Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF
HOUSE/MOUSE FAIRIES
Here’s a story that almost defies belief. Seventy-five-year-old Rodney Holbrook, from Builth Wells, in Powys, Wales, noticed that someone was tidying up his work bench at night, “picking up items such as nuts and bolts, clothes pegs and cable ties and tidying them away into a box” (see FT442:7). Rodney put up a night-vision camera and waited. To his amazement, the film (now widely available online) revealed a mouse. FT stalwart and general scallywag Rob Gandy, who introduced me to the video, wonders whether activity of this sort might not explain some of our stories about house-fairies.
House fairies, it will be remembered, not only tidy up, but are also known for doing basic manual labour, leaving coins in shoes, sitting up late in front of the fire, being swart and furred, eating food left out for them, and for playing tricks on family members. A number of writers have pointed out that some of these house fairy characteristics possibly correspond to the activities of pets or rodents.You leave a bowl of milk for the house fairy and it is gone in the morning? Maybe it is just the rats. Your younger son saw a hairy form by the fire while scrambling to the jakes at midnight? Oh please, it was puss warming himself on the flags.
This brings us back to Rodney’s tiny
THE CONFUSION OF MOUSE EXPERTS IS ONE OF THE MOST SATISFYING ELEMENTS OF THE STORY
assistant. I have no idea what pushes Builth Wells’s most famous mouse to act as he did (night after night after night). I suspect it is not common behaviour: the embarrassed confusion of mouse experts is one of the most satisfying parts of the story. But perhaps some of our earlier accounts of house fairies tidying up came down not to a sweeping brownie, but to mice or rats finding and disposing of nesting material? Even mouse-lovers, though, must accept that in no way are our tiny four-legged helpers responsible for scything the wheat or for weaving a day’s worth of yarn!
On the subject of mouse activity being confused with supernatural behaviour, I’ve collected over the years a number of instances of singing mice. Typically, a householder hears a fantastical high-pitch siren noise that he or she cannot explain. Then, finally, at midnight in the kitchen, they glimpse the little songster performing. Here is one of many instances: “I believe in singing mice… I slept for a week once in a room… and there were a whole colony of singing mice in it. I never was so puzzled at anything in my life.” Such performances could easily be understood supernaturally by residents, particularly if they heard the extraordinary murine music between snatches of sleep. Could more tales of fairy magic come from unfamiliar animal behaviour?