The Willow Weeps, But Not For Me: Traditions of Fairy Seership in the Balkans with Katarina Pejović & Sasha Ravitch

Across the myriad genres of sorcery, traditions of spirit-initiated  witchcraft, and lineages of cunning arts found in the Balkans, those  descended from encounters with fairies hold a bewitching rank in  folklore: both frequently-depicted in the abstract, while also remaining  secretive, distant, mysterious, and often inaccessible in practice.  Initiation into these forms of fairy-craft takes place almost  universally directly between spirit and human. A vila may choose to  adopt a young girl on the cusp of puberty as her “sister” or  “goddaughter”, bestowing upon her phenomenal gifts of mediumship,  trance, premonition—and madness—in exchange for a portion of her  humanity, transforming her into a veritable member of her kin.  Alternatively, a marriage pact between one world and the next may be  forged, with an unsuspecting shepherd becoming enraptured in a  matrimonial bond that changes both his own village and the world of his  otherworldly bride’s forever—assuming he is allowed to return in…