Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF
CONTEMPORARY FAIRIES #2
Regular readers will remember that the first Fairy Census was published, with 500 accounts, in 2017 (see FT362:30-37) and is available online. As noted in the last edition of this column, I am presently getting ready for a big push to finish Fairy Census 2 (2018-2021). If you have any experiences for the second round, please send them in: a quick Google of ‘Fairy Census’ will bring you to the right page.
I wrote last month that contemporary fairies from Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man seem to break down into three roughly equally sized groups. I described the SWFs (small-winged fairies) and the Dwomes (dwarfgnomes). I neglected, though, the O&Ss (Odds and Sods), the miscellany of ‘other’ fairies.
These include the one-off and incomparable: e.g. walking two-dimensional fluorescent pieces of what looked like cardboard. But there are also some more substantial subcategories. The most numerous are the BOLs (11%): Balls of Light. These are the descendants of the Will-o’-theWisp. Sometimes there is one large BOL and sometimes numerous tiny BOLs. I suspect that this category has greatly increased with the arrival of digital cameras and the discovery (often the deliberate search) for fairy BOLs in photos. Next come the Tinies (8%): minute humanoids without wings, usually seen in large groups. “A large tree stump was near
“I COULD ONLY SEE THEM WHEN ALONE AND IT WAS SPECIAL AND MAGICAL... THEYWERE VERY SMALLAND PALE”
the field gate... I recall at times going there to look at little figures living in the stump and moving around the outside edges as if busy at their business. I could only see them when alone and it was special and magical... I can only say that they were very small and pale.” A personal favourite are the Tresps or Tree Spirits (7%). These are typically tall and thin; sometimes treeshaped or having branches and so on. They may have rather awkward movements. Tresps are something new in British folklore, but judging from early results from Fairy Census 2, they seem to have put down roots. Think of a less substantial, spiritualised version of the ents from The Lord of the Rings. There are then adult-sized fairies (4%), often indistinguishable from ‘normal’ humans, and fairy animals (3%): dogs, horses and – I love it – multi-coloured ponies. There are finally the Shadows (3%): blurry or shadowy humanoid or sometimes animalesque forms. Heidi Hollis, note, has written on shadow people from a very different perspective. Where do all these forms come from? Essentially the word ‘fairy’ has expanded in the last 150 years to include not just social fairies but what folklorists call the solitary fairies. Pretty much anything supernatural that does not come from Hell, from an interdimensional spacecraft or from the tomb is now fairy material…