From Mrs. Jean Dart of Devon came the following lovely account of a procession of fairies seen by her, and of a message she received: “I had been staying at the home of my friends, Burnham and Mac. They had an old aunt living with them, and as they needed to go to London, I had offered to Aunty-sit for them. It was just after lunch whilst Aunt Lil was taking a nap that I decided to go for a stroll in the garden. Whilst I stood by the stream, which runs just below the bungalow, I had to listen very carefully, as I could hear church bells. It reminded me of Sunday mornings from my childhood. Then I heard a deep ‘humm-m-m’ very similar to the earth sound. This was followed by a slightly higher-pitched hum. It continued for a few minutes, getting louder all the time, when into my vision came a procession of Little People. The men were leading in pairs, followed by the little women folk also in pairs. They were not as I had imagined fairies, all gossamer and wings. These were dressed like working country folk all in rustic colours but with beautiful faces. The leading male was holding in his two hands a chalice from which was popping rainbow-coloured bubbles, just like champagne. They completed a circle around me, and I hardly dared to breathe for fear that they would disappear. He raised his hands so that I could look into the chalice. Inside I could see our world, complete and perfect. From him came the unspoken words: ‘This is how your world could look and should look. Hold your hearts and minds true and strong and it will be so. It will take many years. So many now are on the right path, searching, eager to put right the wrongs of the past, that it will be so.’ With these words the Little People left me. However, they assured me that we would meet again.”
The next account is an extract from Nesta of the Forest’s little book, Charmed Magic Casements (Bournemouth Times, 1939), which she kindly sent to me with her permission to quote: “My lonely childhood was spent in the Wye Valley. I was a timid, queer child, brought up by very strict, elderly relatives, and far away from my brothers and sisters. I never spoke to another child from one week’s end to another, and my only pleasure was to be allowed to go into the garden and the woods nearby.
“I came to love the woods and forests—hence my name. Loneliness had no terrors for me amongst the leaves and trees. ‘Pictures’ of things that would happen tomorrow (the beginning of clairvoyance) were always to be seen if I looked into the pools and streams. There the Little People used to come and play with me—at least, not as ordinary children play. They just used to talk with me. I always sat on one particular stone that looked over a hill. While gazing deeply before me into the misty blue sky, I had to count seven, like playing hide-and-seek, but with my eyes wide open; and then when I had counted seven the Little People were beside me. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is of sitting on a doorstep in Chepstow, watching most beautifully dressed Little Ladies dance up the cobbled street. It was raining in torrents, but their dresses were crisp and dry, of all hues, and their big, gauzy wings seemed to stock all the rainbow colours. I ran in and told my aunt to come and see, but they had gone. Often since then I have thought of this strange glimpse, right in the heart of a town. I have tried to find explanations, but nothing will really explain things away. Since I came to live near the New Forest, I have seen fairies on two occasions. Once in the afternoon, walking through the glades near Lyndhurst, what I saw was not a butterfly, flower, or any mortal thing. I went close to it. The tiny creature stayed quite still, as a robin or sparrow accustomed to passersby will stay, and then it fluttered away into nothingness. It was the same type of little creature that I used to see in my childhood—my lovely ladies with glowing wings; but whereas they then seemed large to me, they now seemed much smaller.
“The next time I saw a fairy was in Dorset. We were walking down a charming little lane with a profusion of flowers and herbs, which I knew by their old-fashioned folk-names. Suddenly I stopped. Right in front of my eyes, my hand partly stretched because I thought it was a flower, was a quaint little creature, which I had never seen the like of before. It appeared male rather than female—a Pwca or Gwblyn, as we call them in Wales, and such as I had heard of often in childhood but not met. I have never seen anything like it since, but it was there, and I did not dream it. Later, in the bus, I asked an old Dorset woman the name of the place. To my great joy she said in her broad Dorset accent that I must be meaning ‘ower towards Puncknole.’ That sounds very much to me like a derivation of ‘Puck Hole.’ Had other Dorset folk before my time seen the Puck there?”
In October 1955, Mrs. Winifred Spilsbury, of Sheffield, whose account of ice fairies is elsewhere in this book, had been planting along the side of the house some crocus bulbs that she had bought, and that were clearly labelled “Golden.” Later, fully awake and busy inside the house, she became aware of a dark-haired girl draped in a lavender-blue robe, which was luminous and shaped over her form like crocus petals. She carried a wand that had no star on top but was like a very bright silver willow-cane. With her was a tiny cupid-like boy with flesh-pink wings, and he seemed to be dabbling in a stream of deep blue water and standing on red-gold sand. The female figure took no notice of Mrs. Spilsbury and, after a few moments, faded away. “Now,” wrote Mrs. Spilsbury, “if those crocuses come up lavender-blue instead of gold I shall feel she is the fairy who is going to guard their growth.” At the beginning of February 1956, the bulbs were under deep snow, but on St. David’s Day the first crocus bloomed, and another at the side of it was in bud. Yes! Both of these, and those which followed, were lavender-blue like the dress of the fairy, and Mrs. Spilsbury sent me a petal that had fallen from one of the full-blown flowers. It is possible that the bulbs were wrongly labelled, but that does not matter; the important part of the story is that the fairy gave foreknowledge of the mauve colour before the crocuses came into bloom, and no golden ones cropped up elsewhere in Mrs. Spilsbury’s garden.
My sister had a similar experience, but in her case a nature spirit in the appropriate colour appeared after the flowers opened. She had seen some yellow crocuses in bloom in a friend’s garden in Nottingham, and later in the year she was present when her friend dug up some of the bulbs for her to bring home and plant in our own garden. In the following spring of 1956, when the crocuses came out, there were no yellow ones anywhere; all of them were white, and my sister saw a gnome, dressed in white, running at the back of them. She had a further glimpse of him on the last day of March, and again he was running near the white flowers. In January 1957, he became visible to her again, and in March she caught sight of him flying from one side of the garden to the other, and she noticed that his wings were approximately six inches long. One day in June of the same year, my sister was wandering in the garden, and I was watching her through the window when I saw a little white, semi-transparent figure (presumably the same gnome) floating near her. He certainly seemed to take a great interest in her, and on one occasion even came into the house, for I saw him standing on the landing watching her as she walked down the stairs! He was not visible again to either of us until a Sunday morning in May 1959. My sister was showing me something on a plant in our garden when we surprised him, and he gave a graceful dive through the leaves of a Michaelmas daisy plant and disappeared.
While holding in my hand an “oak apple,” which I’d found under an oak tree in Newstead Abbey Park, I saw a chubby-faced little elf standing in front of me, grinning broadly, as much as to say, “I belong to the oak tree where that came from!” Another day I was looking at some pussy-willow catkins in a vase, when a little fairy appeared, wearing on her head a downy catkin shaped like a cosy bonnet.
In August 1995, Mrs. Pauline Young, of Lancashire, and her family were all enjoying “one of those lovely, hot summer days.” A few years ago her husband, Bill, had built her a wooden conservatory, and the doors are so placed that when the dining room, patio, and conservatory doors are all open you can see right through the house. “On this particular day,” she said, “all the doors were thrown open to let in the breeze. There wasn’t anything special happening in my life o
r in my thoughts at this time to bring on this experience that I am going to recount. It was just a beautiful day.
“At lunchtime we sat in the conservatory to have a meal. I looked out at the garden and my little pond with the small waterfall. I love the sound of water in a garden. After a while I got up and went to do my work in the house. As the afternoon wore on, I kept feeling as though I had to go back to look at the garden; something was drawing me there. I found myself looking, really looking at things. I began to tingle, I was so happy. I remember saying to myself, ‘this won’t get the work done,’ and I went back into the house, but I kept being drawn into the garden again. I was looking, but I didn’t know why, except that everything was so beautiful to look at. I called to my husband: ‘Bill, just come and look at this garden.’ He came and looked. ‘Yes, it does look nice,’ he said, and went back in. Suddenly the whole garden had taken on a new atmosphere. I just wanted to soak it all up, so I went and got a chair from the conservatory and sat by the doors. The sun was very warm, and I just sat there looking and looking, as though I was compelled to look. It was as if someone was saying, ‘Keep on looking, you’ll see.’ Just to the left of my little pond, I had a fennel herb growing about three feet tall, and underneath that was a flatcap hydrangea. As I sat there, looking in the direction of the fennel, I got a big surprise. There was a cheeky little face looking at me and smiling, just the head and right shoulder peeping from behind the fennel. I just sat there, feeling very calm. The garden didn’t seem to be as it was. I felt I was in a different world, yet I could still hear the birds singing, and the sound of my little waterfall. I felt the breeze on my face, yet there was a kind of silence. I smiled at the little person, and its smile broadened even more. ‘Come out and let me see more of you,’ I said. The small creature jumped out very obediently and stood by the fennel, hands on hips, with a big cheeky but friendly smile. I looked, but really could not tell what sex it was. When I thought it was a boy, it became very girlish, and when I thought it was a girl, it became very boyish. It was very strange; my mind just couldn’t decide its real gender, but I’ll call it a girl. She was dressed in different tones of green, with a little hat, just like ‘Peter Pan.’ She had sandy, short-cropped hair, and seemed about the age of a seven-year-old, but looked very wise. I felt completely at home with her. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Hello,’ she replied, not moving her mouth. I realised I must be hearing this telepathically. ‘Do you like my garden?’ I asked, not aloud. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, looking about the garden. ‘It’s lovely.’ I just kept looking at her. She was so beautiful to me. The Godman I follow came into my mind. ‘I wonder if she knows him,’ I thought. ‘Do you know Sai Baba?’ I said. At the next moment, her head went down, and she clasped her hands together in a prayerful way. There was so much love on her face. I was so happy I couldn’t contain my joy any longer. I wanted to share my experience with someone else, so I called to my husband, ‘Bill, come quick!’ It was a big mistake. The little one began to disappear, not from my senses, but from view. I could still see her, but the greens in her clothes and the pink colour of her skin and her sandy hair all faded from my view. I just sat there, telling Bill what I had seen. I was tingling all over and so happy. Bill went in after a while, and it took me ages to come back to myself. Since that day I’m very aware or her presence around me. She is always watching me, and she walks over to wherever I am and stands by me. I see her leaning on her arms, just looking and listening to what’s going on. She’s a beautiful soul: that I am sure of. I’ve never had anything like this happen before. She’s a dear little friend to me, and I can see the green of her clothes in my mind’s eye very strongly. She gives off such a warm glow, and I know she is real. She walks about ever so softly as though she doesn’t want to disturb me. There’s a very endearing familiarity about her. I can’t understand why this has happened to me, as I’m certainly not lonely, so why should I see her now? It’s a mystery, but she’s a love.”
Some people always use the “oblique glance” when seeing fairies, and in a book called The Psychic Sense (Faber & Faber, London, 1943) by Phoebe D. Payne and Lawrence J. Bandit, we are told that the outer edge of the retina of the eye is more sensitive to half-light than the central part, and so can see things that disappear if we look straight at them.
During one very hot, tranquil summer, my sister and I saw, out of the corners of our eyes, several winged creatures flying around some white hollyhocks. They resembled butterflies but were much larger, their wingspan being as wide as standard-sized notepaper turned lengthwise. I have checked the colours from my old diary and see that two had white wings and one had wings of creamy-yellow or pale orange. We could not count how many others there were, nor could we see them in detail, because when we looked directly at them they vanished instantly from our sight. An experience, which I treasure in my memory, was that which occurred when I was holding a stem of lavender given to me by a friend. I was admiring the scent and loveliness of its tiny flowers when I felt myself merging into one of them until I seemed to be in the very heart of the flower, enfolded in its petals and bathed in its colour and fragrance and its healing peace. It was a wonderful experience and helped me to realise more deeply our spiritual Oneness with all other forms of life.
Mrs. Leopold, of London, had a similar experience. “When I was little,” she said, “and again when I was aged about thirteen, I used to go into our garden and sit and look at the flowers and pretend they could see me and liked me, and as I sat there I would feel as though I was sinking into the flowers until I experienced a kind of powerful fellowship with them and with all the garden.”
Many readers may know of the Bach Centre at Mount Vernon, Sotwell, Wallingford, Oxon., where the late Dr. Edward Bach’s work is still carried on by a very dedicated staff. Dr. Bach must have been greatly loved and helped by the fairies, for he had such empathy with the flowers and trees of the countryside that he was able to “feel” the emotional states of mind that certain plants would heal, and his 38 Flower Remedies, including the Rescue Remedy, are now used successfully throughout the world.
Henry Thomas Hamblin wrote a beautiful little booklet called Message of a Flower or the Divine Immanence in Nature (Science of Thought Press, Bosham House, Chichester, Sussex) in which he said that it is by contemplating and spiritually understanding the beauties of Nature that we can enter into the mind and thought and creative imagination of the Divine. “Let us have constantly before us a few flowers,” he said. “Just a few simple blooms on our work-table or office desk, to keep us in touch with the Infinite… Life need not be the unlovely thing that it is to so many. Its cruelty and ugliness and selfishness are foreign to the Divine Idea. Let us get to our flowers, and seeing them, learn something of the Mind of God, something of the beauty, something of its serenity and calm and unruffled peace. Let us gaze into the face of a flower and see in it the countenance of God.”
In an article called “The Being of a Flower” in the April 1954 number of the Science of Thought Review (Science of Thought Press) founded by the before-named Henry Thomas Hamblin, Dereck Neville asked his readers, “Have you ever known the being of a flower? Have you ever crept in, until the petals close upon you and you are in the flower world, with all the noise and clamour of the sense-life shut away? I do not mean merely thinking about a flower… No, I mean have you ever looked at a flower in such utter stillness of spirit that you enter into communion with its very being?… I have been into a flower and know. I have ceased to be separate, a mere observer, cut off from knowledge by a mental separation. I have moved within my heart and I have become aware of my own roots!”
Tennyson knew something of the divine immanence in Nature when he wrote those well-known lines:
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies.
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower, but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should
know what God and man is.
Chapter 2: The Case of the Green Wood Elves
I am grateful to “L. Verdoye,” M. A., F.R.G.S., a graduate of two universities, who, in November 1955, set down for me the facts regarding the existence of what he called “mobile, semi-vegetable forms assuming human shape,” which were seen by “Mr. X” and his family in some woods in Lincolnshire. The details were first communicated by Mr. X’s son—a pupil in his class—who went to him and told him “in mystified consternation” the following story.
One bright afternoon in the late summer holidays, he went picnicking in the woods with his mother, father, brother, and aunt. Feeling bored at sitting, they rose and walked about together until, they found themselves in a clearing, and there they all saw some green shapes dancing in a circle, hand-in-hand. As far as L. Verdoye’s pupil could estimate, they were not more than nine or nine- and-a-half-inches high. No expression or features could be seen on them but all had pointed green hats, long legs and arms, “and there was,” recounted the boy, “a sort of ‘king’ in the centre of the ring, with a light in his hand.” While the family stood petrified with fright, the ring of shapes opened and the “king” went out and sat under a large dock-leaf. He curled his legs up like a human being and fanned himself with a little leaf. Mr. X, the boy’s father, could stand it no longer. He moved forward, and the figures all ran with incredible swiftness over towards a bank and vanished. The family searched frantically for some time then, but nothing remained.
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