Hedges as a Boarder with Fairyland

[Winter Lord]

How long has the idea of "Beyond or behind the Hedge" come to mean the Realms of Fairy?

 

[Interference]

Beyond the Hedge by Roby James, © January 2007, Juno Books
ISBN 10: 0-8095-5679-0

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ORION FOXWOOD is a teacher of the Faery Seership tradition, founder of Foxwood Temple and co-director of the Moonridge Center in Maryland. He has lectured extensively across the United States and is currently working on a book entitled The Faery Teachings. His Workshops are: Attuning to the Sacred Land; Beyond the Hedge: Walking the Hidden Paths; and Breathing for the Land.

*

The hobbits now left the tunnel-gate and rode across the wide hollow. On the far side was a faint path leading up on to the floor of the Forest, a hundred yards and more beyond the Hedge; but it vanished as soon as it brought them under the trees. Looking back they could see the dark line of the Hedge through the stems of trees that were already thick about them. Looking ahead they could see only tree-trunks of innumerable sizes and shapes: straight or bent, twisted, leaning, squat or slender, smooth or gnarled and branched; and all the stems were green or grey with moss and slimy, shaggy growths.

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That's about as much as an amateur googler can come up with, you probably found as much yourself. Hope it helps, of if not, that someone else can provide a better answer.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It may go back to the Middle Ages, when hedges were commonly used as boundaries, and some of them were very old. I'm guessing that people simply saw them as natural borders between "here" and "there."

Also, because most people didn't venture more than a few miles from home in their entire lives, those who lived within that narrow compass often thought there were fairies -- or at least very strange people -- just out of sight: the more familiar convention is "the people over the hill" but "beyond the hedge" would work just as well if it represented a line that you and your neighbors had never crossed.

 

[Nik]

Re: Hedges as a Border with Fairyland

Um, sure sounds friendlier than 'Beyond the Pale' or palisade, or 'Ultima Thule'...

Reckon it must have a different derivation to 'hedging bet'...

 

[Peter Graham]

It may go back to the Middle Ages, when hedges were commonly used as boundaries, and some of them were very old.

Possibly, although hedges still are commonly used as boundaries and I've never heard of any link to Faerie.

I wonder if perhaps "hedge" in this context is a bastardisation of another word, rather than meaning "hedge" as we understand it today. Possibly from the same root as "hedge wizard".

By way of a parallel, we have a mountain up here called the "Old Man of Coniston". It's a wonderfully evocative name, but "Old Man" is actually a bastardisation of "Allt Maen", the Brythonic Celtic for "High Cairn".

Also, because most people didn't venture more than a few miles from home in their entire lives, those who lived within that narrow compass often thought there were fairies -- or at least very strange people -- just out of sight:

Not sure about this - I think people travelled rather further than we give them credit for. Possibly not during the worst excesses of medieval feudalism, but otherwise I'd be surprised if horizons really were that limited. I suspect that faerie arose as a result of pagan gods and characters being re-cast after Christianization. They represented something of the old order which people found hard to let go - as evidenced by the numerous carvings of the Green Man in early churches.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Winter Lord]

Recently, while in a local bookstore, I came across a copy of the recent update of White Wolf's Changeling, and I skimmed a bit of it. The authors mentioned Behind the Hedge in relation to Fairy. Later, I remembered a book that my mother used to have called Door in the Hedge, which had, I think, author Robin McKinnley's takes on some classic fairytales. And I think there is a young adult series about a group of kids traveling to fairy and Hedge is in the title. This gave me the notion to use Hedgeling as a modern name for fairy. Read people's posts also makes me think that the idea might have its roots in old idea of "In-Between-Places".

Re: Interference
You had better luck then I did.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Possibly, although hedges still are commonly used as boundaries and I've never heard of any link to Faerie.


I think people travelled rather further than we give them credit for. Possibly not during the worst excesses of medieval feudalism, but otherwise.

People don't link them with Faerie because they no long expect strange things to be there just out of sight.

And there is plenty of evidence that ordinary rural folk -- the kind most likely to believe in fairies -- did not travel (unless they had professions that took them further afield), and this was true far beyond the medieval period. They were too busy, too poor, and for most of them travel was too uncomfortable and served no practical purpose.

In fact, travelling conditions were fairly miserable even for upper class people well into the 18th century. You can read contemporary accounts by the people who did travel, and their stories are so full of inconveniences and discomforts, it's impossible to imagine any sensible farmer putting himself through all of that without a darn good reason. A lot of inns and lodging houses wouldn't even let you sleep there if you didn't look sufficiently well-off. The idea of all these merry inns and taverns where everybody was welcome comes from the pages of fiction rather than from historical reality.

 

[Interference]

(This is more fun than Balderdash and Piffle!)

I have to say, Winter Lord - may I call you M'Lord? - I'd never actually heard "Beyond" or "Behind the Hedge" in this context and was a bit surprised to see google turning up anything creditable at all. But I love the term "Hedgeling", it sounds so perfect for those that may live at the bottom of your garden.

And, hey, if Wiki doesn't know better, and the references I've given already notwithstanding, it sounds like it's something you might have derived uniquely from your own fertile imagination through a combination of previous experiences and recollections.

Someone is soooo going to correct me on this

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Teresa,

People don't link them with Faerie because they no long expect strange things to be there just out of sight.

Yes, but folk culture persists. "Don't cut both crusts - it'll let the devil into the loaf" and so on. No-one believes that it actually will, but a memory of those earlier beliefs linger. I've never heard of any such "echo" of hedges being linked to faerie, although there are plenty of place names and stories to suggest that faeries were linked to mounds and barrows.

And there is plenty of evidence that ordinary rural folk -- the kind most likely to believe in fairies -- did not travel (unless they had professions that took them further afield), and this was true far beyond the medieval period. They were too busy, too poor, and for most of them travel was too uncomfortable and served no practical purpose.

It depends how far you mean when you say "did not travel." OK - they weren't all trotting down 200 miles to London to watch the bear-baiting every second weekend, but neither were they all confined to their little village for all their days. People would have to travel to graze and pasture animals, to visit the markets, to carry out their trade or calling, to go to church etc etc. The gene pool would've shrunk pretty quickly if no-one ever left home.

And news travelled further than people. Our ancestors knew who lived just over the horizon. They knew of their neighbours, their kings, their lords and their bishops. They knew the songs and the legends. They knew when the Scots or the French were invading. I think they were much more sophisticated than we give them credit for.

You can read contemporary accounts by the people who did travel, and their stories are so full of inconveniences and discomforts, it's impossible to imagine any sensible farmer putting himself through all of that without a darn good reason.

But that's the point. They did have a darn good reason. In the case of farmers, they had to sell their animals. By way of an example, drovers from Scotland would routinely drive stock from South West Scotland all the way down to Yorkshire to market. The Pennines are crossed with ancient tracks and pack-horse roads. One near us is called "Galloway Gate" - a reference to the Galloway drovers who regularly used the track and who lived well over 100 miles away.

A lot of inns and lodging houses wouldn't even let you sleep there if you didn't look sufficiently well-off. The idea of all these merry inns and taverns where everybody was welcome comes from the pages of fiction rather than from historical reality.

I agree. I believe that most travellers probably slept rough. Although the existence of inns in itself is evidence of travel - they were built as lodgings for itinerants long before anyone had thought of the Great British Pub as a village institution. The village wives all brewed their own beer for home consumption.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Winter Lord]

Wasn't the Labyrinth, in the movie of the same name, composed partially of hedges?

I seem to remember a series of kid's books about travel through a magic hedge that lead to a fairyland.