#Unseelie Court

[nightfaeses]

Prince beyond the pillars 🌹

[lavenderskye29]

We would like to take a moment from our usual monkey business to introduce Fae!Konig.

We will now get back to it.

[loki-nightfire]

Unseelie court AU: Magnus Oberon

This is the illustration for fic by Mikky, written due to Samhain. Magnus Oberon as a king of the Unseelie court. Alec as Puck is following I hope. Read and enjoy here

[nythscribble]

as the prophecy foretold.. more Tripp!

mmmm when your patron of the unseelie court wants to contact you :)

baby druid has a warlock moment..

[fluffyquill]

Prince Andhera of the Unseelie Court, Heir to the Throne of Air and Darkness

I CAN’T SEEM TO STOP - WHO’S NEXT??

Many thanks to @allthatoldhat for guidance on shalwar kameez and Indian fashion! ❤️ I didn’t want to put him in more dark colors, so a sunset palette was the winner! (Done with Copics and gel pens)

[alex-iltempo]

I liked character of Roiben in TFOTA so I'm starting to read The Modern Faerie Tales...

well, first I'll read The Darkest part of the Forest... Those as I understand have connections to The Folk of the Air series

[maribok]

I was itching to do just do some nice straightforward fanart

[danwhobrowses]

Okay sure just split the group again I'm sure nothing could go wrong this time dividing them into sub-groups to sting at high levelled and relatively unknown areas with high risk and high threat of boss level enemies in the vicinity and then go on another break to make us stew on that, it's fine IT'S FINE!

[madcat-world]

Unseelie Court (1 of 2) - Lily Abdullina

[thesoulspulse]

Since I was almost done with this drawing anyway I quickly added the final touches to this loose story concept of King Vladislav from the first time he laid eyes on Danny and his father Jack traveling through his forest. His looming shadow can easily blend in with the silhouettes of the dead autumn trees, but his eyes pierce through the surrounding darkness like a wild animal on the prowl which are nearly impossible to ignore once you’ve seen them...

Original: Sorry if it’s a little difficult to make out, I drew this in pencil

[madamrynodm]

Fiddling with ideas for the Queen of Air and Darkness. I've been playing around with some homebrew ideas for the Feywild, and we're kicking things off with the Unseelie Court, it seems

Her tattoos double as her familiars. Many of them are spiders that continually weave new silken dresses for her. Always spinning according to her every whim

[mask131]

Green spring: Seelie and Unseelie

SEELIE AND UNSEELIE

Category: Scottish folklore

When people look up at fairies, usually one of the first thing they will stumble upon on the Internet is “Seelie Court and Unseelie Court”.

The Seelie and Unseelie Court (also known sometimes as simply “the Seelie fairies and the Unseelie fairies”) is a type of fairy division/fairy classification from Scottish folklore – and it is now one of the most famous classification of fairies in the modern world. According to this divide, the “Seelie” fairies are fairies that are generally benevolent towards humans: they return kindness, they can bring favors, they can ask for or give help, and if someone offends them they warn first before striking. These fairies are still dangerous, as all fairies are: like all fairies they are prone to revenge and mischief, but they are generally the “good guys” so to speak. In contrast, the “Unseelie” fairies are the malevolent and negative fairies, those that attack people without warning, and sometimes without reason, and ally themselves with witches and other dark entities of evil power. The “Unseelie” fairies include various negative entities of the folklores of the British isles: the baobhan sith taking the shape of a beautiful woman to lure and kill men, the redcaps who live in ruins and dye their hats with human blood, the nuckelavee who is a grotesque skinless centaur bringing disease and famine everywhere, the shellycoat who is a bogeyman of rivers, and the Sluagh (a host of malevolent fairies/angry ghosts/nocturnal spirits who you better not cross path with).

[Note that while the term “Court”, in modern fiction, has been reused numerous times with the modern meaning of “court” – having a queen and a king, and being made of nobility – the term seems originally to just be a word meaning a “host” or a “group” in general, since in Scottish folklore there is no talk of “Unseelie king or queen” for example.]

Now… all that being said, the divide of Seelie/Unseelie seems to be a latter addition or invention to the Scottish myth of the fairies. Before that, it seems there was just “Seelie” (it is clear that “Unseelie” was based on the word “seelie”): because “seelie” or “seely” was a term used in Scotland, but also in Northern England, to designate fairies as a whole. “Seelie” is a term that means “blessed”, “happy” or “lucky”, and it seems to have been used the same way fairies as a whole were called “good neighbors” or “the fair folk” – it was an euphemisms, or a counter-name, destined to flatter and please the supernatural beings, in hope of avoiding their wrath. It seems that originally “Seelie” was the name of all fairies as a whole, but then somehow the meaning got twisted into just meaning the good fairies, while a different name was created for the wicked fairies: “unseelie”, meaning “misfortunate, unhappy, cursed”. What is even more fascinating is that originally the term “seelie” was used alongside the word “wights”. “Seelie wights” – a word with an unclear meaning, but which was sometimes spelled “wichts”, leading to deformations as… “witch”. “Seelie witches”. The closeness of “Seelie” with “wights” and “witches” led in fact some scholars to wonder if the term “seelie” was actually used to designate fairies, or if it rather was used to designate a different type of supernatural being, different from fairies.

- - - - - - - -

Today, the Seelie and Unseelie Court is such a widespread and popular division you find it everywhere in fictional works talking about fairies. In modern “fairy fiction”, these two courts were most notably popularized by two book series:

# The Dresden Files: In the worldbuilding of this snarky urban fantasy series (bordering on the cosmic horror), the fairies are divided into two nations each dominated by a different Court, the Seelie Court ruling over the summer season, and the Unseelie Court ruling over the winter season. Each Court is ruled by a triumvir of fairy queens who embody the “Maiden-Mother-Crone” trinity: a Lady, a Queen and a Mother. Titania is the queen of the “Summer Court”, while Mab is the queen of the “Winter Court”. The Dresden Files notably challenges the idea that the Seelie and Unseelie Court are based on morality: while it is the stereotype common in this world, in truth the Unseelie fairies are not “evil”, they are cold, ruthless, calculating beings of ice, death and darkness. Meanwhile the Seelie fairies are beings of life, light and warmth, yes, but they can be as chaotic and destructive as hot jungles or thunderstorms, and they are not fairies of “goodness”. “The Dresden Files” is notorious for bringing the whole idea of “Seelie/Unseelie=Winter/Summer” which wasn’t something before its release…

There was a concept of the fairy courts being associated with cold and heat before The Dresden Files though: it was the elf-courts in “The Discworld” series by Terry Pratchett (which was a main source of inspiration for The Dresden Files). In Pratchett’s world, the elves of the Discworld (a cross between a parody of the Tolkienesque elves and the “fair folk” of British legends played for full horror) are divided between a court centered around a Queen, who lives in perpetual frozen wastelands of endless winter, and a second one centered around a King, instead hiding in a very hot, very moist, warmth and humid underground realm of vapor and sweat.

# Another big influence on modern perception of the Unseelie and Seelie Court was “The Shadowhunter Chronicles”, where the fairies are also divided in two nations each ruled by one of these courts. No seasonal theme here – rather the Seelie Court is focused on appearing as beautiful, helpful and benevolent as possible, while still being deceptive and manipulatives, while the Unseelie Court is openly and proudly cruel, violent and monstrous. The Seelie Court is ruled by a Queen, while the Unseelie Court is under the domination of a King.

Interestingly, the same way “The Dresden Files” was inspired by “Discworld”, it seems the concept of “The Shadowhunter Chronicles” of the two courts being divided between beautiful subjects of a fairy queen and the monstrous subjects of a fairy king was inspired by an older work of the 80s: “Faerie Tale” by Raymond E. Feist, a horror novel based on fairy folklore. In it, we end up learning that somehow after the events described by William Shakespeare in his “Midsummer Night’s Dream” play, Titania and Oberon (or at least the beings Shakespeare described by this name) ended up splitting their fairyland into two distinct part, separated by a dusk-plunged, haunted, no-man’s land called the “Shadow Lands”. On one side is the Bright Lands, a fairyland of endless day where the sweet and kind Queen rules over pleasant, charming and joyful fae, who are benevolent and helpful towards humans, but still dangerous to live with due to their alien ways of thinking, strange customs and hazardous magical powers. On the other side, the King lives in the Dark Land, a realm of endless night where he rules over monstrous, grotesque, hateful and murderous fae who only wish to invade the human world and destroy mankind.

[nightfaeses]

[ wip ] so that finale, huh?

[accidentalslayer]

On the outside, I look like a normal human person. But on the inside-emotionally-I am a little faery with a jack o lantern for a head.

[cozykathryn]

Welcome to The Fae Realm, where the dead walk, the Unseelie deal in contracts, and the dwarves are threatening civil war.

An old, long-defeated evil is stirring, gathering strength once more, and it will take an unlikely group of heroes to thwart him - a kind witch; a dwarven outcast; a pair of star-crossed gay elves; and two very sassy old women.

Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover and ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GKZQC16

[nocturnalmoonmind]

Lol is Kit going to be king of Seelie and Unseelie Courts, Dru the queen of Seelie with Ash... And Kieran already is a king of Unseelie Court with Cristina and Mark right next to him. Shadowhunters took over Faerie wtf is going on