Seeing Fairies

by Marjorie T Johnson

  Another time, when Kinara was about seven years old, she was lying in bed when she saw, quite distinctly, several chubby little cherubs hovering above her. Although she heard no sound, she knew they were talking and laughing, and she smiled back. They stayed for quite some time, inspecting her, and then they just faded away or she fell asleep; she could not remember which. “I had no reason to imagine any of these things,” she declared, “and in spite of the teasing by my school fellows and the reasoning of adults, I have remained convinced that what I saw was true.”

  While stationed at Portobello Barracks in Dublin, Ireland, in 1919, Mr. I. Cooper was out alone one night, walking towards the town not far from the barracks, when he saw a fairy. It was flying about three feet off the ground in front of him and was like a normal-sized woman, but it had wings and was dressed all in white. Then it vanished, but Mr. Cooper was terrified, and after walking a few more yards he decided to go back to the barracks. On turning round to do so, he saw that the fairy had been following him, and it, too, turned round and flew in front of him again for some distance before it finally disappeared. Although the street was dimly lit, he had seen the fairy quite clearly, which of course is accounted for by the luminous quality of these beings.

  At the time of Mr. Cooper’s experience there was trouble with the people of Dublin, and he and the other soldiers had been warned not to venture away from the barracks unless someone went with them. He wondered if the fairy came to protect him from danger. Whatever the explanation, he said he had believed in fairies ever since.

  Another soldier who had an unusual evening was Mr. P. O’Shea, of London. It was during the Second World War, and he was returning from leave and travelling to his depot at Trawsfynydd, North Wales, arriving at Blaenau Festining Station about 9:30 p.m. The camp was fourteen miles away, so he was disappointed to learn that he had missed the last bus, but two schoolteachers were kind enough to hire a taxi to take him over the mountains. He had still some distance to travel, and after tramping for a while he obtained a lift in another taxi as far as the road which led to the huts. He started to walk the last few miles in the moonlight, finding the stillness of the countryside at night rather eerie, and it was about midnight when he finally reached his destination.

  Outside, on the grass, he saw a little man of about two feet high, wearing a greyish jacket and leggings of the same colour. Down the front of his jacket were large black buttons, and on his head was a round hat. His face was very round; his eyes, ears, and mouth were large, and he stood with his arms akimbo, laughing at Mr. O’Shea, who confessed that he lost no time in getting inside his hut.

  “I know that some people might say I had been drinking, or that I had imagined it,” he said, “but I was quite sober and, being a grandfather with ten grandchildren, I feel I have passed the ‘imagination stage’ years ago.”

  Mrs. H. F. Still’s most vivid memory was of the time when as a small child, she used to play about just before her bedtime at her home on Shirley Hills, in Surrey, and was able to see the fairies on several occasions during the summer evenings. She described them as being of a pale, almost transparent colour, with delicate pinky-mauve wings, and she said that every time she thought about them she could still see them dancing amongst the heather.

  Miss Nora M. Best and Miss Agnes Robson were staying in Borrowdale, the Lake District, in August 1941, and one afternoon they walked by way of the Pony Track from Rosthwaite to Watendlath. After a cup of tea at the farm, they decided to return by a track marked on the map via Dock Tarn, but after walking for some time they realised that they had been confused by sheep tracks and had lost the trail. They made their way to the top of the ridge, and away below them was the road that would take them back to their hotel, but there was no sign of a track that would take them down.

  While they discussed what they would do, suddenly they heard the shrill laughter of children, and, about a hundred yards below them, they saw what they thought were four or five children scampering about each other round two or three rather big boulders. Thinking that there must be a track near, the two companions immediately made a beeline for the spot, quite expecting to find a family party on the other side of the boulders. But when they arrived, no one was there, and although they searched around for a considerable time, calling “Coo-ee,” there was nothing to be seen or heard.

  They were more than a little mystified. “We realised,” they said, “that it was an unlikely place for children to be in and, as we had reached the spot in two or three minutes after seeing them, there was no place to which they could have disappeared. Comparing impressions, we both had seen what we thought were small children with long hair streaming out behind them as they ran and a general look of quaintness about them. We have been puzzled ever since. Could we have disturbed the Little People at their play? We wonder!”

  As a child, Mr. James Alvey of Nottingham lived in the country, and being a true nature-lover he went frequently for long walks across the moors to the various distant hills. It was on one of these walks that he came across a small glade in which were a few harebells, one or two crab-apple trees and some clusters of toadstools, and there he saw a group of tiny gnome-like men, all very intent on their work as though they had to carry it out very quickly. He stood watching them, dumbfounded, for several seconds, and then they seemed to disappear from view into the bracken, which surrounded the clearing.

  In July 1958, a friend called for him to go to see another personal friend of his, whose house stood in its own grounds in a village, a rural setting, which had not changed much during the last four hundred years. After getting off the bus, they walked along the road and up the drive to the main door. His friend, who was a little way ahead of him, rang the doorbell, which was quickly answered, but he himself felt drawn away from the house and [went] further into the grounds, which contained a variety of very picturesque shrubs and trees. He was standing admiring them when his eyes turned to a laurel bush around which danced at least a dozen pixies and fairies, their faces expressing great happiness. At this point he heard the voice of his friend calling him, whereupon the little people quickly dispersed, leaving that unforgettable moment imprinted on his mind.

  At the time of writing to me, Mrs. Mary Allan of Glasgow was over 70 years of age, and she declared that, although she had the second sight and saw many kinds of visions, she had never been able to forget her fairy experiences. The first occurred when she was nine and lived in the Isle of Skye. She was playing in the woods at the back of her home, making a garden of plucked flowers, and while she was sitting in the centre of this the fairies appeared. “They were lovely little creatures, about three inches high,” she said.

  Later, in her home in Glasgow, she was peeling some potatoes when there came to her a fairy dressed in azure blue, with bright wings and a golden wand. Again one appeared when she was sitting talking to some friends, while on another occasion she saw one after she had retired to bed, and she described it as having pink wings, a green body, and a head, which looked like a small doll’s.

  Norway also has its Little People, and Miss Gjoa Waagen used to see them when she stayed with her grandparents, who had a very large estate in the country with lochs and rivers. She would watch the fairies dancing, or putting colours on the flowers, and there were also undines to be seen in the streams.

  On a night before the full moon, Miss Amarilla Easthond, of Gloucestershire, was walking in the garden, as she felt troubled and wanted to be alone. Near the garden was a wood enclosed by a fence, and around it were big oak trees. She was just passing by when something caught her gaze: it was the sparkle of a few drops of rain left in the grass, but there was something else. A gust of shining little forms swept by, dancing in and out of the trees. “I looked towards the wood,” she said, “and for a moment everything was dark, but suddenly a light shone forth and a group of gleaming fairies danced about. They floated by like a silvery cloud and then disappeared.”

  Everything seemed in a trance, as though
the fairies had left some of their magic behind. Even the tall trees did not stir. Amarilla was beside herself with joy, and her trouble was quite forgotten. She said she seemed to be in a far-off land, but when the fairies had gone she slowly “came back.” The moon was slightly covered by a cloud and all became dark again. Realising it was late, she ran to her home, still feeling full of joy.

  At the age of eight or nine, Miss Carol George, of Cornwall, was following her elder sister into an adit that led from the main shaft of Sally Mine to the beach at Porthtowan, when she turned and looked behind her. In a side passage, which was blocked off with a roll of barbed wire, she saw a group of little people four to six inches high, standing in a circle. She had the impression that they were dressed in white, their clothes suggesting that some were male and others female. Just as she started to tell, her sister Jennifer to look at them, they disappeared.

  But Jennifer, too, could claim to have seen a fairy in her bedroom, in the gloaming, and described her as follows: “She was in a bubble of light with no clearly defined edge to it, and about four feet from the ground. She appeared to have no bright colouring but just a yellow-white light, which did not glow nor yet shimmer around her. In height she was about six inches and seemed to have wings, although she did not use them. She floated towards the open window and disappeared.”

  While the fairy was near, Jennifer, who was about eleven at the time, felt “a sensation of quiet peacefulness,” which she said was certainly unusual for her. I know that other fairy seers have experienced this wondrous peace, which often accompanies such visitations.

  Mrs. T. George, the mother of the two girls, had never seen anything, but she said “I remember their telling me of these things at the time.”

  The fairies described to me by the writer Naomi Mitchison were approximately two feet high and had large heads. She said they were strange, embryonic-looking creatures “rather like huge tadpoles, which progressed by turning head over heels.”

  She was twelve years old when she saw the first one in the boom of a hedge in some water meadows near Oxford. “But,” she said, “at that time Andrew Lang was trying to make me see fairies.”

  About eleven years later, while in bed nursing her baby in a house on the Isle of Wight, she observed a being of a similar type running out of one wall and into another, and once, when returning from a Labour Party Conference in 1936, she saw one on the downs above Brighton. These “very rapid visions” never alarmed her, but she was always rather surprised. “It was,” she explained, “as though there were two pin-holes in two pieces of paper, and for a moment they superimposed.” She told me she had also seen the house fairy of the Campbells at Carradale. She was having her bath in a light bathroom, and the fairy, like a darting flash of golden light, flew in through a closed window and out through the shut door.

  While on the subject of bathrooms, there was an amusing incident concerning my own mother, Ellen Gertrude Johnson. She came downstairs one morning from the bathroom, looking very shocked and disgruntled. I asked her what was the matter, but she wouldn’t tell me for some time. Then she blurted out: “There was a small, inquisitive face peeping through the window.”

  “Was it a bird on the window-ledge?” I asked.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she retorted. “I know a bird when I see one. This was like a tiny human face and it was peering at me, full of curiosity.” Although my Mother was rather psychic and sometimes had prophetic dreams and premonitions, she had not, until then, seen a nature spirit, and I thought she would be delighted. Instead, she strongly resented the fact that even such an ethereal creature as a fairy should have witnessed her ablutions, and she never spoke of it again!

  When I went to Coventry, in Warwickshire, to visit Mrs. Clara Reed (a Christian seer whose sincerity was vouched for by the Rev. Paul Stacy), she talked to me of her many visions of fairies and angelic beings, and said she had often seen the nature spirits in Corley Woods not far from there. Some of them were very fond of the primroses and violets, and had dresses made of flower-petals. Others had tunics made from the bark of trees and appeared to favour the chestnut trees. They loved the beds of moss and hopped about, seeming very friendly with the birds. While staying at Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Mrs. Reed saw fairies many times, and one of these was a little fellow dressed in brown and green, with a coat and cap of leaves. She had also seen water-lily fairies, with their pretty sepalled caps and dresses; and on another occasion she noticed a very strange-looking nature spirit, which was part-fairy and part-bird. It was standing upright, and its turkey-shaped body was grass green, while its beak-like mouth and its feet were bright red. Once, in Coventry Park where she had wandered feeling weary and depressed after the long illnesses of her husband and daughter, a fairy showed her his “domain” in the trunk of a tree. With her etheric (X-ray) vision she saw that he had thought-built a good imitation of a modern house in miniature, complete with a flower garden and a lawn. Stretched out on the latter was a fairy cat, and nearby was a garden seat and a small round table on which two fairy birds were perched. The fairy himself had a very long nose almost like a beak and his clothes were made from fern leaves and the bark of the tree.

  Only once, so far, have I been privileged to catch a glimpse of the interior of a fairy’s house. It was beneath one of our two birch trees and the vision was a momentary one, but I noticed there were chairs, a table, and a rug, and I seem to remember some tiny pictures on the walls. It was a delightful experience, rather like gazing into a doll’s house and seeing its display of miniature furniture and ornaments. Fairy furniture, however, such as a chest of drawers or a sideboard, hasn’t always any inside to it if the fairy’s imagination hasn’t stretched as far! But apart from that, we could almost envy the fairy folk, for their thought-built decor can be changed instantaneously, according to the whim of the moment.

  Mrs. Ruth Johnson of Nottingham had always believed in fairies, or “the Wee Folk” as her father used to call them, and she often saw them in the woods, by the streams, and in all Nature’s background. As she grew older and came away from the country, she thought that her childhood visions must have been imagination. “I was not to keep to that idea,” she told me, “because at the beginning of 1939 my husband and two small children and I went to live in a house where there was a spring at the bottom of the garden. Near the spring was a natural wild corner, and I said ‘I am sure that belongs to the fairies.’ My husband decided to beautify the spring by making a grotto, so we all got busy and dug down into the garden, making a six-foot-deep horseshoe-shaped hole, and there we built with rockery stone a lovely grotto with a pool in the middle and a little waterfall flowing down in a stream under a miniature stone bridge. We built steps down one side, but on the fairies’ side we just could not disturb it. It had to remain in all its wild beauty. When we went down into the grotto, everything was very still. We all felt a wonderful peace and contentment; and there I was privileged to see a most delightful little fairy. She was four inches in height, with perfect features all in miniature and a pert expression on her face. Her dress was like the weaving of a spider’s web and her wings seemed to be of vegetable substance. I looked away and then back again. She was still there. Then I spoke, and she disappeared. After that I often felt the presence of the wee folk. Then came the ominous rumblings of the war, and air-raid shelters were delivered around. We received ours and it was left in pieces in the middle of the lawn. Now we had to decide where to build it. The only suitable place was in the fairies’ own corner. We asked the wee folk if we could do this, and, oh dear, what agitation it caused, and a definite refusal at first was given. Later, as it became necessary to put up the shelter, we asked again and we could feel the wee folk go into council to decide. Then we were given consent to put the shelter in their corner. In this corner we were given protection, and felt a consolation against the blast of guns, etc. Towards the end of 1943, there came upon us an agitation to remove the shelter, but we took no heed of this as the war was not over and we f
elt we might need that protection. Following our refusal, a great uneasiness settled upon the garden, and down in our once-peaceful grotto was a seething discontent that grew into a malignant mischief. The feeling spread to the house and everything seemed to go wrong. Then I said we must take out the shelter and restore the corner back to its natural state, so we got busy and I know many tiny hands helped to make our work easier. We restored the corner and also the atmosphere of peace and love, and finally I saw again the wee fairy, and she gave a smile with a deep sigh of contentment. They are indeed living beings with untold energy and force, and although at times we do things that incur their hostility, they will always reward good with goodness.”

  Mrs. B. Leeson, of Malvern, Worcestershire, wrote: “I have had second sight all my life, and in spite of very many experiences of the intangible world, which closely interpenetrated our material existence, to my great disappointment I had never seen a fairy, although I was pretty sure they were the souls or spirits of flowers and occasionally visible to those with the gift of ‘sight.’ One day in the autumn of 1949, my husband and I stood beside a holly tree in our small garden and discussed whether it should be cut down or not, for it was growing large and awkwardly encroaching on the opening between the rockery and rose pergola. Also it caused much work in chopping, for, being male and having no berries, it was cut square with a ball on top. We decided to cut it down the next day. I always wake very early, and as I did so on that next morning I saw beside my bed a small figure of a pale, transparent green colour. I could only see it as far as its waist because it was close to my bed. Much astonished, I said ‘Who are you?’ The reply came like a sigh or a very soft breath of wind… ‘Holly’; and the little figure faded and was not there anymore.