The Wending Wayfarer

The Give & Take of the Gloaming Folk: Placating a Knocker & Reaping the Reward

A while back, we had a unique experience involving a Knocker Faery, an Offering, and a Gift. It’s quite rare that I’m given leave to share so much detail about something like this, but surprisingly, I was actually encouraged to share the majority of this interaction. And so I do, hoping it can serve as a peek into the kind experiences I encounter working as a Faerie Physicker.

Not long after moving into our home in the country, my partner and I were dealing with a Knocker Haunting. For several days, almost always starting around dusk and ending around midnight, we could hear a trotting sound on the roof, which eventually progressed to occasional knocking on the doors. Given that we live in a rural area, we have had things like raccoons, skunks, and possums on the roof, meaning that we’re fairly used to the sound of such activity. So when, instead of hearing the telltale scamper of a forest critter, we hears what sounded remarkably like a small (bipedal) child running around on the roof, we were immediately suspicious. The noises from the roof sounded so much like a small child, in fact, that we initially went to check and make sure that my sister-in-law’s children (who live on the property) weren’t somehow getting up there and playing. Realizing that wasn’t the case, we carried on by making several attempts to catch a glimpse of the noise-maker, in case it was something bizarre like a raccoon that prefers to walk on two legs (who knows, right?) but it became quickly clear that the culprit was not a being of this physical plane. Even when one of us was inside signaling to the other outside, about when and where to look for the source of the sound, there was never a sign of anything. And when the door knocked and was immediately opened in response, there was never any apparent reason for the sound. On top of all this, though, it was communicated loud and clear to me—in subtler ways— that what we were dealing with hailed from the Otherworld.

Now, the timing of this Knocker’s appearance seemed somewhat auspicious, given our life circumstances. Not long before all this, my partner’s parents officially moved out of our place and into their own (since we moved into their old house and helped build a new one for them.) My partner and I performed a modest ceremony, in order to let the house know that we are it’s new occupants and caretakers, and three days following the rite, the Knocking started. This was particularly providential, because my partner and I had spoken for a while about the possibility of making a compact with a Hob to look after the home once it was officially ours.
As such, the arrival of this Domestic Faery Pest, and the finalization of our move-in, seemed to line up quite nicely. And so, naturally, we went about doing what we could to appease, and ideally, employ it.

We baked a spiced vanilla sponge-cake filled with a caramelized walnut spread, frosted with a maple-cinnamon Buttercream, topped with a walnut slice, and garnished with a spattering of our blood. After preparing the cake, we took it outside and left it as an offering—making entreaties of friendship, and reciting certain orisons over it as we did so—then returned inside. Almost immediately, there was a sound like a child doing an excited jig on the roof, and then silence for the rest of the night. Perhaps more telling than the flurry of little steps, however, was the delightfully blatant communication of a Snail Shell found in the place of the offering on the following day (as Snails represent extremely significant emissaries of the Gloaming within the context of the Wending Way.)

Woven into our propitiation of the Knocker was, essentially, a “clause” which dictated that it should respond in one of two ways within a certain timeframe, in order to communicate its intentions with us. If one of the two things had happened, it would have constituted an acceptance, and the framework of our compact would have been set into motion. However, the second response was given, which let us know that it wasn’t interested in taking on the mantle of our Domestic Faery, and ultimately, the Knocker took its offering with gratitude and then took its leave. Tricksy as their Gloaming Nature is, it’s not shocking that one of the Fae was happy to take advantage of our search for a Hob, in order to get a special treat—and ever since, the pestering has ceased. However, it would seem that we were granted with a benison of thanks for our efforts, all the same. Seven days after we made our offering, we awoke to find the fresh and perfectly unmarred corpse of a Varied Thrush, directly outside our home. (At least, I believe that a Varied Thrush is the correct species, but my ornithological identification is far from great.) The reason that finding this dead bird was so meaningful—exactly a week after the rite we undertook, no less—has to do with a undertaking of mine at that time to create a charm that would bestow the possessor with ‘sure-footedness’ in their endeavors. Namely, the central component required of this charm (as shown me in dreaming), were the legs of a songbird —something that’s not necessarily all that hard to find, but not something that’s exactly easy to find when you’re hoping to. If you haven’t guessed already, Thrushes are a form of songbird, and so it’s difficult for me to not see this as a way for the faery in question to “let me down easy”, so to speak.

While it was disappointing that we didn’t end up finding our Hob, it was a lovely interaction in its own right, and having these Songbird’s Feet as a gift from the Gloaming Folk made them all the more powerful and potent for use in my charm (which has served the one I made it for with great success ever since providing them with it.) To honor the life lost in the process of receiving this gift, we harvested the legs in a reverential ceremony, venerated the spirit of the deceased bird, and buried its body beneath an Amaryllis.