Fairies and Highland Fables

In this episode I’m joined by Daniel Yates— artist, writer, photographer, witch, and the mind behind the excellent Occult Library project.Daniel’s soon-to-be-released book To Glimpse a Hollow Hill is a deep and beautifully crafted exploration of Robert Kirk’s The Secret Commonwealth, a 17th-century manuscript at the heart of Scottish fairy belief and second sight traditions.We talk about the enormous task of transcribing and modernising Kirk’s original text, the folklore around seers, fairies, and fetch spirits, and the complex cultural landscape Kirk was writing from — one caught between Christianity, folk practice, and older ways of seeing the world.One of the most fascinating elements of the conversation is Kirk’s description of the Sith — not as the tiny winged fairies of Victorian fantasy, but as a people with their own culture, hierarchy, and even religious practices. These are beings who live alongside humans but by their own strange rules and logic — sometimes helpful, sometimes dangerous, always other.Daniel goes into more detail about Robert Kirk himself — not just as a minister and folklorist, but potentially as a seer working within a Christian framework. We discuss the ways in which Kirk subtly inserts himself into the text, the folklore surrounding his mysterious death on Doon Hill, and his possible motivations for writing The Secret Commonwealth — not merely as an academic exercise, but perhaps as a defence of the second sight and those who possessed it.In the Plus show, we go deeper into the more esoteric layers of Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth and the nature of the Sith.We explore the idea of dual-spirit traditions — the concept of co-walkers or fetch spirits that accompany a person or indeed a spirit, harvesting or feeding in some mysterious symbiotic way. Daniel draws intriguing parallels between this belief and spirit traditions found in cultures beyond Scotland.We discuss Kirk’s accounts of fairy lovers and the complicated, sometimes perilous relationships between humans and the Sith — not framed in terms of simple good or evil, but as entanglements with otherworldly beings operating by their own strange morality.There’s a beautiful reflection here on the porous boundary between worlds, and the price of crossing it — where gifts from the Otherworld might come with subtle costs, and where seership itself might not be a blessing freely given.We also talk about Daniel’s work on the Occult Library project — an ambitious and beautifully curated online resource cataloguing the wild and often ephemeral world of occult publishing.Daniel explains how the project came about as a response to the fragmentation of esoteric literature — especially from smaller or long-defunct presses — and his desire to create a browsable, searchable space where people could discover books that might otherwise disappear into obscurity.We discuss the challenges of gathering data on out-of-print and rare texts, the use of volunteers to help expand the library, and Daniel’s thoughtful approach to curation.He also shares future plans for the project, including an interactive map of occult locations, possible community features, and ways to sustain the site as it grows — all while preserving that sense of wonder and discovery that comes from stumbling across something rare, strange, or long-forgotten.Show notes:Buy 'To glimpse a hollow hill' https://www.atramentouspress.com/new-products/to-glimpse-a-hollow-hillDaniel's website https://www.photophrenic.comOccult Library https://www.occultlibrary.orgKeep in touch?https://linktr.ee/darraghmasonMusic by Obliqka https://soundcloud.com/obliqka