Caught Between Two Worlds

Caught Between Two Worlds

When I was a child I remember being told stories from Irish folklore about fairies, stories that captivated and often frightened me. We were warned not to go near the big ash tree in the field beyond our house as it was said to be a meeting place for fairies, a gateway between the world for mortals and that of the otherworld.

To disturb them would bring nothing but bad luck, so of course it became a game of dare between my siblings and I as to who would be brave enough to break this rule. I can’t recall ever going too close, always giving the fairies a wide berth as I rambled through the long grass.

In my imagining, they were small winged figures, will-o’-the-wisp types that were impossible to catch. I tried to conjure up images of what their homes were like and how they lived. I’d have given anything to see one, but no doubt have been terrified had the ethereal image of a fairy appeared by my side.

There were stories of people being taken by the fairies, of changelings being left in their place, of banshee’s or fairy women whose strange keening sound marked the imminent death of a family member. In all that I heard, fairies were feared and revered in equal measure.

Often they were referred to as the Good Folk or the Gentle People, and on occasion housewives were known to leave a bowl of milk out for them at night in the hope that they would bring their household good fortune and protection. Fairies could be generous and bring good luck and prosperity or they could strike you down for crossing them. In many respects they were human-like in their fallibility.

Living in rural Fermanagh, superstitions about fairies were only part of our cultural beliefs and practices. My mother scored a cross through the round of wheaten bread before baking it in the oven, a tradition said to let the devil out and protect the household. I understood that seeing a single magpie would bring sorrow, but to see two would signal great joy.

I knew never to pass by a penny lying on the ground, and that when visiting a house I should always go out the same door I came in or I would take the luck out of the house with me. And as a red head, one I was particularly fond of was the notion that if you met a red-haired woman first thing in the morning, you would have bad luck all day!

Many of these superstitions have stayed with me into adulthood (why take the chance of walking underneath a step ladder?), but like many other people, my belief in the supernatural and in fairies has diminished with age. Fairies were childhood myths, like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, things to be left behind as we grew into adulthood. With this in mind, I could never have imagined that I’d end up writing a book about these elusive creatures, a book not set in Ireland, but in Iceland.

Living in Belfast, two of my good friends were originally from Iceland, and in one of our late night conversations we somehow got talking about Irish folklore and established a common cultural belief in fairies or little people. In Iceland these creatures are known as Huldufólk, which means hidden people, and similar to the Irish fairies were believed to live in rocks and mounds on the land. Icelandic folklore had it that these hidden people were the children of Adam and Eve. God had appeared to Eve one day when she was in the middle of washing her children, and in her embarrassment she had hidden some of the unwashed children away.

These children became known as the hidden people. Within Iceland there remains a strong reluctance to interfere in things which have an association with the Huldufólk, and even the road service have been known to reroute roads in order to avoid upsetting their homes.

On occasion a psychic or seer has been brought in to negotiate with the Huldufólk on their behalf. These are the few individuals in Iceland who claim to have the ability to communicate with other-worldly beings, and in some cases can also see and interact with them.

I was fascinated to understand who these people were and how they were treated within their family and community, if they were vilified for believing in such outlandish ideas. With great appreciation to the Arts Council in Northern Ireland I was granted an artists award, which enabled me to go to Iceland and spend time with the renowned friend of the Huldufólk, Ragnihildur Jonsdottir.

Ragga, as she likes to be called, has been a friend of the Huldufólk ever since she was a child, when her parents assumed she had an imaginary friend. She has lived an extraordinary life, ridiculed and isolated by many, but also respected and sought by others for her unique powers. She sees her role as a liaison between the modern world and the Huldufólk, and claims that she can both see the hidden people and communicate with them.

When I met Ragga at the elf garden, an area north of Reykjavik, She was dressed in colourful woollens, a loose braid of grey hair draped down her back. She was softly spoken, funny and very open. She was nothing of the irrational lady I was expecting and I immediately felt at ease in her presence. She told me how everyone thought she was crazy when she was growing up, and that the judgement she received forced her to question her own mental health on several occasions.

Ragga had to become very resilient, and it’s a testament to her character that when faced with such demonization during her life she continued to maintain her beliefs, reaching a point where she is totally comfortable with who she is and what she represents.

She is now a passionate environmentalist, a grandmother, and the subject of an acclaimed film titled ‘The Seer and the Unseen’, screened at the 2019 San Francisco International Film Festival. Ragga opened up to me the magical and mystical world of the Huldufólk and was instrumental in informing my book.

Black Beach is the story of Fríða, a seer like Ragga who has been able to see the Huldufólk ever since she was a child, always living between two worlds. After asking her to read a completed draft of my book I was delighted with Ragga’s endorsement. “Black Beach is about the connection between two worlds. It is so real, so alive and so true.”

Despite Ragga’s unassuming and beguiling nature, it’s a big jump for anyone to believe that these things we cannot see are real, but as Ragga reminded me, when you go into a church you don’t see Jesus or Muhammad or Buddha, but yet so many believe. Perhaps we are simply selective about what we believe in.

For me, meeting Ragga and subsequently writing Black Beach gave me a chance to open up my heart and let my inner child out. It was a way to explore the surprising power of belief and the invisible forces that shape our world, and to understand that belief in Fairies and Good Folk is universal, not simply consigned to the dusty realms of childhood.

Black Beach is available now on Amazon.

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Olivia Rana has a Masters of Art in Creative Writing from Queen’s University, Belfast. Her debut novel, Elastic Girl was published in November 2017 and was awarded fiction winner in the prestigious 2019 Indie Reader Discovery Awards.

Rana’s second novel Black Beach is set in Iceland and explores the phenomena of the Huldufólk, or Hidden People, through the eyes of a psychic named Fríða Jónsdóttir. Fríða has been a friend of the Huldufólk all her life, living between two worlds. Now at age seventy-five she is given her greatest challenge ever, to save the lives of the Huldufólk on Black Beach, but she must overcome her own frailties and the disbelief of those around her in order to do so. In an extraordinary turn of events, it is her daughter Alda who comes to her help, proving the strength and tenacity of the mother/daughter relationship.

Both Elastic Girl and Rana’s second novel, Black Beach received an award through the Arts Council for Northern Ireland under their Support for Individual Artists Programme. 

Olivia Rana lives in Belfast with her husband and two young children. She is currently working on her third novel.

–Follow Olivia on Twitter https://twitter.com/Oliviarana2

BLACK BEACH

Alda, a logically minded seismologist has always been sceptical of her mother Fríða’s belief in the strange Icelandic phenomena known as Huldufólk (Hidden People). But when the aging Fríða mysteriously disappears from her nursing home and sets off across country to save the Huldufólk from a threat to their homes, it is the start of an extraordinary journey for both women.

Alda confronts her own demons and Fríða finally helps to uncover the truth of the mysterious events that led up to the death of her father six decades earlier. Through their journeys, and an imminent disaster on Black Beach, the two women come together with a more profound understanding of each other and themselves, proving the resilience and tenacity of the mother/daughter relationship against all odds.

Black Beach was informed in part by renowned Huldufólk seer and environmentalist Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir. Ragnhildur has given her full endorsement of the book – “This is the first time ever I have read a story about connection between the worlds, so real, so alive and so true. I love how it brings together the world of the “know it all” and the world of those who are always questioned, not believed and ridiculed. What a treat to read this story.” Ragnhildur is the subject of current award winning realist documentary The Seer and the Unseen, directed by Sara Dosa.

 

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Category: On Writing