June 24, 2022 International Faerie Day

Well here it is June 24, 2022 and it just happens to be International Faerie Day!

I was trying to figure out a way to both celebrate this wonderful occasion both personally and with you. 

Once I started my research, it honestly didn't take me long to decide YES! This is what I need to do. The how and when came together with no hiccups.

Yesterday, starting at about 10:00am (with an hours drive having to be tacked on both directions) and going until just after 3:00pm I walked out celebrating International Faerie Day!

I would like to thank my friend Emy for all of her wonderful creativeness, patience and willingness to try. 

Here was how my day went...

 My hope is that you find yourself inspired, empowered 

and that you'll continue to believe not just in faeries but in your inner you.

Wishing everyone an amazing International Faerie Day!

On frilly note paper..

This is the message that the nursery received from one of the Mistress Sanna's that found a forever home away from the cold cold ocean. We always love to have updated and shared notes and even photos too...

"Hello My sweet caretaker,

Thank you so much for helping me come into this world of 2014. I find these fancy letter writers very interesting!! Michelle types for me, But I picked out everything, I wanted your letter to be extra special.

Michelle says you would like to see my room, and know if I am happy. Yes, my sweet friend, I am very happy here. They let me stay up as late as I want. I have my own t.v. And I have made new animal friends that play with me and sleep with me, and we even go on adventures together!!

I have a tray to help keep my furniture in place. A wonderful magic pool that my fish friend takes me on rides in. Sometimes we dive deep in the pool! You should see duckies face! When we dive deep, sometimes we come up in other places too. Saturday, we ended up in France! They place special rocks and shells around my pool, so I can sit by the waters edge, and brush my hair out. I even have a seashell seat! They also gave me special bottle of grooming lotion. It helps me clean myself, and softens my fair. They called it 'essence of water dragon' And boy is it a big bottle!!! I think it may last me a lifetime! In my pictures, you can see my bed, it is a paua shell, lined with hand embroidered sheets and pillow, and beside me, a little table made from a flower, with a bell on it, that I rend if I need anything! And of course my TV! I never saw anything like it, but it is fun watching people do silly things on it. Thank you again for my new family. They pamper me, and make me feel special. As time goes on, we may go places together, and send you pictures if you like. That way you can see how things are going. Would you like that? I miss you my friend, and all the sweet babies in the nursery too. Before I left, they gave me a small sac of fairy dust so I could have something of them with me no matter where I go. Tell them that I sprinkled my whole room with it, so that every where I look I remember them, could you please? Oh goodness, I am going to get , what did Michelle call it? Homesick again if I am not careful!  :) No matter how much I love them, I love you just as much. Be good to yourself! E-hugs!!!!
-- Mistress Sanna"

Catching an Icy Toe

As all of our Northern Faeries are in their own way very special...some are very colourful, some stem from stories told of yesterdays years, some are traditions, some can be seen just out the window, and some represent the environment, land and waters of the North.

It is here where one of our elusive Faeries actually lives...

Where the most unimaginable world resides.... Where waves tips are frozen instantly.... Where just a single ray sunshine travels farther than the eye can see....Where aliens wander in all sizes and colours...Where the largest of mammals hunt undisturbed....Where the environment is encroaching in their space....Where a delicate ecological system can not be recreated...Where only the brave dare to visit...This is where Mistress Sanna calls home. And every so often she comes onto the snowy land where her tail mysteriously transforms. And if your eyes can see through the blinding white shield that is created by the blowing wind you might catch a glimpse of her across the ice. And on the rarest of chances that she might be the one to see that just as you are curious to she what blurry shape you thought was only a dream...she too, will come to the very edge of the iceberg to see what the blurry shape see seen and if it too was a mirage...It is at this time, but you must be quick....that you can take ahold of her hand and bring her back to land. Once she is warmed by the lit fire in the nursery, she will warm and start to question all that lays before her. She now waits with the sound of a ticking clock beating in mind...what other adventures wait for her. She is now ready for her next journey, perhaps one to your house....but be it known that if left out too long she will secretly sip back to her home...the Arctic Ocean.

Stay tuned as the nursery has received a wee note wrapped out of a diary from a Mistress Sanna who has begun her own new journey above the ocean.

The Perfect Seaside Story

Now thinking along the lines of my wee company that specializes in Faeries you certainly must be questioning the title of this blog posting? Well, I know I would be, if I was you! Just saying??

Earlier this year I had decided to take a massive leap into the unknown and add to the Northern Line a mermaid like faerie. As this decision took more studying than the rest of the faeries that represent the environment, animals/birds both well known and sacred, using a historical reference and then finally symbolizing the topography of the land and water of northern Canada.

As from this point in the making of the Northern Line I had taken inspiration from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon areas but I knew little and next to nothing of the newest territory of Canada.  On April 1, 1999 Canada officially divided the Northwest Territories, a land claim that had proposed in 1976. This new 'land' has and still is mainly inhabited by the Inuit who have lived there for thousands of years. This new territory was called Nunavut which translates to the 'place of fish' in the traditional Inukitut language.

Garnered with the history of this magnificent new but oldest land, I knew that I had to fashion a new genre, a new type, a new style of faerie so her story could be told through my own imagination of colours, design, look and feel of a faerie made to represent and hopefully do justice to this land that was and is our ancestry.

I would like to share with you the story that inspired the creation of Mistress Sanna.

**The Legend of Sedna the Sea Goddess

The legend of how Sedna became a sea goddess is told throughout the Arctic. The story varies from one region to the next. However, in all versions, a young woman becomes the mother of all sea creatures and controls the availability of seal, walrus, fish, whale, and other sea animals to the Inuit hunters. 

Once there was a young woman named Sedna. She lived in the Arctic with her mother and father. She loved her mother and father very much and was very content. Her father was a skilled hunter, so he provided very well for his family. Sedna had plenty of food and warm furs to wear. She liked the comfort of her parent's home and refused to marry. Many Inuit men desired Sedna for a wife and asked her parents for permission to marry her. But Sedna refused them all. Even when her parents insisted it was time for her to marry she refused to follow tradition and obey them.

This continued for quite some time, until one particular Inuk came to visit Sedna. This man promised Sedna that he would provide her with plenty of food to eat and furs for clothes and blankets. Sedna agreed to marry him. After they were man and wife, he took her away to his island. When they were alone on the island, he revealed to her that he was not a man at all, but a bird dressed up as a man! Sedna was furious, but she was trapped and had to make the best of it. He, of course, was not a good hunter and could not provide her with meat and furs. All the birdman could catch was fish. Sedna got very tired of eating fish every day.

They lived together on the island for a time, until Sedna's father decided to come and visit. Upon seeing that his daughter was so unhappy and that her husband had lied to her, he killed the birdman. Sedna and her father got into his kayak and set off for home. The birdman's friends discovered what they had done and wanted to avenge the birdman's death. They flew above the kayak and flapped their wings very hard. The flapping of their wings resulted in a huge storm. The waves crashed over the small kayak making it almost impossible to keep the boat upright.

Sedna's father was so frightened that the storm would fill his kayak with water and that he would drown in the icy waters that he threw Sedna overboard. He thought that this would get the birds to stop flapping their wings, but it did not. Sedna did not want to be left in the water, so she held tightly to the edge of her father's boat and would not let go. Fearing that she would tip him over, the father cut her fingers off, one joint at a time. From each of her finger joints different sea creatures were born. They became fish, seals, walruses, and whales.

Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean and there became a powerful spirit. Her home is now on the ocean floor. If you have seen her, you know she has the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish.

Sedna now controls all of the animals of the sea. The Inuit who rely on these animals want to maintain a good relationship with Sedna, so that she will continue to allow her animals to make themselves available to the hunters. Inuit have certain taboos that they must follow to keep Sedna happy. One of these says that when a seal is killed it must be given a drink of fresh water, not salt water.

If the hunters do not catch anything for a long time, the Shaman will transform himself into a fish. In this new form, he or she will swim down to the bottom of the ocean to appease Sedna the Sea Goddess. The Shaman will comb the tangles out of Sedna's hair and put it into braids. This makes her happy and soothes her anger. Perhaps it is because Sedna lost her fingers that she likes to have her hair combed and braided by someone else. When she is happy, she allows her animals to make themselves available to the hunters. Animals do not mind giving themselves up to provide food, clothes, and shelter for the Inuit. **

**© Lenore Lindeman, 1999.
Moore Charles. 1986. Keeveeok, Awake! Edmonton: Ring House Gallery. p. 9–10.
http://www.polarlife.ca/traditional/myth/sedna.htm


I hope you now know why and how I created and welcomed Mistress Sanna amongst the beautiful, mystifying and magical family of the Northern Line of Faeries. I do hope that I have done her justice and I hope that she is able to carry on the folklore of the Inuit people.