Fairy Paths & Spirit Roads: Exploring Otherworldly Routes in the Old & New Worlds

by Paul Devereux

Embark on a journey into a previously unimagined world, one where seemingly ordinary paths are in fact ancient, spiritual roads. With this first practical work of its kind, which mingles oral history, anecdotes, and historical facts, readers can explore actual landscape features in Britain, Ireland, Mexico, and the United States that possess spiritual and magical qualities. Find out how fairy paths and spirit roads fit into a broader "spirit way" framework, and then get ready to travel around the globe to examine dozens of sites. Location details and practical information are given along with historic and folkloric associations, and descriptions of reported "hauntings" or "sightings" of spirit entities. Examine the ancient Mayan "white ways," the mysterious roads around Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, church paths in Europe that were trodden by funeral processions and became used by the dead, and more.

Genres: Folklore, Nonfiction, History, Occult, Travel

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2003

Reviews

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hat tip, first of all, to Paul Devereux for only referring to ley lines twice in the whole book, the first time on page 99 iirc. Not that I have any problem whatsoever with ley hunting in the most general sense. Alfred Watkins rocked. However it is a topic that is easily ridiculed and in this study of some phenomena that are already easily scoffed at by those in Empiricist straitjackets that would have undermined what is actually some rigorously researched material. It straddles the margin where archaeology, folklore and anthropology intersect. Personally that’s a spot I feel very comfortable in.

That said, the book definitely leaves one wanting more, especially towards the end, and specifically the site surveys of New Mexico. The accounts of Dreamtime paths in Australian are equally fascinating, the European/Celtic fringe material perhaps a little less so. That’s mainly because I’m more familiar with the material, and some of the sites for that matter.

I’d really like to see an updated, expanded edition with way more (colour) illustrations. If you like a bit of psychogeography, or Forteana more generally, you’ll have heard of Paul and, if you’re not familiar with this particular book, should give it a try.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more depth here but that's likely due to my misunderstanding of the book's main purpose. As a guidebook to the fairy paths and cemetery roads in the UK, it's excellent and, if lived in the UK, I would definitely follow a path or two. The legends and incidental stories about those roads are great too, but I'd like to know more about them than is offered here. Also, the connection between European ritual paths and the sections of the book that address Australia and the New World are pretty tenuous, fascinating though songlines and ancient American Indian routes are. I was also hoping for more analysis of what road folklore means -- why, for example, we have hitchhiking ghosts in America -- and while interpolation is possible from the contents here, questions like that are outside the book's scope. I'd be very curious about any connections between Old World beliefs and any folklore that might have followed settlers to the Americas. As a simple example, Irving's Headless Horseman and the story of Tam O'Shanter have intriguing similarities. Again, any absence in this book is my fault for not having a better notion of the author's intention before I picked it up. The contents brilliantly serve the purpose of guiding the curious in direct experience along ancient pathways, mostly in the British Isles but also in a limited away in other lands.

[Barbc]

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