Fencraft 101
In ancient times hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived this strange race of people - the druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains hewn into the living rock
Key Ideas in Fencraft
Fencraft is a re-imagining of paganism for today.
- Based on British folklore, folk practices, myths, deities, legends and pop culture.
- Focused on local spirits, fairies, folk figures and mythology, underpinned by land-mysticism.
- Has no one pantheon or hierarchy. Individuals are guided to build a local mystery cult from the spirits which gather around them
- Focused strongly on the land, the seasons, the natural world and local history
- Indifferent to sex and gender - no fertility or gendered symbolism, unless you choose to use them
- Wicca-esque - similar imagery, similar sources, similar development process but a different mythic framework and direction
- Reimagines traditional folk or witch practices, through mythopoetic play, guiding followers to develop cunning skills. History-loving, but not reconstructionist
- Views fairy stories, mythic figures like Arthur and Robin, witch trials, folklore and folk practices, as surviving clues of ancient Powers, under a framework: the Landweird, the sense of a presence ancient and strange
- Rejects cultural appropriation, and uses a new correspondence system patterned to fit folklore and fairy tale, cosmic horror, rural weird, and pagan feelings
- We know the historic evidence for what we do is discredited, fragmentary and blurred; we see in this our most important lessons
- A mystery tradition - we draw our myths from publically available texts, but find our power in meditation, speaking with the spirits, dreaming, and other private practices.
- Open-source values, decentralised, and anti-authoritarian. We don't have leaders, hierarchies, or holy books; everyone is welcome to participate, and develop their own thing from what is written on this website.
The tradition was designed and developed by me, for my personal use. It's inspired by various pre-existing traditions, but shuffled around to better reflect my life and my understanding of the divine. However, I wanted to write it down so it felt "formal", instead of being a clutch of eclectic stuff; and because the act of writing helps me flesh out & guide what I'm thinking and doing. And once it was longer than a few pages - it matched my open source values best to stick it online. Make of it what you will.
This version April 2023. Compare this to Version 1 [2017] and Version 2 [2020] to see how things have firmed up since I began