JEREMY CORBETT
JEREMY BRAVES THE MURKY GROUND BETWEEN FACT AND FANTASY
There’s a fine line between cute and cruel. Last year, in the lead-up to the festive season, just as our young daughters were starting to worry about their record on Santa’s naughty/nice list, Mum thought she spotted an elf in the hedge just outside our back door.
We spent nearly half an hour looking for evidence. In an attempt to ascertain whether or not we had an elf infestation, I took a stick and poked it into the hedge. I felt something grab it and tug it from me. I sprang back, the stick falling onto the driveway. The kids yelped and recoiled with a mixture of fear and delight.
After another 10 minutes of intense staring without incident, we all decided the elf had scarpered back to Santa HQ where he/she/it was being sternly told off by Big Red for being spotted by muggles. (Apologies for mixing my folklore there.)
For days following the sighting, I noticed Charlie, then six, eyeing that part of the hedge whenever we happened to pass by. It was so endearing seeing our girl believe, yet still want the proof that only a close encounter of the third kind could provide. Perhaps she had mentioned the elf visit at school and now needed more hard evidence to silence the doubters? There are always doubters.
A year later almost to the day, my wife sent me a photo of our darling girl, now seven, staring at another hedge at the back of our house. Mum thought she had, once again, caught a glimpse of the elf and Charlie was, once again, trying to see it for herself.
There she stood, alone, focused, spellbound by the possibility hidden in that hedge. The photo conveyed the intent, the hope, the yearning for evidence of something she desperately wanted to be true. It was very cute.
I felt a pang of loss for that beautiful naivety, but it was mixed with a large dollop of guilt. How could we let our child be tricked into thinking she could spot an elf? What parents were we to play on her innocence for our own entertainment? To be honest, it was mostly Mum, but in my silence I was complicit.
I realise there may be youngsters capable of reading this column but I make no apology for what I’m about to type: You will never see an elf in a hedge.
They’re simply too quick for the human eye. Never has one been spotted, and if someone tells you they’ve seen one then check their eyes for lies and their breath for booze. It simply won’t happen.
Santa didn’t survive this long by being caught. Claus-tech is light years ahead of anything we humans can devise. Any sightings or photos that claim to be of elf are a fabrication.
Reindeer are different.
I caught the nose of one just in frame with a clever motion-based camera trap
I set up on Christmas Eve last year.