About a year later, again at dawn, Miss Mathias had the same vision of little people, but she felt that it was gone so quickly, with no time to hear any music. She was never able to conjure it up again, and as she grew older she often found herself trying to “go back to something,” as though in infancy she had possessed some faculty that, just by growing up, she had lost. “My mother was of lowland Scots parentage,” she said, “and she saw a little green man in a Devon wood when she was six years old. He was lying contently on the branch of a tree, in a shaft of sunlight.”
During the 1914-1918 war, Miss Alison M. Oliver was living on the second storey of an Edinburgh tenement. “When I was nine or ten,” she said, “I dreamt that I woke up, went to the window, and saw a fairy standing on the windowsill. I say I ‘dreamt,’ because I have since thought that the experience must have been a dream, but at the time I believed I was awake. Before I could speak, a streak of red showed in the eastern sky, and the fairy vanished. What struck me very forcibly then, and has remained in my mind ever since, was that this fairy was completely unlike my then conception of a fairy, and that is why I thought it worthwhile to tell you of the experience. My idea of a fairy then would have been one with flowing gauzy robes much in the Noel Paton tradition, and long golden hair. What I saw was a tiny creature in a vivid green ballet-type dress, with short black hair, and I doubt if at that time I had ever seen bobbed hair. Perhaps I should add that the tenement was in the section of Montgomery Street known as Brunton Gardens, with a bowling green opposite, surrounded by trees. Montgomery Street runs parallel to London Road, which is one of the loveliest avenues of lime trees in the city; and Hillside Crescent Gardens, which divide the Crescent from London Road, boast two of the largest horse-chestnut trees I have ever seen, and which must be very old. London Road Gardens stretch right up to Royal Terrace, behind which are more well-wooded gardens reaching up to the Calton Hill. All this greenery might have some relevance!”
Miss Dawn E. Mooney (late of the Gate Lodge, Inverewe) recalled an experience she had at the age of about four, when she was living at Beddington, in Surrey. On this particular morning she woke earlier than the rest of the household. (From her recollection of the bright light outside and the birdsong in the garden, she thinks it was early summer.) Her sleepy eyes opened gradually and took in the accustomed nursery furniture, pictures, ornaments on the mantelpiece, and the rose-patterned, curtains. She also saw a small creature, about ten inches high, sitting in a relaxed attitude on the end rail of her white enamelled bedstead. He was dressed in green with a pointed cap. She remembered vividly his kindly, apple-cheeked face, with bright, humorous eyes contemplating her, and the way his legs seemed to be wrapped round the rail, as though his bones were flexible. At first glance she took him as much for granted as the other objects she saw, but something “gave a click” in her brain as though a new way of thinking had come into action suddenly, and then she found it extremely queer that a strange little man should be sitting there uninvited on her bed. She shouted loudly for her nurse, and immediately the figure vanished, leaving no trace. While she tried to explain what had happened and the nurse prattled about her having been dreaming, she realised that she had until then seen these little people many times before and taken them for granted. “And,” she said, “I wondered why I had now made such a fuss about it, but, with my newly-awakened sense of what was or was not considered to be ‘normal,’ I persisted in thinking the manikin ‘queer,’ and from that day to this, I have not seen another.” Miss Mooney had, however, heard fairies since then, and her account is in the appropriate section.
A few years after the First World War, Mrs. Zelma Bramley-Moore, of London, author and film-story writer, went to stay for the winter at a hotel in Malaga, Spain. It was her custom to breakfast in bed, and one morning the maid brought her tray in at about 8 o’clock. There were two letters for her. “I sipped my tea,” she said, “reading snatches from one of the letters between sips. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and I glanced at the window facing me, which looked out on to the courtyard. To my surprise I noticed that the curtain on the right-hand side was shaking, and as the window was closed this was astonishing. As I watched, two fairies ‘faded in.’ (I do not know how else to describe it.) They were about twelve inches high, quite naked, and exquisitely lovely. The little lady had long fair hair, which hung below her waist; the little man’s hair was slightly darker, cut to ear-length, and bound with gold-coloured ribbon. They both had large wings the colour of tobacco, and these were slowly opening and shutting, or fluttering when the fairies lost their balance—for they were clinging to the edge of the curtain, playing together and trying to pull each other off. They made an audible sound, and if they were aware of my presence they gave no sign of it. Their colouring was entrancing; I can best describe it as colours seen in technicolor on a film. I lay watching them for several minutes, then they gradually faded out. They did not leave; my eyes had lost the faculty of seeing them.”
The second time Mrs. Bramley-Moore saw fairies was a year or two before the Second World War, when she was living at her cottage at Prestwood, in Buckinghamshire. Her bedroom faced east, and she used to lie in bed and watch the sun rise. Beside the window was an old apple-tree. It was dead, but she refused to have it cut down because she found its shape so beautiful. One morning she awoke in the pale light of dawn. The birds had not started to call, and the sun was still below the horizon. She rose from her bed and stood looking out of the window. It was then she noticed five grey “lumps” on the old apple-tree. They looked most peculiar, and she peered at them closely. They appeared to be shrouded in some pale grey material, a thin, cobwebby kind of chiffon. She still had not the slightest idea of what she was seeing until suddenly one moved and straightened up. It was some kind of fairy that had been sitting on a branch in a crouching position, its head covered by its arms, which were resting on its knees. It gave a weird little cry, like the sound of a tiny bell, then it suddenly launched itself forward and flew off due north, travelling at a tremendous rate, its garment fluttering behind it. It was followed almost immediately by its companions. One after another they sat up and launched themselves head first into the air. “These five had no visible wings. They flew through the air still in a crouching position—they might almost have been riding invisible broomsticks.” It was then rapidly becoming light; the first birdcall was heard, and Mrs. Bramley-Moore returned thoughtfully to her bed.
The third occasion when she saw fairies was during the Second World War. She was then staying at a hotel in Prestwood, and sometimes at night she had been roused out of sleep by laughing voices and the sound of a trumpet, as if a crowd of happy people was passing from west to east through her room. She saw nothing, for she woke too late, but she could hear the sounds fading away in the distance. One night she was reading late because a number of bombs had been dropped in the neighbourhood and she found herself unable to sleep. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was just 2 a.m. Then she heard the laughing voices and the sound of a trumpet approaching. A moment or two later, a crowd of fairies flew through the room, travelling at great speed. They came in through one wall and passed out of the other, their little cries and laughing voices fading away in the distance. In the brief glimpse she had of them, she said it appeared as if they had their Fairy Queen in their midst.
A correspondent in the Golders Green district of London still remembered vividly an experience she had in her youth. It was daybreak and she was lying in bed, wide-awake. In the middle of the bedroom was a rather old-fashioned light hanging from the ceiling, the supporting arms being of brass. She glanced at this and was surprised to see lots of little figures turning somersaults round the brass rods, and, with arms outstretched, balancing along the rods like wire-walkers, whilst others slid down from the top of the upright rod like firemen sliding down a pole. Most of them had curly hair; all had small wings, and were about twelve inches tall. She watched them for some time, until one of them seemed to see her a
nd, coming over to the foot of the bed, walked slowly towards her. Suddenly she grew scared and hid under the bedclothes. When she looked again, all the little creatures had disappeared.
Mrs. Jean Finlayson Holmes, of San Francisco, recounted an experience she had at the age of nine. It was on a moonlit night in 1925 when she saw two little fellows sitting on the crossbar of the frame of her bedroom window. They were inside, leaning against the glass, and were very busy concentrating on some work or object, which she could not see, but she noticed they seemed to be talking and nodding to one another very alertly. Their bodies were round and podgy, although their movements were agile. Mrs. Holmes described them as having “something diabolical about them, but quite without malice—like two busy, intelligent little monkeys, they were.” She did not know whether they wore any clothes or not, and declared she had never seen a drawing of gnome, gremlin, troll, or elf that quite conveyed the character of these strange little people.
“I watched them for a long time,” she said, “until the dawning of my own fear at observing such a phenomenon gave the alert, and one of them turned his head and looked at me. I think he was as frightened as I was. I didn’t wait to watch where or how they went but rushed to tell the grown-ups in another room just what I had seen. Of course, the whole thing was treated as ‘imagination.’” Throughout the many years that had elapsed since then, Mrs. Jean Finlayson Holmes remained convinced that the little people were as real as she was in the sphere to which they belonged.
A pixie perching on a clock was seen by Mrs. Joan Georgina Cheeseman when she was fourteen years old and lived in a house on the Pitsea Marshes, in Essex. She had just entered her bedroom when she noticed the little creature. It was four or five inches high, dressed in green, and wearing a small, round hat. It jumped off the clock, came to the edge of the mantelpiece, looked at me, and then vanished. “And,” added Mrs. Cheeseman, “I don’t think until then I had believed in fairies, but even though I am now married, with two children, I can never forget, or ever again disbelieve.”
One morning in 1950, when Mrs. Mary Johnson of Stanishaw, Portsmouth, Hants, was lying in bed after her husband had gone to work, she had a very strong feeling that she was being watched. She turned her eyes to the fireplace, and there on the big old-fashioned mantelpiece stood a little man wearing a green cap and suit. His face was quite brown, and he appeared to be very old. She experienced no surprise at seeing him, but what did surprise her was his height of two feet, for he was much taller than she had imagined a gnome to be. He gave her a really wide grin, and she said “Hello” to him; then he vanished. “At least,” she explained, “I could see him no longer, but felt sure he was still there. He had been visible for perhaps three to four seconds.” As in the case of some of the other contributors, Mrs. Johnson said she was at that time feeling “extremely happy,” and she thinks that is why she saw him.
A fairy on a pillow was seen by Mrs. B. M. Grimwood, of Suffolk, when she was middle-aged. The time was about 7:30 a.m., and she had just woken. The little visitor was between nine or twelve inches in height, wingless, with fair, tufted hair, and pale blue eyes which opened and shut mechanically. Mrs. Grimwood fixed her gaze on it, trying to retain it, but gradually it vanished.
When Mrs. C. V. Burrow was a child of about seven, she lived in a fairly old terraced house at Portsmouth. Her mother believed in sending her early to bed, but she was nervous, and sometimes could not get to sleep, despite the fact that a nightlight was left burning on the landing outside her bedroom and the door was left open so that her room was not in complete darkness. “My fear of the dark,” she confessed, “used to reach an awful peak, and then I would see ‘little people’ moving about my room, talking to each other, dusting the walls, and being very busy.” She was always so greatly intrigued by this, that she no longer felt afraid and used to glide peacefully to sleep. Approximately four inches tall, and very slender, the fairies flitted noiselessly and rapidly from place to place, and appeared to be luminous. They passed without difficulty through the plaster walls, but never seemed to go through the skirting board. “I am sure I was awake,” wrote Mrs. Burrow, “because I remember one night hearing the clock ticking in my mother’s bedroom and thinking how awful it would be if that ticking had been the clock inside the crocodile in Barrie’s play Peter Pan.”
In a cottage near the centre of the town in Southport, Miss Kathleen O’Shea, then aged about five, had elfin visitors on two or three nights when she lay in bed. They had no wings but seemed to dive through the air at a good speed. They were dressed in red and were in a golden haze that enabled her to see them in the dark. There was one, four to five inches long, which she saw exceptionally plainly. The rest of them seemed smaller but were further away and kept together, diving in and out about each other. “I know I was not dreaming,” she told me, “because I was afraid, and used to creep closer to my mother, with whom I was sleeping.” She admitted, nevertheless, that it was a lovely experience, and one that she had never forgotten.
Another contributor who saw fairies in her bedroom when she was about five is Mrs. Doris Poole, of Gloucester. “They came in,” she said, “through the window—six or seven of them—all dressed in white, and very pretty they looked, floating about the room. They didn’t flutter their wings quickly like butterflies, but moved with the grace of ballet dancers. One came down and sat on the rail at the foot of the bed. Outside the window was a very large French currant tree in full bloom, and I have always connected the fairies with its flowering, although the blossoms were pink.”
Mrs. Edna E. Murray, of West Perth, Western Australia, was ten years old when she saw a flower fairy about five inches high in her bedroom at a house in Mt. Lawley, but she could not give a full description because her attention was mainly centred on what the fairy was doing. It appeared to be carrying a basket and was throwing all over the room small posies of violets, which shone in the darkness like diamonds. The whole area above the bed was studded with them.
“A little chap dressed in green and dull red” was seen by Mrs. Hilda Scott, of Bucks, when she was a small child living in Essex. The house was one of six in a row behind a busy shopping street. It faced a steep railway bank and the station building was just opposite the house. As far as she could remember, the time of year was Midsummer, and just before the 1914-1918 war. Her father was late, and she was waiting anxiously for him to come home. Her mother had died the year before, so she was alone. She sat on the edge of her father’s bed, which was in a downstairs front room. Two of the Venetian blinds were drawn, and the narrow side of the bay window was clear to the street. A lamp shone from outside right into the room, so she didn’t bother about a light, but just sat there waiting and wondering. The time was between 12 and 1 o’clock, and the last train had come in. She felt numb with prolonged unhappiness. “I hadn’t looked out of the window for some minutes,” she said, “when quite suddenly I was conscious of movement. Looking at the window, I distinctly saw a little man jumping in a dancing fashion and waving his arms as if to draw my attention. I was so surprised that I got up to have a closer look, but as I neared the window he scampered round the wall. I pulled up the other blinds, but he had disappeared.” Mrs. Scott described him as being roughly a foot high, with a sturdy little body, and a round jolly face of brownish-red. His clothes were a dark chutney green, and there was a dash of red somewhere about him that she couldn’t quite place. He wore a close-fitting cap, but not of the stocking type. She said she was thrilled at seeing him but was disappointed that he had gone so soon. She lay down on the bed without undressing, hoping he would come again, but of course she went to sleep, and the next day brought rapid events, which put the episode out of her mind for many years.
Miss Mildred C. E. Richardson of Berkshire told me that in her younger days she lived in Lincoln and spent much time in and around a small village named Canwick. As her governess was fond of walking, Mildred was allowed plenty of freedom out of doors, and when very young she felt and saw t
hings that her sister and brothers thought childish and fantastic. One night in particular was still very clear to her, although it was so long ago. She was awakened suddenly by a feeling that someone was near her, and she sat up in bed and looked at the others, who were sleeping silently. There was a mist near her, and as she watched and wondered, not feeling at all afraid, she saw a little fairy, tall enough to reach to her pillow. It was like a harebell, but with the form of a very small man, and it had a sweet, childish face, which looked at her as it spoke. She couldn’t remember the words that were said, but she recalled that after the little figure faded away she could hardly wait for her nurse to come so that she could relate her wonderful and joyful experience. Deep was her distress when nurse calmly said, “Oh, you’ve been dreaming.” Throughout her life, Miss Richardson maintained that it was not a dream. “I was wide awake,” she declared, “and to those who would understand, I have many times told the story.”
Further testimony came from Mrs. H. Spelman, of Cheshire, who could still remember the little green man who came to the foot of her bed over 30 years ago. She saw him quite clearly and was not asleep because she had only just retired for the night.
The following, which is described as “a true, unvarnished account,” came from “Sincere” of Gloucester, who wrote: “I will on no account give you my name and address, as, on the only occasion I related this experience, the ridicule I endured for months afterwards was unbearable.
“One morning, in the spring of 1950, I awoke at my usual hour, 7:30, and lay quietly thinking over the problems of the day ahead, when I became aware of a slight movement by the fireplace. As I stared in that direction, I realised I could see through the polished wood at the foot of the bed and found myself gazing at two little men about a foot high in the recognized garb of gnomes. They were deep in conversation at the left side of the fireplace, although I could hear no words. Suddenly, without raising his head, one of them sensed I was watching and looked at me from under his eyebrows in a speculative manner. Bending his head still closer to his companion, they both turned and simply disappeared through the tiles of the fireplace. This was in the Cotswolds, where we then lived.” In a postscript to her statement, “Sincere” wrote: “As I am a married woman with five children, you may guess I am not given to whimsical fancies!” This contributor lives up to her pseudonym, for the “throughness” which she experienced is part of etheric sight, and stamps her account as genuine.
Seeing Fairies Page 23
