Restoring the Faery Accord: Why the Land (and the Faeries) Are Waiting for Us to Wake Up
“The unvarnished truth of the Grail myth is … the fabric of the worlds falls apart as the communion of the Faery Accord is forgotten or violated.” — Caitlín Matthews
According to Caitlin Mathews, restoring the faery accord requires us to: speak kindly, never strike, respect mutual boundaries, never show greed, do not steal, keep your word.
Shouldn’t be too difficult. But what if we apply those requirements to the way we treat Nature and animals?
Big difference. Right?
Humans have broken this accord in every way possible, polluting water and air, stripping soil, clearcutting forests, abusing animals, mining mountains, wiping out one species after another — on and on.
Reconnecting with the Faery Realm
Imagine you’re walking through a forest — birds chattering, air thick with the scent of decomposing leaves — when suddenly, the atmosphere shifts. The light shimmers, your skin tingles, and you get that odd sense that something ancient and intelligent is watching you. That’s the moment the old stories are talking about — the place where humans and faeries used to meet.
That relationship isn’t just about whimsy and glitter (though a little glitter never hurts). It is a sacred pact — the Faery Accord — a real agreement between our world and theirs, the human and faery realms, designed to keep the land flourishing and both species thriving.
When we kept it, the wells flowed, crops grew, and people felt, well… enchanted. When we broke it — usually through greed, neglect, or just being a bit too human — the land withered, the magic withdrew, and we started inventing words like “deforestation” and “climate crisis.”
The Forgotten Pact of the Well Maidens
If you’ve ever read Caitlín and John Matthews’s The Lost Book of the Grail, you’ve already met the keepers of the Faery Accord — the Well Maidens.
Long before Instagram wellness influencers, these luminous faery women tended sacred wells that nourished both the land and the soul. Travelers could come, receive water, food, or healing — but they had to offer something in return: respect, song, gratitude, sometimes a small token.
It was a perfect balance — equal exchange — the invisible economy of magic that kept everything in harmony.
Then came King Amangons (a medieval poster child for “What Not to Do”). He violated the Well Maidens’ hospitality, stealing their golden cup — and worse, their trust. Some stories even tell of knights raping the Well Maidens.
In response, the Maidens vanished, the wells dried up, and the once-green kingdom became the Wasteland. Cue the Grail Quest: humans desperately searching for the spiritual vitality they themselves had trampled.
Sound familiar? It’s a mythic version of what we’re living now: defiled rivers, vanishing species, and an aching spiritual drought.
Faeries Are Not Metaphors
Let’s get this straight: faeries are real. Not Disney real, but quantum physics real — living in a slightly less dense dimension, overlapping ours like another radio frequency.
They are often connected with rivers, groves, stones — sharing the intelligence of nature itself. Sometimes you might glimpse them as flickers of light, sometimes as whispers of joy that make the leaves tremble.
And sometimes (if you’re lucky and your Wi-Fi signal of belief is strong enough), you feel them brush past like a shimmer of wind that smells faintly of roses and mischief. On rare occasions, they even appear to people in human shapes of various sizes.
Once upon a time, we had partnerships with these beings. The Faery Accord was how both species agreed to coexist. It was about respect, ritual, and reciprocity — the same principles your grandma probably taught you, minus the pointed ears.
The Courts of Joy and the Choirs That Never Stopped Singing
The old stories say that the faery realms held Courts of Joy — places of laughter, feasting, and music so pure it kept the world’s vibration humming. And there were Perpetual Choirs, sacred choirs of druids and faery beings whose songs maintained the land’s enchantment.
Think of it as a spiritual sound system that kept everything in tune. But when the Accord broke, the song faltered. Humanity replaced it with leaf blowers and traffic noise.
Why Restoring the Accord Matters Now
The Faery Accord isn’t just about folklore — it’s a spiritual operating system for planetary health. When humans live in right relationship with the land and the faeries, the world literally becomes more fertile, more joyful, more balanced.
Right now, the faery realms are still here — just waiting for us to remember our side of the deal. The problem isn’t that they disappeared; it’s that we stopped showing up. We ghosted the faeries.
But they haven’t given up on us. The Well Maidens still appear in dreams and meditations, holding their cups of light, asking the same quiet question:
Will you help restore the Accord?
How to Begin the Restoration
Let’s keep it simple — practical magic for modern humans:
- Visit Nature as a Guest, Not an Owner
Go outside and introduce yourself. “Hello, oak tree, thank you for existing.” You’ll be amazed what happens when you stop seeing nature as background scenery and start seeing it as conscious kin. - Make Offerings
Leave a bowl of spring water, a piece of bread, a song, or a poem in gratitude. Not payment — partnership. Faeries understand symbolic language better than economists ever will. - Equal Exchange
Only take what you need. Give back through care, planting, or protecting wild places. Even picking up trash can be an offering. - Listen
Sit quietly in the woods or by a stream. Ask, “Is there anything you’d like me to know?” Then actually wait for an answer. - Tell the Stories Again
Speak of the Well Maidens, the Courts of Joy, the living Accord. Every retelling re-threads the golden weave of memory that connects both worlds. - Act for Justice — Both Seen and Unseen
Defend rivers, trees, pollinators, animals, and the people most affected when the land is harmed. That’s modern faery work — activism with a sparkle.
The Return of the Song
If myths are maps, then we’re standing exactly where the Wasteland begins to bloom again. The Accord isn’t gone; it’s just waiting for enough of us to remember.
Each act of respect, each offering, each story told is a note in that Perpetual Choir — the one that never truly stopped singing. The more we join in, the more the world begins to hum again.
And who knows? The next time you feel that golden shimmer in the woods, you might just hear laughter on the wind — the Well Maidens filling their cups once more.
Want to learn more about faeries? The asked me to create a website for them. Check it out here: https://www.fairysource.com/
And if you want to go deeper into the faery mysteries, come visit Faehallows School of Magic