highlights from the faerie census: britain and ireland
Simong Young has just released the second volume of his Fairy Census, wherein he invites anyone from anywhere to recount any experience with something they would describe as a faerie. Young is a very good folklorist; his recent book on the Boggart attracted a lot of acclaim and was accompanied by a companion volume of collected boggart encounters from eyewitnesses and printed sources. (It makes appearance here, too, in story 547C). I’ve gone through the first sections of the Fairy Census, which contain stories from Britain and Ireland, and collected some of those I found most interesting below. It’s not limited to the Isles, though: there are over a hundred and fifty pages of stories from the US and Canada, a handful from Australia and New Zealand, and a few dozen from “the Rest of the World.”
Fair warning if you’re going to read the collection in full: a lot of them are a bit dull, at least to me — my eyes tend to glaze over when reading stories about someone who is nearly asleep in bed before seeing something odd, and there are a fair number of those. That’s only a criticism if you’re reading the volume for sheer entertainment, though. This is by any measure a great and important collection of modern folklore.
I’ve kept the comments fairly light below, as this is already going to be a long post. I have to note that there’s one story (§588) of an apparently profoundly stupid man who, upon seeing a creature 1-2 feet tall wearing a conical red cap, calls out “Go fuck yourself, Fairy.” He then hears loud ringing clap go off right at the back of my head which made me stumble forwards” and runs away terrified, which was his only good decision in the story. Obviously one should not tell faeries to go fuck themselves, but one should also not call them faeries, and should even avoid speaking that word aloud when out of doors. If you must refer to them, opt for a phrase like “the Good People.”
§504) England (Buckinghamshire). ‘Walking in June 2019 at around 5.30 am near the grounds of *** School in Buckinghamshire, I was crossing a small bridge and stopped to look in a small pool of water for any wildlife. At the edge of the pool, I saw what I initially believed to be a small bird jumping on some stones near the water’s edge, as I watched it get closer, I put my distance glasses on to have a closer look and I was absolutely astonished to see what I believe was a small fairy-like creature with delicate looking wings. I stood frozen to the spot in utter amazement as the small creature seemed to dance around the water’s edge, the creature’s wings appeared transparent, and the main body appeared to be a very light and beautifully green colour. The creature danced around for three or four minutes, before another similar creature appeared to dart down from a nearby tree at which point, they both took off together. The creature made no sound throughout apart from when they took off and I heard a tiny screeching sound which sounded like some speaking in a very high-pitched voice saying what sounded like the word ‘king’.’
I’m quoting this one because it’s well-written and pretty representative of what most of the accounts are like — people claiming to have seen literal, honest-to-God faeries, of the sort you’d see in children’s books. One woman (606) describes the creature she saw inside the West Kennet Long Barrow said it looked “very much like one of Brian Froud’s representations.” They tend to be small humanoids, often with pointed red hats or unusual, often old-fashioned clothing. Sometimes they’re extremely tiny. Frequently they have wings.
§516C) England (Devon). ‘It was a drizzly evening in October of 2000 when, together with three friends I set out to visit ***, a Bronze Age stone circle on Dartmoor, Devon. We decided to visit on the spur of the moment and had not planned going to the circle before that day. The bad weather didn’t bother us and we set out for the moors in the early evening. None of us had visited *** before and only had a vague notion of where it was. The circle actually has a rather rough car park close to it, but we didn’t know that at the time as we had only decided to visit on the drop of a hat with almost zero research We arrived on Dartmoor, parked up and walked in the general direction of the circle. If I recall correctly, one of us had a map. We did have torches and boots but no waterproofs. We went tramping across Dartmoor in the drizzle. It was still light but the skies were overcast and dusk was creeping up. We entered a field enclosed by a dry-stone wall, via a metal gate. There were a few sheep in the field. We began to cross the field to get to the gate on the other side. The field was not a large one but we could not seem to find the gate. It 25 was not yet dark and we didn’t need to use the torches. We stumbled around the field for what seemed like ages going round and round in circles. At times it felt like wading through treacle, a sort of heavy feeling on the limbs. Suddenly we noticed it had turned dark, seemingly instantly. I remember my leather jacket being soaked. We all wondered how it got so dark so fast. Then, beside the dry-stone wall there appeared a circle of lights, standing vertically and putting me in mind of a tiny Ferris wheel. The circle was about five feet across. It consisted of points of bluish-white lights, each about the size of a grape. I pointed it out and asked the others if they could see it. They all said that they could. It was visible for about ten seconds before ‘winking out’. As we all stood gaping the lights re-appeared in a different configuration. This time the lights seemed to form the crude outline of a person. Again, it was about five feet high. It stood still with its arms and legs together. The head seemed to lack a neck and sat directly on the shoulders. If you imagine the logo used on public toilets to denote the men’s but with the head sunken down, you will get an approximation of the shape. Once more we all saw it and once more it was there for around ten seconds before winking out again. At this point I knew something was very wrong and that something very strange was happening. I recalled the legends of travellers being ‘pixy led’ on the moors and that to break the spell you needed to turn your coat inside out. I said to the others ‘Everybody stop. Take your coats off, turn them inside out and put them back on again.’ This is an utterly crazy thing to say to anybody and I was fully expecting them to ask me what the bloody hell I was going on about. But the strange thing is that nobody questioned me. They all just did as I asked. We all turned our coats and there, right in front of us was the gate! We walked through it to find that the *** circle was right next to the field. There were a number of people there. They had lit a fire, and some were playing instruments but we had not seen the fire or heard the instruments whilst in the field.
This is a very smart man. If you are ever lost or disoriented outdoors, especially after dark, you should — and I am being very serious here — turn at least your jacket inside out.
§532) England (Hampshire). ‘My friend (male) and I were sitting at the edge of a field on the outskirts of our village, chatting. It was evening, fairly dark. We could see across the field to a footpath which connected our village to another hamlet a couple of miles away. We both saw movement amongst the scrubby trees lining the footpath. I felt pure terror come over me as I realised that what was walking along the footpath towards our village was no dog walker but as tall as the trees on either side of the path! We both saw it quite plainly – a black figure with very long arms, slightly stooped at the shoulder. It turned towards us, and even from that distance we saw that its eyes were red. I don’t know how we could see it so clearly from across a field, but we did. Its presence felt so malevolent – we looked at each other once, as if to confirm that we both could see this monster – and then we ran down the lane to our separate homes as fast as I ever ran in my life. Even as an adult, I do not walk on that path after dark. Perhaps what I saw was not a fairy, but it certainly wasn’t something I could categorise as anything else but simply ‘monster’.’ ‘It had nothing human about it which for me would mark it as a ghost. It didn’t seem like a spirit but a very tangible, physical thing. Unlike an alien it was not out of place in the Hampshire countryside but it belonged there – if anything, we were intruding on its privacy.’ ‘Eighteen to twenty feet tall, a humanoid figure, dark as shadow but solid. Arms reaching to its knees, stooped at the shoulder. Red eyes.’
§537) England (Kent). ‘Several weekends ago in Kent in England I went into my garden to give it the last mow of the year. It had been a wet few weeks after a busy summer, so it was going to be quite a task. My eight-year-old son was in the garden with me, whilst my wife and daughter were in our allotment picking pumpkins and squash. The mowing went a bit slowly at first and I turned because my son was asking about the bee’s nest in our summer house that had stopped me taking the mower out for a few months so as not to disturb them, when I was suddenly surrounded by flying bodies. At first with bees uppermost in my mind I was about to duck and run when I realised what was happening. I called to my son and the two of us stood transfixed as tiny (and I mean proper tiny) winged people flew about us, catching the late autumn sun. My son eventually asked: ‘Are they faeries, Daddy?’ ‘I’m guessing so, son, but different from the ones of my youth.’ I saw many small folk as a child and went actively looking in my teens (I’m Irish by parentage so I see nothing strange in this). My twelve-year-old daughter and wife entered the garden, wheelbarrow full of vegetables. My son called to his sister to come see and she ran down, but the small host was definitely thinning. She, however, squealed at what she saw and called to my wife to come see. My son said they’re gone now and went indoors as my wife walked down to stand beside us (she believed it to be a game I could see it in her face). But as she stood with a happy smile on her face. She clearly saw one. I saw her expression change and she gasped: 37 ‘Oh my god what was that? It looked like a...’ (She never said the word but I could see it in her eyes). My daughter danced happily in the garden for a bit singing ‘we’ve got fairies’, whilst my wife just looked at me stunned and asked again what it was. I smiled and said: ‘It’s exactly what you want it to be. It’s your world my girl.’ She went off smiling followed by my daughter and I finished mowing the lawn, alone in the garden.’ ‘
I’ve pulled this one out just because it’s lovely.
§545) England (Kent). ‘Myself and a friend, we were aged around fourteen at the time, went for a walk one summer’s day as we often did. It was the summer holidays, so we had all the time in the world. We packed a drink, sandwich, water for my dog Ralph and set off. We had no mobile phones then, so we were always sure to be home before it got dark. We walked and talked about everything and nothing, as teenagers do. The route we walked we had trodden many times before without issue and we knew exactly where we were and where we were heading. Our path took us across fields with horses, down narrow hidden public foot paths lined with bushes, alongside a stream. It was quiet and the birds were singing and bugs buzzing about. All of a sudden we realized we were no longer on our path and in a place we had never seen before. An old house stood to the left of us, but we were within an apple orchard, beehives dotted around the left-hand side of the house. A dirt path went in between the trees to the right of the house so we decided to follow on. The place had a strange feeling, not scary just out of place perhaps and old. It was silent and it also, in hindsight, seemed to be autumn there but it was midsummer. We didn’t realize this until afterwards. We carried onwards down the path through the orchard, after a few moments of confusion as to where we were. We didn’t see anyone as we walked through the orchard. The path seemed to go on a long while until we suddenly appeared to step out into a shaded open woodland glade covered in bluebells. It was shaded yet the sun shone through the trees. It was beautiful and peaceful. It really made us gasp as it was so amazing. The air was warm and the scent of the flowers was strong. There was a really tiny, abandoned chapel building to our left and then just bluebells as far as we could see. We were captivated and decided to find a spot to sit so we could have a drink and eat our picnic. After maybe ten to fifteen minutes, we suddenly became aware of music playing somewhere in the distance: far away yet close at the same time. It was some kind of flute, almost like medieval minstrel-type music. At least that’s the closest I’ve come to describing it. We stopped talking, both looking across the glade in the direction it was coming from and just watched/listened in silence. Even my dog Ralph was aware as he stared in the same direction frozen to the spot. Suddenly it seemed to get louder and closer as a great gust of wind blew right in our faces and all around us. The music seemed to be in the wind. It was an unnatural wind. It was a still, calm 42 summer’s day. We felt almost surrounded as if being pushed. We both let out a scream and Ralph began to bark. We were terrified and no longer welcome. We grabbed our belongings and ran as fast as we could. The wind and strange music billowing after us still. We ran back through the orchard, past the house and back on to the public footpath. My dog Ralph barked as we ran. Once we knew where we were and could stop to discuss our experience, we both thought we’d stepped into some other time or place and we both said we thought it was Fairies – a time slip into their world. Until the wind chased us away, we were happy, peaceful and relaxed, even though it was strange. The wind and music did scare us though, but it was as if we had overstayed our welcome or had happened to be in a place we shouldn’t have been by chance. We tried multiple times to try and find the house in the orchard with the beehives and the woodland glade again, but we never could, no matter which end of the footpath we came from. Where we had been that day just didn’t exist.
The sense described here — of being in a world that was somehow wrong, or strange — is sometimes called, a bit pretentiously, the “Oz Factor,” and is a not-uncommon feature of outdoor paranormal encounters in particular. I’ve talked about it before when discussing the Not-Deer.
§575) England (Somerset). ‘I was bunking off from school and sitting in a field boarded by woods. I knew these fields like the back of my hand. I had a sketchpad and was busy drawing. Looking up into what should have been a sloping, open field, it was now full of very small apple trees, a strange mist around the trees and me. I got spooked and scrambled back up the field to the main road and went home a bit shaken up. Returning the following Saturday with friends I’d told this experience to, the field was as it always was, just a field. No sign of the orchard. What I hadn’t told my friends about was the strange compulsion I had experienced, wanting to eat the apples from these trees, and the faint music I heard. I believe I had been in a faery orchard and God knows what might have happened had I eaten any of the fruit.’
Bog standard precaution here: don’t eat food in fairyland. Everyone thinks of Persephone and the pomegranate, but this idea has an old medieval pedigree as well — during his sojourn in the other place, Thomas the Rhymer (in a text from the late 14th/early 15th century) was also confronted with fairy apples that would have doomed him had he eaten them.
§582) England (Staffordshire). ‘Late summer 2009 in a place called *** reservoir valley in Staffordshire. I walked my dog here on a regular basis, but on this occasion left my dog at home because she would get in the way of my labours picking Boletus mushrooms that I had found the previous day. The reservoir has [a] path that encircles it and is about one and a half miles around the perimeter. There are three distinctive landmarks to look out for at the site, a nineteenth century warder’s tower, an eighteenth-century bridge and on the west side of the reservoir, a car park. The weather was fine and bright. It was a very warm day but the woodland surrounding the water gave welcome shade. I entered the grounds of the reservoir via the small gate on the east side and started my way toward the area where I had seen the mushrooms. I passed two of the landmarks I’ve mentioned, I crossed the bridge and walked past the warder’s tower which was elevated to my right. This took about ten minutes to reach this spot. I walked on for a further three hundred yards and saw in the middle of the path a weasel, probably twenty yards in front of me. I stopped and watched it for a few seconds. It was then joined by another weasel. The two weasels were romping about as I watched them, completely unaware of my presence. They then scampered up to the right where there is a wooded bank. I followed them up the bank but could not see them, so I came back down the bank and made again for the mushrooms. On reaching the path I noticed a distinct change in both light and temperature. I looked at the sky above the water and it had become very overcast and looked like a thunderstorm might appear, typical of late August. The temperature dropped significantly, and the wind had picked up considerably. I took it that a storm was approaching so I turned around to make my way back as I didn’t want to be around the water during a thunderstorm. I made my way back but after about ten minutes [I] started to feel that something was amiss. I hadn’t seen the warders tower or the bridge. At first I put this down to being occupied with the weasel situation, and must have walked further than I anticipated so I pressed on but it was soon clear to me that I must have become disorientated and gone the wrong way. So, I turned around and set off back to where I had just come from. I had been walking a good twenty minutes and had no sighting of the landmarks I spoken of and I suddenly started to feel anxious. It then occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any other people, dog walkers, people fishing or joggers, usually a common sight here. The wind was blowing gusts and my anxiety levels were rising. Then I started to hear laughing, faint laughter, becoming quite deep and resonant fading in and out. I then started to have a stern word with myself and made a plan to just keep walking. After all, the path is only about one and a half miles around I would soon either find the carpark or gate. I walked and walked, my anxiety building to the point of tears. I hadn’t seen [a] soul and I checked my mobile phone as there was no signal (but that was always the case being in a valley). I was becoming thirsty, my legs wobbly, the whole affair lasted at 65 least three hours and I was getting nowhere, again hearing laughter seemingly on the wind. No matter which way I went I could not find my way out or sight of any landmarks and my anxiety turned to fear. The whole place was becoming increasingly unfamiliar. It was still stormy, and I was hearing laughter I could not place. I decided to sit down and try to rationalise what was going on, intermittently hearing the laughter. I then just said out loud ‘I just want to get home’ somewhat defeatedly. I noticed the sun break through on the water and the wind subsided. I decided to try again and within ten minutes came upon the warder’s tower. With overwhelming relief I broke into a run to get out of that place.’
Another “slipped into an impossible place” story, which is a favorite subtype of mine.
§587) England (Surrey). Male; 2000s; 31-40; in woodland; on my own; 3 pm-6 pm; one totwo minutes; aloof; never or almost never has supernatural experiences; you had taken alcohol or amedicine or drug; a sense that the experience was a display put on specially for you. ‘I sawsomething moving along through the leaves very fast. About fifteen to twenty feetaway. When it stopped it looked like a wooden clothes peg, about three- to four-inches high. It moved again, very fast, covering a distance of about ten feet. I was infairly open woodland, early autumn. There were only dry leaves on the ground. Thiswas in a modern village. I used to live in the countryside, so I know what pheasants,stoats, rats etc look like. This wasn’t something I’d seen before.’
I think this guy may have seen a Fresno Nightcrawler.