Case file · Fairy lore
Irish fairy forts
Ancient ringforts (raths) shunned as the dwellings of the Aos Sí.
0 CE · 53.40, -8.00 · status: folklore
The account
Real Iron-Age and early-medieval enclosures, long left undisturbed out of respect (or fear) of the fairy folk.
The researched reading
Real archaeological sites preserved by respect for fairy lore. The belief is cultural and important in its own right.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A cultural story | 80% | Ringforts are early medieval farmsteads; belief that they belong to the Aos Sí protected tens of thousands of them from destruction. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 10% | Misfortune after disturbing a fort is remembered and attributed to fairies. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 5% | Earthworks, hawthorns and mists create an eerie atmosphere. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | No evidence. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 2% | Not relevant. |
Official position: Archaeologists identify them as early medieval homesteads.
Connections in the atlas
- Duendes
- Aos sí (the fairy folk)
- Robert Kirk’s The Secret Commonwealth
- The killing of Bridget Cleary
- The Latoon fairy bush
- The Banshee
- Magonia, the land of sky ships
- Vallée's control-system hypothesis
- Jacques Vallée