feel the relief and joy at return of the flowers. There is possibly climate change to blame here, but in my view it is better to celebrate nature not the calendar, so if the seasons shift so shall we.

May Day/Walpurgisnacht

Her month & major festival. Beltane has a lot going on for other spirits also, its a big one. May Day itself is a gate that opens, beginning a sequence of Erte rites, ending with her disappearance/going underground. The date doesn’t seem to be May Day itself, following the Fencraft convention of seeing holy times as tides, not single days. Her colours at this time are white, green, with a little red.

September 1

Erte’s arrival into the story – riding with the Winter King, her father – as a young adult, after the death of the Sun King. Her colors at this time are browns.

Equinox & September

Her month and major festival. This represents the time at the end of the story that she has come back overground, irrevocably changed, and bearing the autumn fruits. Her colours at this time are blood red, dry browns, black, and a touch of white or tarnished silver.

Two of my favourite “Erte as daughter of the king, before her cycle begins” images:

April and May Day

This festival area is incredibly cluttered, with the Sun King, the Hunter, the Lightbringer and the Great God all having tendencies around this time. So this description will be confined to Erda only.

April and May represents the period of Erda’s enchantment. At the beginning of the month, she is crowned May Queen, and is a figure celebrating the springtime in the community, the balance of man and nature – a time of flower crown picnics and walks in the woods. But throughout April something else is calling and bewitching her, that comes fully through the gate on Walpurgisnacht. The date is not yet clear, but at the end of this month she “falls”, however one wishes to conceptualise it – going into the woods for the final time, falling asleep, dying, passing through the mirror, or vanishing underground. This sequence runs parallel to the Great God’s sequence, which evokes woodland psychedelia and rouses the forest weird and landscape bliss. I find that May is after her slumbering, opening up a time of dozing also and taking joy in the relief of Summer.

At this time she is the freshness of spring, most associated with the golden hour before the dawn.

The basic form for this sequence is to enchant yourself, to provide as many opportunities as possible to Disconnect from the everyday and slip your focus towards the otherworldly and fae-like (in this sequence, the concept of “fairies” is very innocent – beautiful, playful, enchanting, everywhere once you know how to see them, ever-young and fair – their most seductive face)

This could include:

• Daydreaming
• Reading fairytales and fantasy stories
• Going for walks in the woods, especially at times of great beauty; sleeping out-of-doors
• Dancing, playing, dressing up,
• Spells of all kinds – especially for love – but they must be the kinds of spells you made as a teenager or child
• experimenting with trance, lucid dreaming, and other techniques related to sleep and altered states
• Possibly cloistering yourself from the world, creating more of a blank slate to fill with otherworldly ideas, or putting aside responsibilities
• temptation and seduction – a time to pamper yourself, and experiment, and focus on the sensory
• Setting in motion a transformation which will complete at Equinox.

This is a bit of a side-tour from Beltane’s classic sexual symbolism. I’ll write a longer piece on this soon; but a key goal for Fencraft is to keep things sex-optional, and provide ideas for people to re-include it on their own terms. Erda’s energy of May is really more about falling under a fairy spell and getting lost in her fantasies until she can no longer tell where reality is, before finally vanishing into it. This can, obviously, be sexual in nature, perhaps including a second figure from the pantheon; but we shall reserve this for a separate piece. The core here is make-believe, and get lost with the fairies.

May represents allowing yourself to be seduced by something, and it can be a forbidden lover, perhaps a supernatural one; but it can also be the glories of nature, the joy of make-believe and imagination, psychedelics, or your own brilliance.

In terms of food, taking on some kind of diet for this period is appropriate, if one can be found to match your goals. I have a vague sense that fae folk do not eat wheat, and that taking on a diet consisting of meat and fruit might be a way to start passing through a little; or perhaps abstaining from processed foods. It’s a slow rite of self-transformation spread across the month, so don’t be afraid to experiment with taboo or new routines to create an otherworldly feel in your life and space.

Autumn Equinox

The narrative of Equinox in some ways echoes that of Beltane; it’s a fairy festival, a time of getting excited about the leaves and having a party. But Erte’s keynotes of innocence and curiosity, of temptation and surrender are gone. The focus is instead on her keynotes of pleasure, self-knowledge and power. The energy is self-celebratory, expansive, survival and empowerment. No longer curious, at Equinox you know what you want – and the focus is on having as much of it as you possibly can.

This is also, however, a “whatever happened to Erte” festival. At Beltane, we know she was lost – this part of the cycle asserts what happens next. It is the key time for Erte-as-Goddess, as she is at this point in her most powerful and final form.

Key themes include:

• Return, revive, wake up – rites to wake Erte may be called for, at the start of the sequence
• Freedom from bondage – breaking the ties with something old, and celebrating your newfound splendour
• Catharsis and honouring survival
• The fruition of some desire set in motion on May Day
• This is also the time of the Outcast (an aspect which idk whether to keep in the final lore or not) – settling scores is absolutely appropriate.
• A classic form on Equinox would be an underworld journey where you skill up, beat dangers, and come back quivering with power
• The other form would be, summoning Erte and letting her joy and brilliance empower you; joining the dance for its own celebration

Equinox is the other specifically fairy festival. Where spring is maids and princelings and courtly love and longing for the woodlands – this is definitely the more feral of the two. Beasts and tree monsters. Sexy ones. It’s more of a lunar take on love and sex too – hungry, greedy; vampy, if that’s your preference. One might describe it as everything Erte imained at May Day, has now come to pass – whatever that looks like.

At this time, she is red storms and red winds; sunset and dusk are especially potent times.

Equinox vs other Harvest festivals

There are three Harvests in classic Paganism: Lammas, Mabon, Samhain, corresponding roughly with the grain, the fruits and the meat.

Now, Lammas is primarily for the Sun King and the Landmother; and Samhain, for the Landweird. But they can also form a narrative triad, of sorts, for Erte.

At Lammas, the King dies – and with him, his restrictions and law. Erte comes into the story as a teenager, through the same gap as the Winter King who is the Sun King’s echo. In the second run of her cycle, Equinox is the time the gates open underground to let Erte back out from where she’s been trapped. Equinox’s tendency is a teenageer’s first night out, an absolutely shameless pleasurefest. It’s tasty like a berry pie, and gorgeous as the autumn. Erte is what comes out when nothing is denied. In both cases, the death of the King creates space for Erte and her lawless irresponsibility.

Lammas is Solar – institutional, collective, related to agricultural success – it’s a little more grown up, a little more sober. It’s a more grounded harvest of your achievements and grief for your losses, Equinox is all about your take – what you want, and what you can get. Lammas has notes about acceptance and endurance; but Equinox is about winning, be that enjoying your spoils, taking vengeance on your enemies, brash with confidence and delight. Wine and blood and blackberry jam. Sugar.

And Samhain is about funerals, the dead, prophecy, secrets – and all hell coming out of that gate Erte left half-open, like a Pandora. We see it as a time of the Landweird, of Stellar mystery rites; its Solar rites involve paying ones due to the ancestors. But Erte is associated with secular Halloween, witchlike ecstasy of things crawling across the sky

Again, another reference to that opening into the underground-place – that the Sun King went into, that Erte came up out of, and now she’s left it open (by accident or design) letting everything come through that wills it, and with it, the spirits of winter. Not for nothing is she called Breaker of Bonds.

Erte’s original cycle?

This is advanced work; but I want to bring in here the concept of the “original” pantheons.

We can clearly see that the pantheon of BTA is really made up of two, possibly three, older pantheons. That’s why there seem to be overlapping roles between some spirits, and more than one cycle explaining the year, more than one sun god. Erte’s current role is central to Fencraft, but it is also somewhat diminished compared to her ancient role.

There is a persistent, and frustratingly mysterious, link between Erte and the figure of the Lightbringer – who clearly comes from the same original pantheon, their original myths forgotten.

The Forge God delves underground for metals, and the Strife god wages war; Lucifer tempts good little girls off the path of righteousness.

Was ur-Erte seeking the sun when she went underground – or was she aided by it, and it helped her find her way back? Does this feed into the later story of Lucifer and the Hunter seeking for the lost princess? How are we to tie in the images of dwarves seeking gold beneath the earth, with Erte’s Snow White characterisation, with Lucifer’s role as both Forgemaster and the metaphorical gold of wisdom? Does Lucifer the sun know things because he goes underground periodically to steal secrets? Is his cup of knowledge Erte plundered of her jewels? Does the low autumn sun denote he looks for her? If the Strife God is the sun, then are we to link this with the Outcast Woman: she chooses when strife is bound underground, and when it is released, and Lucifer the trickster are the times when secrets and strife leak out of her domain and cheat the gate she guards without appropriate oversight. Perhaps the gold hidden underground is not secrets, but corn?

This must surely have been a mystery tradition, for we have suggestions of it and a wealth of imagery – but few clear answers. In any case, this is not necessarily part of Erte’s current tradition – but worth exploring, if you seek the way of the mystic.