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Neil Rushton

Neil Rushton is an archaeologist and freelance writer who has published on a wide variety of topics from castle fortifications to folklore. Recently he has been exploring the confluence between consciousness, insanity and reality and how they are affected through the use of a wide variety of psychotropic drugs. His first novel, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, explores these issues to the backdrop of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. He also writes a blog-site devoted to the mythology and reality of the faeries:  https://deadbutdreaming.wordpress.com/

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The Origins of the Faeries: Encoded in our Cultures

The Origins of the Faeries: Encoded in our Cultures – Part I

The faeries appear in folklore from all over the world as metaphysical beings, who, given the right conditions, are able to interact with the physical world. They’re known by many names but there is...
Medieval celebrations ( blairthornburgh)

Be Merrie All: Medieval Christmas Celebrations

Just as with the appropriation of Pagan sacred sites by Christian authorities, as recommended by Pope Gregory I to St Augustine in the late sixth century, there was a natural tendency in the late...
The artists dream by John Anster Fitzgerald  (1860) (Public Domain)

Chronicling British and Irish Faerie Folklore From The Middle Ages To Modern Day

Faerie-type entities have always been an important component of British and Irish folklore. In the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Motif Index of Folk Literature (ATU) there are over 500 motifs within folktales...
Aurochs, Horses and Deer of Lascaux caves (Lascaux / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Entoptic Imagery in Prehistoric and Pre-Industrial Rock Art

Throughout the world, prehistoric and pre-industrial shamanic cultures have rendered painted imagery onto rock faces; often in deep cave systems, but also in above-ground shelters. This rock art...
Tramin (South Tyrol. )Saint James church in Kastelaz: Romanesque frescos (1210s ) showing fantastic creatures. (Public Domain)

Hiding in Plain Sight: Medieval Mermaids in Churches

Why would an ancient, folkloric, but non-Biblical, character such as a mermaid find its way into so many medieval European churches? And can such mermaid imagery and symbology be correlated with the...
At the Monastery Gate by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1846)

The Plight of the Poor: Monastic Charity and Almonries in Medieval England

Until recently, it was believed that monasteries were lax and inefficient in distributing alms to the poor, but Dr. Neil Rushton ’s research indicates that monastic almonries in medieval England were...
The Sea Maiden  by Herbert James Draper (1894)

Selkies, Sirens, Swan Maidens and Otherworldly Brides

A common motif in British folklore is that of an otherworldly female, who is somehow captured or charmed by a mortal man to be his bride. The females are often therianthropes, that is shape-shifters...
Der Mönch

Santa Claus – A Siberian Shaman on a Magic Mushroom Trip?

The idea that there is a direct link between our modern representation of Santa Claus and historic shamanic practice in Siberia is not new. It seems to have been first suggested by the historian of...
Gawain represented the perfect knight, as a fighter, a lover, and a religious devotee. (The Vigil by John Pettie, 1884)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Landscapes, Symbols and Metaphysics in 14th Century England

‘The paths he would take were strange, With little cheer to glean, And his hopes would often change Till that chapel could be seen.’ Sir Gawain and Green Knight is a late 14th-century poem, set in an...
‘Yorinda and Yoringel’ by John Duncan (1909)

Once Upon A Time: Concepts of Afterlife and Altered Consciousness Concealed in Faerie Folklore

Once upon a Time, they all lived happily ever-after. In the 1891 publication The Science of Fairy Tales , the folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland devoted three chapters to ponder over ‘The Supernatural...
Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis

The Mabinogion: Ancient Welsh Tales Bridging the Celtic Mindset and the Otherworld

The Mabinogion is a collection of 11 stories from medieval Wales. Although only first committed to manuscript during the 13th century (the oldest surviving fragmentary manuscript dates to circa 1225...
Lancelot and Guinevere by Herbert James Draper (c.1890) (Public Domain)

Faeries in the Realm of King Arthur

Faeries may be just figments of our imagination, but they may have deeper roots of Celtic origin embedded in oral narratives and serve to remind us of a long-forgotten belief system that embraced a...
Cherry of Zennor broke with ‘reality’ and reached something deeper

What did Cherry of Zennor See That Altered Her Reality and Shaped Ours? The Deeper Meanings of Faerie Folklore

'Myth is a story that implies a certain way of interpreting consensus reality so to derive meaning and effective charge from its images and interactions. As such, it can take many forms: fables,...
Fairy realm and abstract quantum physics

Do you have the Second Sight? Finding Fairies & The Secret Commonwealth of Robert Kirk

The tale of the Rev. Robert Kirk and his Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Faeries is very peculiar. When read carefully, the text of his 1691 manuscript describing the faeries of Aberfoyle,...
“Bust of a child” first century AD (Public Domain), Antique bust of girl (Nerissa’s Ring/CC BY 2.0) and On A Misty Morning (Vinoth Chandar/CC BY 2.0); Deriv

The Green Children of Woolpit – An Otherworldly Tale That Just Might be True

The story of the Green Children of Woolpit, Suffolk, has always been one of the strangest medieval folktales, and that's up against some pretty stiff competition. If you don't know it, it goes a bit...
Antique portrait of a woman, Austria

Bodies Left Behind - A Cruel History of Persecution, Shamanic Ecstasies & the True Witches Sabbath

‘The witches are carried sometimes in their bodies and clothes, at other times without, and the examiner thinks their bodies are sometimes left behind. Even when their spirits only are present, yet...

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