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Beltane – Glastonbury
8 – 18 May 2025
Samhain – Featherstone Castle
11-20 October 2025 registration link below
Calling all Radical Faeries, Queer Spirits, Gay Witches, Faggot Farmers, Drag Druids, Walkers-Between-and-Beyond-Worlds, Ritual Diva Queens, Long-Time Heart Circlers, Fae Newbies, Wild Womxn, New-age and Old-age Enbies, Pagan Pansies, Lesbian Lightworkers, Transgender Priestexes, Queer Eco-Goddesses, Gender Fuckers, Shape Shifters, and Whoever Else You May Be… welcome home
Yoo Hoo Faeries!
In Celtic neo-paganism, Samhain (pronounced “saw-ayn”) marks the Celtic new year, the end of the harverst season, and the beginning of winter. It is a liminal time, when the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead are thin, and it traditionally a time for celebrating the lives of loved ones that are no longer with us.
Our gathering doesn’t quite coincide with Samhain which starts at sundown on 31 October but the weeks before and after are all considered to mark this season. It is a time for thinking about the year that has passed, as well as remembering loved ones who have passed. It is a time for divination and honouring the cycle of life and death. We will hold a crescent moon ritual on the Wednesday night, halfway between full and new moons.
Cerridwen represents the crone aspect of the Goddess, and is the bringer of death, transformation and rebirth. She is known as the keeper of the cauldron of transformation – one ritual that is often performed at Samhain is casting your cares into Cerridwen’s cauldron and letting them burn away, casting off the ties that bind us, and allowing ourselves to open up for new opportunities.
As the earth settles down into winter, this is time for us to nurture ourselves and our communities, to hold space and keep the hearth burning to take us through to the next Spring.
Join us and teach us what you know and learn what you don’t. How you move and how you grow.
Let’s co-create a hybrid gathering of community well-being, growth through bodily action, making art, making connections, & sharing space – whether that’s in a heart circle or on the dance floor !
In the Albion Faeries we celebrate our diversity, and this includes neurodiversity. Many of us are on the autism spectrum, many of us have ADHD, and many of us live with a variety of mental health conditions. Faerie gatherings are co-created conscious communities: spaces where we can build and develop our communities. We’re not clinical practitioners, and the nearest mental health crisis teams to Featherstone are in Carlisle and Newcastle which are both considerable distances away, so it’s important that faeries coming to Featherstone are in a place where they’re able to self-regulate, regardless of any condition they may have. Our welfare team and other participants can offer peer support, but we’re not placed to deal with a mental health crisis.
Faeries with such challenges in self-regulation must contact us prior to the gathering in order to create an actionable support plan.
This is to ensure that you have the support you need, and that those doing the supporting are consenting and adequately resourced. If you come without a confirmed registration or adequate support plan, you will be asked to leave. If you refuse to leave then a circle will be called to inform the gathering transparently of the situation and further steps will be taken.
Substances, Self-Care and Consent
Please be aware that you may not be safe from witnessing things that might upset you; you may be kept awake by loud music, communal spaces will be very busy, and so on. We will do our best to make quieter spaces available, but we cannot always guarantee this.
The castle is a sex-positive, body-positive space. This means faeries are welcome to be naked in the castle, and you may witness faeries connecting with each other sexually. You are invited to be mindful of the faeries around you if you engage in sex or nudity at the castle – this might be by taking sexual connections to the Love Temple for example, rather than shared bedrooms. Please be conscious about nudity outside where passers-by might see.
Consent is a key aspect of the care we show for one another in faerie space – always ensure you have consent before any physical touch, sexual or not. You can read more about faerie consent here.
We ask faeries to be mindful about intoxicants, including being aware of our own limits and how your behaviour may change. As a sign of care for each other, we ask that you do not offer intoxicants to anyone unless they explicitly ask for them – even if you know they have consumed that substance in the past; and even if you know they’ve consumed other substances that day. Some faeries may find being around certain substances triggering, so we ask faeries to keep their substance use discrete (using mugs for alcohol where possible) and in spaces or times agreed within the gathering. Please note that smoking and vaping is not permitted anywhere inside the castle, but feel free to smoke outside (please don’t litter your fag butts though).
Whilst everyone is encouraged to take agency over their own self-care and the care of the wider community, we have welfaeries who are available to support if needed – you can read more about them here.
Workshops, Rituals and Offerings
Co-creation is the heart of any gathering, with individual faeries offering a wide variety of events from drum circles, talent shows, auctions and drag balls, to workshops, rituals, walks and heart circles. You can find out more about events and happenings at the gathering here. If you have an idea for an event you’d like to run, you can request any equipment or support in the booking form, or bring what you need with you.
Key teams of fae give service at the castle to provide us with things like meals, decoration, wood-chopping and welfare. Volunteering together is a great way to build friendships at the castle and to show your love and appreciation for the faerie community. You can read more about volunteering teams here, and step up for these roles on the booking form.
Diversity
Over recent years, the Albion Faeries have begun a radical journey from a primarily white, gay, male community, towards a community that is more inclusive of the diverse spectrum of ethnicity, gender and sexuality that makes up queerdom.
We want to think a little differently about diversity at our gatherings – about the barriers that minorities encounter, and the unique identities of each individual fae.
This is an ongoing evolution, and in order to ensure that gatherings offer sanctuary and belonging to those queer minorities most at risk of exclusion or harm, we continue the tradition of offering at least 25% of places to faeries who self-identify as diverse.
Examples could be that you’re a faerie of colour / from the global majority, a faerie who is non-binary, a trans faerie, or a someone AFAB or who is a woman.
And lastly, if you would like to hold a minority-inspired ritual or event, we can support you in manifesting your ideas. We’d particularly like to hear from the community about how we can improve our representation and involvement from people of the global majority.
About the Castle
Featherstone lies in the magical Northumberland countryside, about 27,000 light-years from the galactic centre of the milky way – along the inner edge of the Orion Arm. We’ve included some essential information about your stay below, but you can read more here.
Accommodation
Accommodation is generally in shared rooms, with a very limited number of single rooms for those who cannot sleep in shared spaces. There’s also space for camping and camper-vans. You can let us know about any accommodation requirements in your booking form and we’ll do our best to fit you in.
Food
All meals are vegetarian (and mostly vegan) and we also cater to gluten-free and other individual dietary requirements – as far as possible. Please give your details in the booking form – if you have any allergies, you can let us know in the form as well. Whilst we can’t guarantee a totally free-from environment, we will do our best. If there is a risk of anaphylaxis due to your allergies, please make sure you bring the necessary equipment (eg epipens etc).
Accessibility
The castle is far from modern accessibility standards and this can make it challenging for people with mobility needs to navigate – and inaccessible to wheelchairs. You can find more information here and we’re more than happy to answer any questions before the gathering.
What to Bring:
A suggested packing list for Featherstone Castle can be found here.
Registration and Payment
Featherstone Castle gatherings are very popular, and places typically fill up within 2-3 days. Booking is first-come-first served and there will likely be a waitlist, so please email us as soon as possible if you have a space but cannot make it, so that another faerie can take your place. We also ask that faeries do not turn up without a booking, as a mark of respect to those on the waiting list.
In order to break even, the cost of this gathering will be £38 per faerie, per night. This is made up of £29.50 for the castle (which we have managed to keep the same for this gathering and is still considered a discount rate by the owners, who charge £35 per night to other groups) plus £8.50 for food, firewood & other essential supplies.
For the full 9 nights/10 days, the total cost will be £342. We’re asking, if you can afford it, to consider paying £40 per night (£360 for the whole gathering) as this will help towards the NOTAFLOF capacity for those who can’t afford it. And, of course, if you can, then you’ll be helping to support a faerie to come who might otherwise not be able to join us.
The castle team are also requiring us to have public liability insurance (for the first time) with cover up to £10 million. We have managed to find a provider of this, and the premium is £120. To split this evenly across an estimated 40 participants, this will be an additional cost of £3 per person, on top of the per-night fee. Please add this to your total. If we end up with more than 40 faeries, the extra will go towards NOTAFLOF.
We’ll send the payment details along with your booking confirmation and we ask that you make any payments at the time your booking is confirmed (you can also find the payment details here). If you’d prefer to pay at a later date or pay in cash at the gathering, please drop us an email when you receive your booking confirmation.
As a radically inclusive gathering we operate on the faerie principles of NOTAFLOF, ADAFAE and GAYABAGS – and we’ve included some extra guidance this year, brought together at the Summer Transcendence 2024 gathering, so please read more about iton the finance page.
The following points were in the outcome notes from a recent Moot of the Albion Faeries where we discussed the financial situation that we’re currently in, and some deep conversations about the principle of NOTAFLOF:
No One Turned Away for Lack of Funds means that we always ensure that people with severe issues around lack of adequate income/ benefits, asylum seekers, and other fae in unforeseen or longer term financial crisis will always be able to join gatherings. We aim to maintain this principle.
NOTAFLOF does not strictly apply to folk who actually do have funds but who may struggle to plan their finances or who may choose to spend their funds elsewhere. In these cases, we can offer those folk a savings plan or payment by instalments or suggest a reduction in payments, but not totally free places.
As a community, we ask each other for honesty and trust. We ask that this trust will not be abused by deceit or theft as these destroy our collective sense of community.
A key community value of our trust is to respect each other’s decisions and choices, and not to shame or disrespect others for those choices. For instance, we will not pursue individual folk who do not follow up on their pledged payments for gatherings.
- please contact us for any requests for NOTAFLOF samhain@albionfaeries.org.uk
- if you can’t make the break-even amount of £38 pfpn then please get in touch
- we can only accommodate people paying less, if others pay more
- finance details and how to pay here
Gathering Updates and Questions
Over the last few years fae have created this Information Portal where you can find a wealth of additional information about accessibility, what to expect at the castle, volunteer roles and more.. The Albion Faerie Website is also a great source of information. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to drop us an email at samhain@albionfaeries.org.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
We want to honour the discussion had in recent moots (faerie-wide meeting) about how our community can better follow the principles of the BDS movement, to avoid supporting companies associated with the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. To this end, we have decided not to use google services to create our booking form this year, and will be taking a look at how we source our groceries for the gathering to make sure we aren’t supporting any companies on the BDS campaign’s list of targets.
Find out more about BDS here, and get in touch with us if you’ve got any questions or further ideas about how we can honour this intention.
Which came first?
Which came first – the Faerie or the French Horn?
Neither – it was the sandwich…
Booking Form
Please follow this link to the booking form. The form will go live on Wednesday 10th September.
with love from your Samhain organising team:
Mama Sparkles, Zeami, Fyah, Zeb, Twitch, Sister Piss, Paris, & Stardust