Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
FLYING BODIES
A witness sees a UFO racing across the sky. Any UFO investigator worth his or her salt will first check the sighting against natural explanations: Venus, a harvest moon, shooting stars… I realise, as I start preparing Fairy Census 2 – we are getting close, if anyone can contribute sightings or experiences – that fairy investigators need to do the same thing.
For the fairy investigator, though, the problem is not heavenly but flying bodies, especially birds and insects. The suspicion that we might be dealing with birds or insects in fairy sightings is particularly strong when the fairy is described as being small and when contact is fleeting.
An example from Norfolk (Fairy Census, section 88). “I was sitting and just staring at the surrounding nature when a body flitted by about two metres from my head… It looked like a very large butterfly but with a long tail which had some sort of detail at the end. It moved in a series of ‘U’ shaped movements.” The witness was a fairy-sceptic, but could find no British insect that would match. I’m struck by the lack of colour in the description: I wonder about a small bird seen at an unusual angle; note the flight pattern.
Another correspondent recently wrote to describe a walk in a Cornish wood. The correspondent came upon: “a tiny upright
“I WAS SITTING AND STARING AT NATURE WHEN A BODY FLITTED BY ABOUT TWO METRES FROM MY HEAD”
humanoid, with wings, flying about like Tinkerbell”. The walker had a jolt. But careful observations allowed an identification: “Its rear legs hung down directly below it, and some combination of colour markings and angles made it look like it had boots on these legs. Two smaller front legs were held forward like arms, the head was held up with long antennæ, and the fluttering wings were at right angles.” My correspondent suggested a gasteruptiid: I suspect, having seen a picture, that he is right.
Chris Woodyard reminds me of “those stories of people thinking they’ve seen mystery big cats that either morph into or are later shown to be ordinary dogs.” She wonders whether “the same thing happens with fairies/ insects/dragonflies; does seeing certain vibrations or movements trip a switch in the brain where you think you’re seeing dragonflies, but suddenly ‘realise’ they’re fairies?” Perhaps! I simply do not have the knowledge of insects to make identifications: I had to look up ‘gasteruptiid’ (it’s a type of wasp). As the son of an ornithologist, I just about limp by with birds. There are, though, several descriptions of ‘fairies’ that were possibly glimpsed birds or insects. If anyone out there has a background in entomology and ornithology then I’d love to pass these on and see if any can be gently removed from the realm of faerie.
Simon has edited Sheridan Le Fanu’s Scary Fairy Tales: Four Tales of Fairy Horror (2020).