There’s power in names. And this one — the Feral Faery Bard — rose from the bones of the Earth and the whispers of wild horses. It was never a brand. It was a remembering.

In Australia, the word “feral” is used like a curse. It is a word that gives permission—for bullets, for cruelty, for silence. It is a word that turns animals into enemies and nature into a battlefield.

But “feral” does not mean “enemy.” It means returned.

It means unshackled.

It means the song still playing in the bones.

It means a being who was once domesticated—controlled, tamed, shaped to serve—but who found their way back to the sacred wilderness.

The feral horse is a being who dared to live free.

The feral person is someone society could not tame.

I claim the word feral not to perpetuate the fear, but to break the spell. I sing it anew. I wear it like a crown of eucalyptus and starlight. I am not feral as threat — I am feral as truth.

I am the Faery Bard, too — a storyteller of old. One who remembers what the world has forgotten. Who speaks with animals. Who listens to water. Who walks the ley lines between seen and unseen, gathering songs like sacred herbs.

To be a bard is to bear witness. To carry beauty as rebellion. To stir the soul with story.

To be a faery is to know you were never only human.

And to be feral is to reject the cage and return to the wild altar.

So I walk this path — as the Feral Faery Bard — to sing for the voiceless, to tell the stories of the sanctuary and the stars, and to gently gather the hearts who need a home in the wild again.

A Spell of Reclamation: For the Word Feral

Feral is the forest in the bones, the howl remembered,
The resistance of soft hooves on hard land.
This is not wildness as danger,
But wildness as truth.

They called us weeds — we are wildflowers.
They called us pests — we are protectors.
They called us feral — we are free.

By root and hoof, by feather and flame,
We take back the names they cursed us with.
We sing them sacred again.

*****

The Feral Faery Bard is the heart-song of Billie Dean — writer, filmmaker, sanctuary keeper, and soul-listener for the animals and the Earth. With feet in both worlds, she weaves together deep peace, wild wisdom, and ancient magick to uplift and enchant. Her work speaks for the voiceless and offers sanctuary to sensitive hearts seeking truth, beauty, and freedom.