Familiar - Tumblr Posts
I find it interesting, this human tendency to cling and clutch onto something that is bad and hurtful, only because we're thoroughly acquainted with it, rather than explore something new, something unknown, with a chance of it being better or even good.
It seems we truly love staying in our zone of toxic comfort out of sheer familiarity.
It's like living in a town you grew up in, yet 've been promising yourself to leave because you hate everything about it. However, when the time comes, you don't go. You stay. Why? Because "I know where all the shops are." "I know how the buses come and go." "I know my way through the streets, I won't get lost."
I won't get lost...
One doesn't live in that town 'cause they like the architecture, or the people who live there too, or because it has blooming parks and good memories tied to the primary school. They just know there are buildings, people, parks and a primary school. None of them which they actually ever really liked.
But the knowledge of the fact that they are there, makes them calm. I know everything that lurks here so nothing can surprise me. Nothing unexpected. Nothing that I wouldn't know how to deal with.
I can't get lost...
There lies a certainty in the known hence safety and control.
It doesn't matter that it doesn't make me happy nor that I find no fulfilling purpose in it, why would I give up my control? Why would I risk my comfort?
Only a fool wants to live in fear.
That's all very understandable
but it's also just one big 'make your choice' video game. You've played it time and time again, therefore you know every possible outcome. All you then do is press Restart and you can pretend you live life again. Safely, under your control. And nothing ever changes.
Yeah..
This kind of control is false. It's something fear and a desperate longing for peace tricks us into thinking we have in our comfort zone.
Probably because we're constantly afraid we don't have control over our lives, hence we don't live them as we want to, hence we'll never be able to achieve our urgently desired peace. Or maybe it is just a poorly made up definition - that peace equals us being fully in control... which is humanly impossible.
Even funnier it gets when we realize how we don't even see this. The toxic comforts become a part of us subconsciously and sometimes very early on. Letting go of them [have] never crossed our mind because why would I give up a part of my identity? It feels wrong and unnatural despite the fact that I'd be letting go of something that's been harming me... but I'm used to it. I'm familiar with it. This is who I've always been.
Well, have you?
A classy witch and her fluffy familiar.
Coffee Witch Art Prints by dustinbailard
x / x x / x x / x x / x x / x
Just a little observation. I wonder what those are connected to, if anything.
Fetches, Familiars, and Fylgjur
These titles have seemed to have been blurred or the meaning completely lost in modern day because they are conflated to mean the same thing when they are not the same things at all. So this post is gonna clear all that up.
Fetches:
A fetch is in Irish and English folklore, the term for one’s Double, an apparition of a living person. The fetch is also called a “co-walker” in England. Seeing a fetch is a sign of ill-boding, although in Irish lore, to see a fetch in the morning means one will have a long life. When seen at night, however, the fetch is believed to foretell a person’s death.
Fetches are seen by persons with clairvoyant ability, or by friends or family of the living person just prior to, or at the moment of, that person’s death. As such, the fetch is the equivalent of certain crisis apparitions, a term applied in psychical research and parapsychology. Sometimes the fetch is witnessed by the person who is to die several days or weeks prior to his or her death. As such, it is similar to the Germanic doppelgänger and to some conceptions of the British wraith. Francis Grose associated the term with Northern England in his 1787 Provincial Glossary, but otherwise it seems to have been in popular use only in Ireland.
Corresponding to its contemporary prominence in "national superstitions", the fetch appeared in Irish literature starting in early 19th century. "The fetch superstition" is the topic of John and Michael Banim's Gothic story "The Fetches" from their 1825 work Tales by the O'Hara Family and Walter Scott used the term in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, published in 1830, in a brief reference to "his … fetch or wraith, or double-ganger".
Familiars:
Familiars are (usually animal) spirits that can guide us and aid our magical practice and rituals. They can appear in the form of animals we are partial to and will change their form to be a more comforting animal for us.
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to records of the time, those alleging to have had contact with familiar spirits reported that they could manifest as numerous forms, usually as an animal, but sometimes as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as "clearly defined, three-dimensional… forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound", as opposed to descriptions of ghosts with their "smoky, undefined form[s]".
When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent, but when working for cunning folk they were often considered benevolent (although there was some ambiguity in both cases). The former were often categorized as demons, while the latter were more commonly thought of and described as fairies. The main purpose of familiars was to serve the witch or young witch, providing protection for them as they came into their new powers.
Since the 20th century some magical practitioners, including adherents of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, use the concept of familiars, due to their association with older forms of magic. These contemporary practitioners use pets or wildlife, or believe that invisible versions of familiars act as magical aids.
(familiars are almost NEVER physical, so that cat you adopted from the shelter is almost certainly not your familiar. I have only ever seen one physical familiar in my entire life and it is an EXCEEDINGLY rare circumstance)
Fylgja:
Fylgjur (plural of Fylgja) (pronounced "feel-hyur" & "feel-hya" respectively) are supernatural guardian spirits, bound to a family line, who are said to accompany a person throughout life. Like many concepts in Norse mythology, the Fylgja is sometimes hard to comprehend or explain.
Fylgja, translated from Old Norse, means "someone that accompanies". They can appear in two ways.
The first is an animal form, which can be described as an extension of an aspect or characteristic of a particular family. They seem to embody the spirit, and guide the one they choose, or work deeds for them.
Maria Kvilhaug translated and summarised Professor Else Mundal's academic paper on the topic, “Fylgjemotiva i norrøn litteratur” (Fylgjur Motifs in Norse Literature):
"The animal fylgja motif is sometimes blended with the húgr-motif. [Húgr (masculine singular) means “intent”, “desire”, “thought”, “soul”, “heart” and seems to have been a part of the human soul that could move outside of the body in animal shape]. Manna hugir ["the intents of men"] sometimes replace the term manna fylgjor [the “followers” of men] and usually then appear in the shape of wolves. Wolves, being associated with fierce passion and desire (or greed and hunger) are closely connected to the húgr. The other animals appear as manna fylgjor."
The second description from “Fylgjemotiva i norrøn litteratur” explains how Fylgjur are female entities. They act as a guardian for a family, and attach themselves to an individual at birth, following through the generations down a certain lineage. They are likely to represent an ancestral mother. We know that the mothers were celebrated, with female ancestral spirits being described as "DĂsir" (meaning "Ladies"). These female spirits are bound to a family of which they are matriarchal ancestors, and can be both benevolent or malevolent.
In the Anglo-Saxon and later English superstitions, an animal Fylgja became known as a fetch. Whether this was originally the same creature that appears in Icelandic literature, or whether this is a similar concept, it is hard to tell. A fetch in the British witchcraft tradition is an animal spirit, or living animal, that would allow its "owner" to travel with it or send it on errands for magical workings or spirit travel.
It is more common for us to see the witch's fetch depicted as a familiar; a physical animal that aids the practitioner in her works. Many folk tales describe how these animals might also be the witch transformed, and physical injuries suffered by the animal matching those of the witch once she is restored to human form. This shape-shifting also appeared as a Norse concept.
In modern reconstructed Heathen spirituality, a Fylgja can be seen as an attendant female spirit or animal, which may visit you in dreams, or appear if you are practising SeiĂ°r, trance-working, or going on a spirit journey. People sometimes feel that their Fylgja has run on ahead of them when travelling in a physical sense.
Sybil for @thehedash !
This seems familiar
Day 16: Folklore
Inktober day 5 "raven"
Liquorice!
My friend told me he looked like he’d be a mascot for salt liquorice so that’s his name now. Original I know haha
Baby Liquorice 🥺
I’m just a sucker for emotional power-ballads. 💫❤️
(I can’t draw the way y’all do, or at all so here she is!)
All of my frog art in one place.
CHARACTER ART CHARACTER ART CHARACTER ART
My husband commissioned the incredible Magikfire to create this art of my human (or maybe fae???????) sorcerer, Nadja--and Tovu, the familiar she was given for politely wasting a god’s time.
Follow them on Twitter! https://twitter.com/magikfire?lang=en
And read their WebToon! https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/dreamwalker/list?title_no=198959
They let this town fall down around us like we always thought it would, but we never left even though we knew. â—‡
Evening
Familiar #agnesobel #familiar #dark #netflix #drawing #pencil #blackandwhite #sketch #sketchbook #doodle https://www.instagram.com/p/B2PrZzdolUG/?igshid=ikki7b1400hx