In a later letter “H” enlarged on the fairies “very great—indeed, exaggerated—elegance of gesture, pose and movement, so much like that of a ballerina, or the exaggerated elegance of the eighteenth century. They fluttered their fingers in emphasis of the use of their arms, and have an exquisite grace to the point of a toe or the twirl of a frill.”
Other contributors (especially Struan Robertson) have noticed this perfection of form and grace of movement.
“Nature spirits, like children, can be very mischievous, and here is a good example,” wrote “H”. “Last Friday night (23 August 1963), I saw one of the gauzy-winged fairies standing in a corner of the room. She was holding her face in her hands and seemed to be ‘crying her eyes out.’ I was, of course, greatly concerned, and then, just as I thought: ‘Poor thing, what on earth’s the matter?’ she looked straight at me with such mirth and cheeky wickedness on her face that it was quite obvious she was only pulling my leg! I felt like slapping her, as you may guess. She immediately put out her arms sideways, went up on tiptoes with a little jerk, as if launching herself and then fluttered straight up through the wall.”
On the night of 9 October 1965, “H” had been reading and didn’t notice the time, so when he eventually got to bed at l a.m. he couldn’t sleep through being over-tired. He lay there for perhaps an hour or longer, becoming more and more irritable and as a result becoming less able to sleep. All at once, however, he felt the familiar “swimming” sensation, which lasted perhaps a second or two, and when he recovered he seemed to be standing (or lying—he wasn’t sure which) in a little, very overgrown lane at home—one that leads to the house-site and that was perhaps a back drive for the use of wagons. Although the light was of the same gauzy, unreal quality previously described, it seemed to be broad daylight, and the considerable vegetation—flowers, very long grass, bushes, etc., the great profusion of which is a feature of this lane—seemed to be in the full flush of high summer.
“Then,” wrote “H” in the letter that he sent to me the next day, “I noticed a movement in the grass and, to my surprise, saw that it was caused by a fairy in the shape of a little gnarled, wrinkled and very cantankerous-looking old man with grey hair, a long, straggling beard, and startlingly bright blue eyes. He wore a long brown coat, rusty-red pantaloons, and a hat like a brown sock pulled low over his brow and dangling down his neck. He was hobbling along with the aid of a short, bent stick, and his lips were moving as if he was muttering to himself. On his back was a pair of long, dragon-shaped, pale green wings, gauzy and veined, quite unlike the rich satiny sails of the girl fairies. He continued to hobble along, and then I noticed that hiding behind the vegetation, parting the leaves to peer anxiously out, were the house-site fairies, glamorous in their dazzling ball gowns, foaming frillier and shimmering, lovely wings. They appeared to be watching the ‘old man’ but were intent on not letting him see them. I recognized the one in crimson ‘satin,’ with crimson and plum-coloured wings, as the ‘leader’ in my earlier vision. There were several others whom I recognized, and, yes, the one in lilac, who couldn’t fly. She still wore the vast, billowing gown she wore on that occasion, and I was able to examine it fairly clearly, since she was near me. It was (in human, descriptive terms) made of innumerable tiny frills of lilac ‘chiffon,’ banded with very harrow velvet ribbons, off the shoulder, with large cobwebby ‘chiffon’ sleeves. It was worn over a tremendous cloud of gauzy frills, and it spread over them in a sweep far wider than the fairy’s height, except where it flattened somewhat behind to allow her to use her wings. Her hair was high and powdered, and she wore jewels in it. I confess that I was so interested in her that for a moment I forgot the old man. Imagine my amazement when I saw that, still hobbling along, he was vanishing in parts! First his arms and stick, then his legs and his body, until finally only his head—still nodding, and muttering—and his wings, were visible. The latter parted and began to beat with a harsh, jerky rustle; then, before the old man could rise, he was all gone.”
Some of the old gnomes do fade away in parts. He was probably ready to pass into another form of life.
“H” continued: “At once the fairies came out of hiding, looking very relieved, and smiling, skipping about and clapping their hands as if in self-congratulation at escaping notice. They appeared to be telling each other about it, all talking at once (but no words were audible), each seemingly convinced that she had been the most clever. Then the one in lilac frills pretended to hide behind a slim nettle (as if it could conceal such a billow of foam!), while another, in red ‘velvet,’ pretended to be the old man, stumping along in parody, her vast skirt dragging behind her. Then they all burst out laughing and clapped their hands, and several others wanted to play the same game, but the one in crimson wouldn’t let them. She called them together and—once more the sophisticated ladies of high fashion—they began to stroll sedately along the lane, round the bend and out of sight. Suddenly it grew dark as night again, and I seemed to be rushing through space. Dizziness and slight nausea followed—and I was back in bed! It was a strange vision, but it seems to shed a little more light on the natures of the house-site fairies. They appear to be a curious blend of mature, beautifully mannered ladies and very happy, mischievous children. But I believe fairies are apt to be like that.”
It seemed that “H” was to be drawn yet again into the glamour of the fairy world, for on 14 August 1968 he wrote to say that during the night he had had the most incredible vision of all. Being unable to sleep, as the air was warm and humid, he had risen from his bed and gone out for a walk. He did not note the time, but it was fairly dark, with enough starlight to show him the way, especially as he knew the area so well, having been born there. He went along a lonely and pleasant little road, which served only two or three farms in its total length of over a mile. It ran near the site of the old moated grange, and halfway across it was a small grassy lane, which actually led to the house-site and had doubtless served as a rear entrance to the house. Just past this lane was a field of corn, and on the other side of the road was a small, oddly shaped field that contained a few calves and was the haunt of hares, which seemed quite bold and almost tame. “H” was overcome with a sudden strong desire to go into the field, so he went through the gate and began to walk across the grass. Within moments he noticed that it was mysteriously getting lighter. He thought it was dawn at first, then realised that it was a strange, cold, pale bight, almost like moonlight, but becoming quickly as light as day. And suddenly he seemed to find himself in a village! There were houses all around, and he was walking along a road, which, although flat enough, seemed made of beaten earth and stones, rather like the roads must have been centuries ago. The houses, too, were very old-fashioned, with the tops larger than the ground storeys, diamond-paned windows, wide eaves and thatched roofs; moreover, they seemed oddly shaped warped, leaning at strange angles, almost as if seen through a cheap bottle-glass window or a distorting mirror. Then he noticed that also around him were numbers of fairies. They seemed as naturally at home as any human being in a real-life village. Some were rose fairies, in costumes just like beautiful upturned pink roses glistening as though the dew were on them. Their wings were exactly like rose petals in shape, colour, and texture—a soft, rich pink, and their delicate slippers were green. Other fairies were bindweed sprites, in costumes exactly like the little pink bindweed, which trailed all over the verges around that district, and they had wings of creamy pink. They tripped lightly and very delicately around and often rose in tremulous, fluttery flight. There were others that “H” called plum fairies because they were clad in calf-length, bell-shaped dresses the colour of ripe purple plums, their wings being exactly the texture of that fruit. They walked around much more gravely, and when they wanted to fly they needed to poise, flutter, then run forward a few steps in the way other fairies had done in “H”’s earlier visions. He wandered through the village, while fairies of all sorts—some dressed like flowers, some in ballet tutus, and others i
n gauzy, trailing draperies—fluttered softly as a sigh round about him. Some drifted on lightly-fanning wings over the roof-tops of the houses, (which seemed as large as humans’ cottages; the fairies being as tall—or so it seemed—as children of, perhaps, twelve), and some would be walking along when all at once, with a little flutter and a skip, they would take to the air. There were also several gnarled old gnomes, little elves in doublets and hose, with long, slim dragonfly-type wings, and one rather odd creature—a very old but pleasant-faced gnome in long coat and pantaloons.
“H” witnessed many things, and eventually it dawned on him that all the fairies were going in the same direction as he was, and were, moreover, all going somewhere in particular. Then he found out where, for, in a field between the houses, he came upon a fairy market! The field was very small and apparently triangular, for he saw only three hedges—one very neatly trimmed like a garden hedge, and the other two of what looked like hawthorn in full May-blossom: this was in August, but why not, in a fairy village? The market was composed of many stalls, all put higgledy-piggledy anyhow, and heaped up with a large variety of commodities. All this passed like a few moments of flickering visions, yet looking back it seemed to “H” to have passed many hours. All he has described happened like so many little scenes, each crowding upon the other. Then he said it began to grow very misty, and suddenly the air seemed full of fairies in flight. The last vision he had was of a fairy from the house-site in a deep rose-red gown, bending forward so that she faced the ground, putting her hands high behind her and sweeping up an immense armful of petticoats towards the front of her. With wings beating, she ran forward on tiny, pointed, satin-shod toes, her cumulous-cloud of frills still dragging behind, despite the mass of them, which she already held, but “H” did not see whether she managed to fly. A little fairy in a tutu, looking more like a ballerina than any human dancer, fluttered near enough to him to be touched had he thought of it. Then, with a shock, he found himself once more standing out in the road in the darkness. He thought at first that he’d had a quick dream or hallucination while leaning on the gate, but then he saw that it was open as though he had been through. He turned and ran back into the field, but it was just ordinary and normal. All the magic and the beauty, the lovely colours and otherworldly life were gone. Sadly he went home.
“Here is the strange thing,” he concluded in his letter. “I couldn’t have been in the field more than a few seconds during that experience, for my feet were dry although the grass was wet, and the shoes I happened to have on would have let the water in. Yet, after going back into the field for a couple of minutes for the second time, my feet were really wet!”
This brings to mind “H”’s experience dated 15 June 1963, when he found that the grass was saturated with dew—except in the glade of the fairies! It seems from this that, at the point when he walked through the gate into the field for the first time, and also at the moment when he entered the fairy glade, which was non-existent on the physical plane, he must have been in his astral body, while his physical body remained at the gate. It is possible that the fairies put on that show especially for him.
On 25 June 1970, “H” attended a ball at a large house not very far from the site of the moated grange. He sat for a while, watching the people dancing on the lawn. Then, as the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped behind the hedges, he made his way home, got out of his dinner jacket and went into sport coat and slacks, and wandered up to the old house-site via the back lane, getting there a little before 10 p.m. Back at the ball, a tiny spark of light showed where the rigged-up lights were turned on. He leaned on the fence, smoking, and after a while he thought he could hear the band in the distance.
“I decided,” he said, “that the band was playing oriental music. This was very odd, but then I realised that although what I could hear was music of some sort, it hadn’t really got an actual tune. All very mysterious but ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘It’s just the distance playing tricks,’ and I tried to listen harder to catch the tune in the reedy thread of music as I stared idly up the field. Then I saw the fairies. They seemed miles away, yet close at hand, as if I was watching a television picture. They were strolling towards me yet advancing at a terrific rate as if coming from miles away at a hundred miles per hour. Suddenly they were before me, standing as calmly as if they had been there for some time. When I say ‘before me’ I mean they were perhaps ten to fifteen yards away and slightly to my left, but somehow they seemed so insubstantial and unreal that, although they were apparently of full human size, I couldn’t possibly have pin-pointed where they really were. They were delicate, slightly shimmering all over like a colour film, and they wore the same breathtakingly lovely gowns as always —‘satins’ and ‘brocades,’ ‘lace’ and ‘chiffon,’ ‘tulle’ and combinations of all of them such as ‘lace’ over ‘satin’ over clouds of frilly ‘tulle,’ or heavy ‘silk brocade’ over layers of ‘chiffon’ and ‘tulle.’ I use the human equivalent to describe the gowns, but of course such equivalents are only very approximate. How can one describe fairy materials properly? Like cobwebs; and flames of red and blue and amber; like nets of sea-foam and summer clouds; like evening shades; dawn and sunset, and flowers in a mist. Their wings were equally lovely—perfectly poised butterfly creations almost skimming the ground behind with their lower tips, and reaching high above their heads with the upper ones, like butterflies standing erect. One fairy, in billowing amber ‘satin’ over foams of frills, began idly to dance. The others soon joined in and they went circling and posing round, threading through the throng, a quick ballet-pose and back around, pose and circle, pose and thread through, pose and back. Their skirts billowed and frothed; clouds of frills foamed and were hidden again by the sinking gown-skirts froth and shimmer, billow and flutter, pose and off again. And all the time the distant thread of tuneless music, like a strange violin, continued. Perhaps there were fifteen fairies, perhaps twenty; I couldn’t think to count. Some held their skirts up; some ignored the apparently cumbersome layers of material. But nothing had any weight or solidity; it was like the lovely dancing of flower-butterflies in a dream, or like winged moonbeams a-flutter in an enchanted flower garden. I then realised that more of them had begun to flutter their wings, and soon all were doing so, lightly, delicately, not with the frantic, whirring thrashing I’d seen before. They danced on, billowing and rustling their frillies—obviously deliberately, since they used their hands to froth out their petticoats, and often I saw a fairy stretch out her hand to toss a neighbour’s petticoats up to make them foam out to add to the effect. Or is that correct? It seemed they had only to stretch out a hand and the skirts spread without being touched. They also used their arms as extra wings, beating them as wings beat, all seemingly part of the effect. Then, without any effort at all, they rose into the air and formed a ball like a many-coloured dandelion clock, dancing in the air as they had on the ground, in three dimensions instead of two. Constantly fairies sank to the earth, then just stretched their arms high, fluttered, and rose back to the aerial dance. One ran on the air as if on the ground, round and round, laughing and beating her wings rapidly but soundlessly. Some soared and darted, dived and circled, like birds. Then they formed a great rainbow of ‘satins’ and rich fabrics, frillies and fluttering wings. After a minute or so, they receded at a tremendous speed until they were a tiny glittering horseshoe, and were gone. I waited some time, then, as it was practically dark, I went back home, feeling very dazed.”
“H” did not write again until July 1973, when he said that apart from brief, nebulous corner-of-the-eye glimpses of fairies he’d had just one proper “sighting.” “This was a wood fairy, half-flying, half-dancing on tip-toe, with butterfly wings and a foamy, gauzy, frilly tutu the colour of a cornflower. She was laughing and very merry, revelling in her loveliness, the sunshine and riot of flowers. Smelling a blossom, then throwing back her head and lifting her arms like a ballerina, she fluttered —her toes barely touching the ground—to another flower,
and another. She danced and posed, light as thistledown, as if a tiny puff of breeze or the slightest quickening of her wing-beats would send her floating into the air. Yet she didn’t fly, but eventually disappeared out of the clearing amid the trees.”
Seeing Fairies Page 36
