PIXIE-LED IN IRELAND
Being led astray by fairies is one way to increase your Fitbit step count
Firsthand accounts of being led astray by fairies are rare today, but a woman from Meath in Ireland, who preferred to remain anonymous, recently recounted a modern take on the phenomenon on Twitter. She was doing a step count challenge with work colleagues, recording her steps on a Fitbit, and, after days of building her count by doing circuits of her housing estate, decided to vary the experience by taking a walk in the local woods. The path she took led between two identical trees, and that’s where she believes she crossed over from the everyday world into somewhere “other”.
“I stepped through and put my hands on both trees. One was really warm and the other was really wet and cold,” she said. “People are saying now that this was a mistake”.
Describing what happened next, she tweeted: “The main path kind of branched off to the left and it just went nowhere. It went into a really overgrown forest, really high weeds and plants. I knew it wasn’t the path. There were lots of people around. It’s a really popular spot, so I walked back and I thought that this wasn’t the main path and I should have taken the other way. I took the other way and then that went nowhere. I went back to the fork to start over. I went back and I think I tried to go back the way I came. That also led me nowhere. I walked back up the main path again but it didn’t look familiar. It was quite overcast at this point as well. I had pulled up Google Maps and I didn’t have a signal on my phone at all, which is not unusual for that area. I decided to keep trying paths. There were only three so I thought I’d eventually get somewhere. I kept walking down a path towards a really overgrown area again.”
At this point the experience took a more sinister turn. “I heard a really light woman’s voice. I don’t know how to describe it. It was really high. She was shouting ‘over here’. I thought she was probably calling to her kids or something,” she said. “Then she laughed and it was just when she laughed, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up… then the call came from the other side of me. I knew something wasn’t right.” Once this happened, the woman realised that she was dealing with fairies. “I was scared when she laughed. When she laughed, I don’t think I’ve words in the English language for it. I had never heard someone laugh like that. I knew something was really wrong. I just got this really bad feeling that things were not going to end well for me if I didn’t do something. My first instinct was to run, but I didn’t even know where to run. I just remember turning your clothes inside out is supposed to help. So, I just tried that… I turned my T-shirt inside out, put it back on.”
Turning clothes inside out is indeed a tried and tested traditional method of breaking fairly enchantment and it did seem to work in this case. “I turned around and walked back and almost immediately came to the two trees again… I came to them quicker than when I had been walking in the opposite direction… I just wanted to get through. Then I could hear the birds again and people and stuff. I didn’t know what had just happened,” she said. Returning to her car and checking her Fitbit, she found that she had done more than 10,000 steps, just within the small wood. Counting herself as a sceptic before, the woman said: “I have a very professional job. I’m not crazy… I think I just got unlucky. I’ve been in those woods before. People were saying that the two trees on the path were a portal. I’ve no massive opinion, but something really weird happened.” While the woman herself sees the experience as a rather sinister one, fairies of legend are known for their often perverse ways of “helping” people, and her experience of being “pixieled” in the wood did, after all, contribute significantly to her step count for the day. dublinlive.ie, 13 Sept 2022.
“I have a very professional job. I’m not crazy… I think I just got unlucky ”