According old Irish and Scottish folk traditions, faeries aren’t just beings you decide to start working with to “get better at magic”. They are the forces of nature that you exist alongside. They are the ancestors of the land (Tuatha Dé Danann). The range from dangerously and deceivingly beautiful to downright terrifying and ugly. They are the good folk along the road that will either rob you blind—and probably actually blind you—for fun, or offer a favor if a good deed is done—usually in the form of domestic labor or blessings. The Welsh have a slightly different view of the fair folk (The Tylwyth Teg), seeing them as fair haired, beautiful creatures—like Tolkien’s elves in Lord of the Rings.
Across most Celtic/Druidic cultures—entering in “working relationships” with the faeries for expected favors is considered a taboo and highly dangerous. It’s like dealing with lawyers or politicians and contracts in exchange for goods and services… it just doesn’t make sense and you will always come out worse off than before.
If you’re truly interested in faeries, Katharine Brigg’s book, *An Encyclopedia of Fairies - Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures* is a good starting point. It has an entire collection of fairy folklore and myths you can sift through. There’s scanned copy version for free available on Internet Archive.
I would also suggest:
*The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries* by W. Y. Evans Wentz (although he forewarned that some of the information in it is academically proven to be false—especially the information on St. Patrick.) — This book is available for free in its entirety on the Sacred-Texts website.
*A Guide to Early Irish Law* by Fergus Kelly is a good companion by the former suggestion. I do not know if this book is available for free.
In my own experience working with the fae I saw very powerful results, would see lye limed beings that were too tall to be human and you could tell by the energy these were not mundane creatures. When I worked with them I found they enjoyed sweet offerings, such as honey, cake, etc. It's been a long time since I've worked with them but when you add it all up it was a pretty positive experience. If you want to know more please let me know, but just as someone who experience with dealing with the fae if I could only tell you one thing, its "don't say thank you" as the fae view them as you being in debt to them and you don't want that, so if you must say something like that say "I appreciate your assistance" or something. This was a very long time ago so I'm much better at magical practice than I was back then so if I were to work with them again it would be a little bit different now , but in terms of asking for them to assist you with your magical practice, that's a bit too open ended of a request, when I would call on them it would be serval "closed loop" things, such as "I need to pass this exam in X class at Y time on Z date" I'd give (and this is just how I do it by the way) an offering when I make my request and an offering after I got what I asked for. I worked with the Salamanders, the gnomes, the slyphs and I believe the undines but as I said its been a long time but it was at least the first three. But let me know if you have any questions speaking from experience.
