Seeing Fairies

by Marjorie T Johnson

  “Caroline Petersen (nee Price) is a South Welsh Gypsy whose mind is full of strange fancies, so that one never knows what may be lurking in it. But the two following experiences she related to me on different occasions seem worthy of record, and she herself firmly believed they actually happened.

  “At the time of the first incident she was living in a wooden out in a quiet lane not far from a Roman camp, about two miles from Carmarthen. We were standing outside the hut one day, when suddenly she asked me: ‘Do you see that tree, Miss?’—pointing to an old May tree full of blossom shaking eerily in the wind, with its black branches standing out against the sky. ‘I have often seen the fairies swinging in it. They sway up and down in the branches. I can see them from the window when I am watching for my husband to come home from his work.’ The next time I visited her, I asked if she had seen the fairies again. ‘Yes indeed, I did see them only last night. They came right into our hair (house) this time and were all over our little kitchen.’

  “‘Do tell me about them,’ I said.

  “‘Well, they were like tiny men and women, no bigger than dolls. The men had tiny peaked caps, little belted jackets, pointed shoes and long stockings up to their waists. The women had hats like old Welsh ones and long skirts and cloaks. The men climbed up on the mantelpiece and up and down the curtains. They sat beside my teapot and peered into everything. And most of the women sat on the floor by the fire and warmed themselves. Oh, but they were pretty! I wish you could have seen them! All colours their clothes were. I believe they were just going to begin dancing in the firelight, when I heard Petersen opening the door, and, in a flash, they all disappeared.’”

  Another Welsh Gypsy who saw fairies was Rosie Griffiths, daughter of Rosaina and Theophilus Griffiths, and granddaughter of Benjamin and Caroline Wood. Her account, taken down by Miss Dora E. Yates of Liverpool University was, like Caroline Petersen’s account, printed in The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. Before then, it had been published in The Children’s Microcosm (circa 1931) edited by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe. Permission for me to use it was given in both cases.

  Rosie Griffiths recounted that when she was seven or eight she was camping with her parents and brothers in an old green lane in the middle of Wales. One evening, “when the sun was getting low and slanting all golden through the grass,” she was lying on her face under a big oak-tree, kicking her heels in the air and “thinking of nothing at all.” The others were all up at the tents, so she was by herself and feeling very lonesome. Suddenly she began to hear the most wonderful music, which she described as being “like as if you was in Heaven.” At first she could not find the source of it, but when she pressed her ear to the ground the music seemed to come out of the earth. She looked up, and there in front of her, in a ring round the old oak tree, were scores of tiny fairies dressed in cherry-red jackets and breeches, playing ball. Their heads were just peeping above the grass, and the ball, which they were tossing to one another, was no bigger than a pea. They danced around her, and she rubbed her eyes, thinking it was a dream. Her mother had often told her about the Little People, but Rosie could not believe she would ever see them with her own eyes. Then, just as suddenly as they came, they all went from her sight, and she began to weep. After a while, when she was taking a quiet rest, they were there again, but there was no music of any sort this time, and the next moment they were gone. The following morning there was a bright green ring round the oak tree, and Rosie lay there again, thinking she would have the same pleasure of seeing her little friends. “But there was no fairies and no fairy music ever again,” she said, “and I was lost of my dear little joy.” She kept searching around the oak tree where they had played, and “suddenly” she came upon “a tremendous large penny.” (Pennies dated circa 1807 were very big and heavy.) Running quickly to her mother, she showed it to her.

  “Wherever did you get this penny from, child,” she asked.

  Instead of just saying she had found it under a tree, Rosie answered in detail: “I found it under the old oak-tree where the fairies danced.”

  “Oh, you foolish, foolish girl to have told your luck. There was many more pennies to be had where that came from. It was your luck, and now it won’t be your luck no more, ‘cos you couldn’t keep your silly little tongue still!”

  Her mother was wild that she had talked, and sure enough when Rosie went back that night to look for the fairy ring, there was nothing to be seen. “That same night,” she concluded, “one of my little brothers was took ill, and we had to break up camp and hurry off in the morning. And though we com’d back to Wales time after time with our van, search how we might, we never found that lane with that dear old oak-tree again.”

  In his autobiography The Book of Boswell: The Story of a Gypsy Man (Gollancz, London), Silvester Gordon Boswell mentioned that he and his sisters and younger brother, and also many other Gypsy children, saw and played frequently with the fairies on some sandhills at the back of the tents and wagons on South Shore, Blackpool; and always when the Boswell family returned their after their travels, the children would be off to see the fairies, and would find them in the same place.

  Chapter 7:TheJohn O’London’s WeeklyLetters

  I am glad to be able to quote the following letters, which were published in 1936 and 1948 in that long-since defunct and sadly-missed literary journal John O’London’s Weekly, as it was instrumental in starting me on my colourful quest for true accounts of fairies. At that time, I had only one other cutting, a magazine article by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, who was to come into my life much later.

  With the editor’s help, I was put in touch with some of the writers of the letters, and am pleased to acknowledge the years of valuable help and friendly correspondence that I received from Mr. J. H. Graigon, Miss Doris G. Stephens, Mr. I. W. Beer and his wife, and also from Miss Edith Sparvel-Bayly who had written the original letter to the said weekly paper inviting readers to send in their fairy experiences. Mr. Struan Robertson had died the year following the publication of his letter, but his widow wrote to tell me that “he could keep an audience of 4,000 spellbound, listening to his strange experiences of ‘faerie’ and ‘the Sight.’”

  For the purpose of this book, slight revisions have been made by some of these correspondents, including myself, to clarify, delete superfluous lines, or add more details to the accounts where necessary.

  Letter dated 7 March 1936: “Can any of your readers give first-hand accounts of fairies seen in this country? There seem to be many who do see them, but who are chary of relating their experiences. In this part of Wales some queer things happen occasionally. An elderly woman was walking home one moonlit night in February when she saw what she thought were big brown moths flying over the meadow by the road. She stood still, peeped through the hedge, and watched a number of small brown men settling themselves round a large stone. Seated on it was a fairy lady dressed in white, who talked to them in Welsh about many things, which they seemed glad to hear. Then she told them that they would not be able to use the meadow much longer, for a rich man would buy it and build a house there, and keep a carriage to run the roads without horses. There was then no lead of such a thing in the village, but in the course of a year all this came to pass, for a wealthy retired milk-dealer from London had a house built in the meadow, and drove his car up and down the hills. This is a first-hand account. In the small place in which I live was a respected tradesman who confessed that he himself had seen an odd thing. He had been to a village and was returning home after dark. His way lay through a wood, but it was not until he came out on to the road near some houses that he heard a skipping noise beside him and saw a creature with a round body high up on two long legs. It went hopping in front of him into a street, and then with a leap and a bound it was off and away over some high iron gates into the grounds of a college.” — E. Sparvel-Bayly, Wales.

  Letter dated 23 July 1948: “A local clergyman, the Rev. Edwards, told me that his uncle, a farmer, was walking with anothe
r man beside a river one evening when they observed a strange light on the other bank. On approaching this, both of them saw a crowd of tiny people dancing, clad in gay and beautiful colours like flowers. The friend was scared and ran away, but the farmer felt entranced by the lovely scene and stood watching for some time till the light suddenly vanished with the dancing beings. His nephew, the clergyman, was interested to learn that early one morning, on the hillside above the farm, the same kind of scene had been observed by his grandmother when a young girl.” — E. Sparvel-Bayly, Wales.

  In a letter sent direct to me in the 1940s, Miss E. Sparvel-Bayly said that she’d had a young friend named Maureen Jones, who had always been interested in fairies and used to make feasts for them when she was a small child. One day she went with her mother to a wood and was playing round an old oak tree when suddenly she ran up to her mother, beaming with delight. “Oh Mother: I’ve seen a fairy,” she exclaimed, and she told her that a tiny lady in white, very pretty, had come out of a hole in the base of the oak and smiled at her.

  Letter dated 21 March 1936: “A few years ago, on the Cornish-Devonian border, I was surprised to see on the cliff above me the figure of a tiny man, dressed in black, strutting round in a rather vain-looking way. So incredulous was I of the existence of the ‘pisky’ people that I said to myself, ‘In a minute I shall see what he really is—a bird, or a shadow.’ But no, he went on being a tiny man—until he changed into a quite indescribable thing (are not the piskies’ Irish cousins known as the ‘shape-changers’?); something with the appearance of a long, furry black roll, which gambolled about on the grass and then disappeared. A few minutes later, however, two more little shapes became visible—slightly longer and much rounder than the first pisky-man. They were sitting one on either side of a gorse bush, making movements similar to those made in sawing with a two-handled saw. Curiosity impelled closer investigation, but the shortcut I took up the cliff ended in unclimable steepness and rubble, and I was obliged to return to the shore. By the time I had reached the gorse bush by the usual path the pisky sawers were gone. Nothing except a form of air, though, would have sat on air as the sawer on the sea side must have been doing—for the bush hung some inches over the cliff-edge.” — Joyce Chadwick, London, W.l.

  Letter dated 28 March 1936: “Let me briefly describe four experiences. The first fairy I met was alone upon a hillside near Aberfoyle, where Robert Kirk wrote his Commonwealth of Fairies. She was very friendly, beckoned me to follow her, and eventually showed me the most wonderful of sights. One afternoon in Arran, I saw ten fairies playing out and in among gorse bushes and round about the grazing sheep. The sheep were quite undisturbed except that if a fairy went too near one of them it would trot off for a few yards. Wandering in a wood in Arran one morning, I heard the silvery, plangent accents of fairies, and following the sounds I saw quite a clan of them hurrying along a green footpath. They seemed very angry about something. Observing me, they chatted loudly, scattered as one sees a flock of excited sparrows scattering, increased their speed and fled. Tramping near Loch Rannoch, I was attracted by tuneful tones coming from clumps of rhododendrons, and advancing cautiously beheld the most beautiful dancing: I was too interested to count the number of fairies, concentrating upon how close I could get. When I was within ten paces of them, one sighted me, and alarming the dancers she shepherded them in among the bushes. I shall never forget the glance she gave me as she disappeared, and the gesture: the grace of her exit, I have seen approached only by the incomparable Pavlova herself.” — Struan Robertson, Stirlingshire

  Letter dated 4 April 1936: “Most of the stories of ‘piskies’ or little people recently published seem to emanate from the South or West Country, but here is a first-hand account of one of them seen quite lately in more matter-of-fact Hertfordshire. I was driving a car through a quiet country lane, and my thoughts at the time were solely on the car’s performance. Rounding a bend in the road, where the hedge and trees had been cut down to the ground, I was suddenly surprised to see a little round-faced fellow wearing a pointed cap, the peak of which fell over the side, nightcap fashion. He was sitting on a tree stump and looking straight across the road in front of him. Standing, I judged he would be nearly a foot and a half high, but he was gone in an instant, and though I slowed down at once I did not get the chance to have a closer look at him. The sight made a vivid impression on me, and is not likely to be easily forgotten.” — I. W. Beer, Herts

  Letter dated 11 April 1936: “During the War we lived in the heart of the Welsh countryside, four miles from a town, and one afternoon in June, at the time of the hay harvest, the following incident occurred. My mother and I were sitting in the garden with two maids. Suddenly she pointed to a neighbouring field in which the hay had only just been cut. ‘How very early the farmer and his workers have started making the hay,’ she said. ‘It cannot have had time to dry.’ I looked in the direction she indicated, and I could see lines of figures going backwards and forwards, apparently busy raking the hay. We called the two maids, who also noticed the lines of figures. That evening we met the farmer and asked him why the raking in that particular meadow had been started so early. He said we must be mistaken. He had walked past the field that afternoon, and there was no one there at all! It seemed as if we had witnessed a kind of psychic phenomenon. From the earliest times fairies have been said to show a fondness for copying the work of human beings, and quite possibly it was some of these creatures we had seen.” — Doris G. Stephens, S. Wales

  Letter dated 2 May 1936: “I had read with amusement the descriptions of fairies given by your various correspondents. They entertained me, but left me unconvinced. That was my reaction, until… I was sitting alone one night, writing. It was late; everybody else had gone to bed. With a flourish I turned over a page. The draught it created blew a paper (a laundry bill, incidentally) off the table to the floor. I saw it flutter down, and went on writing. (I was not going to let a laundry bill interrupt my romantic cogitations.) Some two minutes later I rattled through another page, having entirely forgotten the paltry bill at my feet. It was with mild astonishment, then, that when I turned the next page I beheld the same bill fluttering floorwards again. I concluded that my first experience was pure imagination, but when the same thing happened the third time. I bounded up and searched for the invisible person playing the trick on me. Then I went down on my hands and knees to see how many bills had conglomerated on the floor. I found only a solitary one, the laundry bill. I picked it up, secured it to the table, sat down, and tried to collect my startled wits. It was a failure, and so I went to bed in a daze. But until I fell asleep, I seemed to sense the presence of somebody else in that room. Who or what was it?” — Kenneth A. James, Sydney

  This brings me to my own letter dated 28 March 1936, in which I described a green wood-elf. As there may be some readers of this book who saw those early letters and have perhaps kept the cuttings, I would like to take this opportunity to explain that I purposely omitted to mention that my elder sister, too, had seen the elf, because she was very reserved and dreaded any resulting sensational publicity and visits from reporters, etc. Later, both of us realised that by not including her as a witness, the experience was robbed of much of its authenticity, as there was no proof that it was not just a childish dream of mine, so I have amended the account accordingly:

  “The house in which I was born was surrounded by a lovely garden with a small orchard, and was near fields and woods in a lonely part of Nottingham. It was there, when I was six years old, that I had an experience I shall never forget. Just beneath my bedroom window was a small lawn, and growing against the house wall was a cream rambler rose known as Alberic Barbier, which reached right up to the open window. I was lying in bed enjoying the early-morning sunshine, which streamed into the room, when suddenly I felt impelled to sit up and turn my eyes to the empty firegrate. There, on a filmy cobweb, which was stretched like a hammock across the iron bar, sat a quaint little creature from four to six in
ches in height. Its body was like shiny green jelly surrounded by an aura of green light, and on its head a red, pointed cap of the same protoplasmic substance. Its mouth was devoid of teeth or gums, and its eyes had no pupils. It seemed quite unafraid, and, from the broad grin on its face, appeared to enjoy my observation. At first, I just kept still and stared, and it gazed back at me with a blank expression, which showed very little intelligence, yet its eyes had a strange, mesmeric, effect on me. I nudged my sleeping sister, Dorothy, who was nine years older than I, and she sat up in bed and saw it too. Soon I had to satisfy my childish curiosity by climbing out of bed, but when I drew closer than a foot to the elf it seemed to lose its equilibrium and immediately quivered away. I clambered back into bed, and when I turned round it was perched in the same place. This developed into an exciting game, and the elf’s disappearance and reappearance continued until I foolishly brushed away the cobweb to see what the little creature would do next. Needless to say, I was soon full of remorse at what I had done, for we never saw the nature sprite again.”

  Many years later I was to read in Geoffrey Hodson’s before-mentioned book of his personal observations on The Fairies at Work and at Play that elves differ from other nature spirits chiefly in that they do not appear to be clothed in any reproduction of human attire, and that their bodily constitution seems to consist of one solid mass of gelatinous substance, entirely without interior organization.