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| What’s at the bottom of your garden? |
By:
Jacky Newcomb |
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What’s at the bottom of your garden?
Fairies…not such a myth after all
By Jacky Newcomb
In the interests of research, I set off to walk in nearby woods armed only with a camera. The kids wanted to come with me but I successfully dumped them in the children’s play area which is not fun when you are 14 and 16. Sneaking quietly along a path with trees overhanging it was as if the whole air around me began to change. Everything started to slow down, literally as if it were in slow motion. This is how you see the fairies I realised!
I began to notice the smallest details…tiny little white flowers which I’d never noticed before, beautiful shapes in the bark of the trees and then I spotted something moving at the base of the trunk. Was it a fairy? Sadly no. A tiny little field mouse popped its head out and then ran back in again but then he came out the other side – I was fascinated and then realised there were two mice scurrying around under the tree! Why was it that I never normally see these things?
As I looked up I could see a baby duckling walking towards me on the path…it seemed a little surreal but he had clearly become separated from his mates. The bank on the other side of the path was full of ducklings. This was magical! I began to slow down my walk and it was then that I noticed the sparkling of the trees themselves, little flashes of light surrounded each tree and plant! I was amazed. Were these the fairies that people talked about? The lights stayed in my field of vision until a guy rode by on his bike. Music blasted out of some hidden sound system and I was thrust back to reality. All the magic around me began to disappear. But then I realised. It was still there, only I had adjusted my concentration back to its normal levels again. The fairies had gone nowhere…
So what’s a fairy?
Faeries, fee, fay or the little people…the traditional understanding of a fairy is a meddlesome, mischievous creature who loves to trick human beings. I like to think of them as a kind of spark of nature – that certain something which helps to bring life to plants and trees.
The Victorians also saw fairies like this and painted little people with butterfly type wings. The artist Cicely Mary Barker’s images are some of the more enchanting ones. She drew different flowers and gave each of them their very own fairy guardian to match! This artwork is still used to decorate things even today.
One of the most famous fairy stories is that of the Cottingley fairies. Back in 1917, cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took photographs of the wee folk in the dales near to their home in Yorkshire. Many experts believed the photographs to be real images at the time, though there was much doubt in the years that followed. The girls were said to have faked the photographs but they always stuck by their story that the actual sightings were real.
Some traditional fairy stories over the years were quite scary with reports of people being carried away in the night. Other stories suggest that fairies would take babies and children from their beds at night and replace them with ‘changlings’, wearing green clothes and having evil staring eyes… These replacements would be nothing like the original child who would have turned very mean and bad tempered…although this experience is fairly common, still according to many of my friends with children!
Fairy secrets
• Fairies can marry humans but it is dangerous for the human partner who might die apparently
• According to JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, ‘Every time you say you don’t believe in fairies, a fairy dies’.
• Fairies know the secrets of the Otherworld and can pass on the information onto humans in rare circumstances
• If a fairy try’s to trick you, it is because they are trying to attract your attention. Many believers feel that fairies long to make contact with humans.
• If fairies are in a bad mood you will feel the energy change in your house. To keep them happy, make sure you leave out a jar of honey for them.
• Fairies are also particularly partial to dairy products
• If you want to keep a fairy in your garden then you need to leave a little wild space far from human eyes. Old logs and wild flowers will please them a lot too
• If you want to attract fairies into your home then they favour the colours of green and purple
Fairy kingdom celebrities (anyone who used to be in a brownie pack will recognise some of these!)
Banshee – those noisy wailing creatures
Brownie – often found around the house helping to clear up but they can be naughty too!
Elves – these cheeky little things are sometimes called pixies (beloved in Cornwall) and they usually have red hair
Flower fairies – beautiful flower guardians with gauze like wings
Gnome – spirits who guard the treasures of the earth, just a couple of centimetres tall but can grow in size if danger approaches
Hobgoblins – they love humans and like to fly on broomsticks
Imp – the witches’ friend. This spirit is said to look like a teenie human
Kelpie – a water spirit who takes on the shape of a horse!
Leprechaun – they live under the earth, or in boggy marshes and caves (or perhaps in your boyfriend’s stinky sock drawer)
Salamander – a fire spirit, usually around three centimetres long
Sara Collins aged 30 from Lympsham
“About five years ago, I was out in the woods near my home picking nigella flowers to make some home made birthday cards when I suddenly noticed a fairy ring in the grass. As I bent down for a closer look I was stunned to see a fairy sitting on one of the mushrooms! It was about 3 inches tall and I could see her wings fluttering. She was breathtaking and exactly the same colour blue as the nigella flowers I was about to pick.
I was so excited; I forgot all about picking the flowers and raced home. I was so hyper my mum couldn’t believe it when I told her. The funny thing was though after a few hours I had obviously come down from being so keyed up and became exactly the opposite…grumpy and miserable!
Another time I was sitting upstairs in my room working on the computer when I looked out of my window which overlooks fields and trees. I was amazed to see a fairy procession making its way to the very back of the fields where all the trees are. There were all kinds of little people and horses and I could hear bells tinkling. I watched the procession until the last fairy disappeared into the long grass and trees. I had exactly the same feeling as before and became really excited and then really moody later on for some reason.
I now firmly believe in them and have a collection of Christine Hayworth fairies at home. I find myself really drawn to the colour purple and have a special bond with butterflies which I believe are closely connected to fairies. We plant a lot of flowers in the garden which attract fairies and butterflies and also have a couple of ponds which they love too.
Their favourite flowers seem to be Chinese lanterns foxgloves, roses, herbs, buddleia, primroses, lobelia and cowslips and we are always careful to warn the fairies whenever the lawn gets cut so they can hide amongst the flowers!
I am not the only one in our family who’s seen the fairies. I was in the garden with my mum yesterday potting up some plants yesterday when we spotted something. Mum and I had just stopped for a tea break when I noticed something flittering around her knees. At first it looked more like a shadow flitting about but I tried to rationalise what I was seeing. It definitely wasn’t a butterfly, and it was not big enough to be a bird.
Mum immediately realised it was a fairy and she looked at me and said, "Ill put that down to being a fairy then!" Mum said she could even feel the flutter of wings.’
Sara can now regularly be found searching the local woodlands with her camera…just in case!
JACKY NEWCOMB BIO
Jacky Newcomb, aka ‘The Angel Lady’ is the Sunday Times best selling author of ‘An Angel Saved My Life’ and ‘An Angel By My Hand’. Jacky is also the co-author of ‘A Faerie Treasury’ (published by Hay House). She is a regular guest on radio and TV shows such as ‘This Morning’ and ‘LK Today’ (The Lorraine Kelly Show), and is often featured in the national press. She has published hundreds of articles on paranormal subjects. For more information about Jacky, her work and her best selling books visit www.JackyNewcomb.com |
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