WAY These fairy tales never get old
WE REVISIT DEREK PARKER’S RAMBLES THROUGH RENFREWSHIRE
The merry month of May is the sunshine season of bluebells and blackthorn, chiffchaffs and chaffinches, leafy lanes and flower-festooned fields.
It’s also the traditional time for rustic rendezvous with half- human, halfspectral fairies, goblins, elves, brownies, pixies and leprechauns.
Some of these phantom creatures were slender sylphs with transparent butterfly wings and beautiful blond tresses.
Others were hideous and ugly, with huge, hairy bodies and weather-beaten faces.
Dreadful devils like Jack o’ Lantern carried bright lamps to lure unwary night-time travellers to terrible deaths in marshy swamps.
Revengeful redcaps crimson-coloured their bonnets in the blood of human victims.
The Cailleach was a gnarled old hag who washed the clothes of people about to die in blood-drenched streams – while the mournful wail of beautiful banshees foretold family deaths in rural dwellings.
Legends live on
Derek Parker knew many of Paisley’s secrets – the grimy and the good.
He wandered every corner in search of the clues that would unlock Renfrewshire’s rich history.
These tales were shared with readers in his hugely popular Parker’s Way column.
We’ve opened our vault to handpick our favourites for you. This article was first published on May 17, 2004.
During May, countryside-dwellers were especially wary of disturbing the Hidden People or Little Folk, otherwise they would be spirited off to Fairy Land to spend the rest of their lives in dark caverns.
Mystic memories of the elusive elementals are enshrined at Paisley beauty spots like the Fairy Knowe and Fairy Fall in Gleniffer Braes Country Park and the Fairy Glen in Bardrain Wood.
Our predecessors’ belief in fairies may have originated in pre-Christian times when rivers, trees, hills and pools were regarded as the homes of nature spirits like dryads, nereids and oreads.
It’s also claimed fairies were the wandering spirits of long-dead ancient Britons forced to flee into forests or underground burial chambers by invading Celts, Saxons and Vikings.
Others say fairies were the ghosts of suicides or the unchristian and unbaptised dead.
Memories of the Fairy People linger on today.
We subconciously pay homage to tree spirits by touching wood to avoid misfortune.
We unwittingly revere water deities by throwing coins in wishing wells to make dreams come true.
We remember the Little Folk at Christmas with decorated trees, whose bright lights evoke memories of woodland spirits – and with ornamental fairies on illuminated evergreens.
Parents leave their toddlers ‘baby’ teeth under glass tumblers for the tooth fairy to exchange for silver coins.
One way or another, we still sojourn in Fairy Land and the Little Folk loom large in our homes, in our beliefs and in Paisley’s beautiful countryside.