Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF
FLYFAIRY There follow three particularly interesting transatlantic spirit flights, from the 18th and 19th centuries, all told in such a way as to suggest something lived (or imagined) rather than a folk story.
One, from the 18th century, sees a man flown from Breconshire in Wales to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania by a ghost, and then back again: the account is recorded by Edmund Jones, whose ‘apparitions’ are the rawest recorded from Enlightenment Britain.
A second, from the early 19th century, sees a man from Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada rushed through the air by the fairies and taken to Europe: he also is brought immediately back to a party he had been hosting. This was written up in the Prince Edward Island Magazine (1902). A third, also from the early 19th century, sees a man picked up from County Fermanagh by Irish fairies and taken to America: he is landed on the roof of a house there and allowed to look down the chimney, where he glimpses his daughter, who had emigrated; he then visits a friend, before being brought back, once again, to Ireland. The collector was Walter Y Evans Wentz and the account appeared in his book The Fairy
Faith in Celtic Countries (1911). In each of these three stories, someone crossed the Atlantic: two east to west, one west to east. And, in all three cases, the flier was accompanied and, indeed, powered by a supernatural force. In all three cases, we also know how long the trip took. The Welsh ghost needed three days to bring her victim to Philadelphia, where she obliged him to carry out a trifling task on her behalf: throwing a cursed box in a lake. Say 36 hours in, 36 hours out? No wonder that the young man who was taken over the ocean “could hardly speak” at the end of his journey: he had also been thrown into a river for disobeying the ghost. The Irish fairies took a night to get to the US and to return. The Prince Edward Island fairies managed, meanwhile, their trip to Europe and back in just over four hours, which are Concorde speeds: they also repeatedly dunked their human passenger in the ocean as they flew, apparently just for kicks.
There are other accounts of transatlantic spirit flights (though these come from folk tales, rather than stories that appear to be personal experiences) where flight time is measured. An Irish ghost, based in a US cemetery, took just 45 minutes to get to his family in Ireland; whereas Irish fairies, bringing a human friend to play soccer in New York (the mind boggles), needed only “a second”. The conclusion to take away from all this is surely, if you want to travel rapidly, fly fairy. Simon Young writes on folklore and history and runs www.fairyist.com
THE FAIRIES REPEATEDLY DUNKED THEIR HUMAN PASSENGER IN THE OCEAN, APPARENTLY JUST FOR KICKS