Seeing Fairies

by Marjorie T Johnson

  Mr. A. J. Coster, of Middlesex, told me he’d had “many and varied psychic experiences during his life.” As a boy aged between ten and twelve, he used to roam over some lovely fields in Potter’s Bar, and he still remembers the wonderful feeling he had when alone, for it was then that everything took on a different aspect so that even the twigs on the hedges had “a fringe of shimmering light.” There were four ponds in these fields, and in three of them the boy used to bathe and fish. The other pond was so small that he seldom visited it, but one hot summer’s day he felt drowsy and went to rest on its grassy bank, though he declares he did not fall asleep. While he sat there, several small beings with wings came from “nowhere.” They were smiling as they dabbled their hands in the water, and he saw quite distinctly their figures, which were like medium-sized dolls, and their colouring, which was pearl white. They did not run away but just vanished. Mr. Coster said: “I had no surprised feeling. I knew they were fairies. I saw them just that once, and although I am an old man now I have never forgotten it.”

  Miss Sheila Bryant, of Northumberland, also saw pearl-coloured fairies. She was six or seven years old at the time and was staying at a farm near Troutbeck, in Cumberland. The stream where she saw them was shallow, flowing gently over large stones, and there were lots of bushes over-hanging the water. These “pearly-looking beings” were about six-to-eight-inches tall, with gauzy wings and iridescent garments. “They were in constant movement, flying here and there and occasionally settling or rather poising… It was a very hot, still day.”

  In his notes on water elementals, Mr. Tom Charman said: “Several years ago I had an unusual and striking experience that made a great impression on me. I had retired early, and immediately on getting into bed I felt as though I were being transported through space. Suddenly I found myself under water, crawling round some huge rocks. After about five minutes of this it occurred to me I ought to be breathing, and I became frightened. But an invisible companion reassured me that this was not necessary. I mention this to show how real my experience was. So real, in fact, that I did not realize I was not on the physical plane! I seemed to remain under water for about half an hour. During this time I saw some most weird and wonderful elemental creatures, little and half-human with large heads and frog-like bodies, and others like huge tadpoles. These uncanny elementals did not take the slightest notice of me, but sailed past with the many fishes, intent on their own business. One little creature, more shapely than the others, was amusing itself with a huge and most terrifying fish. This elemental had not the slightest fear and kept pushing a sort of sponge-like substance into the fish’s mouth. This time I did not see any of the higher water elementals, but on other occasions I have seen some magnificent water-ladies dressed in wonderful garments, seemingly made from seaweed and the like.”

  While staying at Looe, Cornwall, in 1943, Mrs. Clara Reed of Coventry saw one of these “water ladies,” or sea fairies. The fairy was wearing a skirt of seashells and a bodice of seaweed, and she had a row of shells round her neck and a large shell on her head. “I was standing gazing sadly out to sea when I first noticed her,” explained Mrs. Reed, “for I had received the bad news that my husband in the army had been taken ill. She said to me, ‘Don’t look so sad,’ and her voice was so musical it echoed like bells. I told her my trouble, and she patted my cheek with her tiny hand and smiled at me. ‘He will get better,’ she assured me. ‘Don’t worry anymore; he’s not going to die.’ Immediately I felt happier, as though a great load had been taken from me, and later on her words came true, for my husband recovered.” Mrs. Reed mentioned that she had also seen water-lily fairies, with their pretty petalled caps and dresses. The Rev. Paul Stacy, formerly vicar of St. Peter’s, Coventry, who told me she was one of the heroines in the Coventry blitz, vouched for her sincerity as a Christian seer.

  Mr. Frederick Leveaux, of Leicestershire, told me that many years ago when on board ship either in the Indian or Pacific Ocean (he could not remember which, since he made no note of the incident at the time), he saw something that he was convinced was not fantasy. “It was a figure like a small Neptune,” he wrote. “It had a trident in its hand and was swimming in the sea at considerable speed, but I cannot recall with certainty whether or not its body ended like a fish, comparable to the traditional mermaid.”

  A correspondent in Wiltshire told me that he had seen the foam-crested rollers off the coast of Cornwall look, for an instant, like something more than met the eye, “I have never forgotten that strange impression,” he said, “A glimpse, as it seemed, of living forms in the waves.”

  The following brief experience with sea-creatures took place in February 1929, when Miss A. J. Visser and her mother were sailing on a Dutch boat from Rotterdam to New York. After a few days at sea, a hurricane arose. One night was particularly bad, and the ship went over from right to left and from left to right, taking so long to steady itself again that they felt they would soon be plunging with the ship and all into the cold water. Lying awake, Miss Visser became scared, and then, deep down on the floor of the ocean, as it were, she saw two very little creatures who laughed at her fear and cheered her up. One was a bit larger than the other and had a round head. She did not see such creatures again, but she said she would never forget the experience.

  The folklorist Miss Lucy H. M. Bruce, of Iona, contacted some freshwater spirits in a Highland loch. She said their intelligence might have been akin to that of animals, and in stature they were much smaller than human beings. They were sitting on stones, and formed a kind of semicircle at the bottom of the loch. Their long, straight hair was of a muddy brown colour, and their faces were pallid and freckled. They sat with their elbows on their knees and their chins in their hands, and when she came upon them they just stared at her. “They were not friendly,” she said, “but neither were they exactly hostile. The look in their eyes was much the same as one would see in those of a Highland calf if one came upon it unawares.”

  One evening in August 1922, at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, Miss P. M. Clarke was walking on the seashore with two friends when the three of them observed a light shining on the horizon. As they watched, two of them saw that it was approaching the shore. Then it disappeared, and its place was taken by a shadowy ring of dancing figures about two-and-a-half feet in height. After a few minutes they faded away. It is interesting to note that while two of the party were able to see the shadowy forms of the fairies, the third person saw only the light that heralded their approach. It happens every so often that where there are several people present there is usually one who cannot see any, or all, of the phenomena.

  At the age of 31, Miss Dorothy M. McIntyre saw on a grass-covered cliff-top at Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran, a transparent lime-green being, eight-to-ten-inches tall and wearing vague, flowing garments. It was speeding along and vanished over the edge of the cliff, so she had only a glimpse of it. This experience occurred on a perfect summer day. She remembers that at the time she had just been laughing with sheer happiness and well being, and wonders whether that had anything to do with it. Certainly sunshine and a blissful heart are conducive to fairy seeing.

  “I once saw a rather ethereal little creature about eighteen inches high, playing round a pond we used to have at our house at Hangleton, Hove,” wrote Mrs. Eleanor Upton, who was one of the principals of The Aquarian Age School of Spiritual Advancement, and also co-founder with Mr. Joseph Busby of the international newspaper The Voice. “I wondered if I was daydreaming,” she said, “as it only lasted for a few minutes. Although so small, it looked rather stern, and seemed to be poised in the air.”

  From Storrington, Sussex, in 1955, Mrs. Janet Kay, describing herself as “a very practical Yorkshire-woman,” sent an account of some tiny creatures of the water-fairy type. Her experience had nearly always been dismissed by others as a childish dream, but she herself commented: “All I can say is that it is as clear and real to me now as it was 70 years ago.” In the 1880s she, the youngest member of a large fa
mily, was walking with her mother in Kew Gardens on a very hot and “shimmering” day. Suddenly she saw, hanging on branches and sitting on water-lily leaves, from which they flew from time to time, some tiny, baby-like creatures probably three or four score of them. They were an inch or an inch-and-a-half in size and were semi-transparent like wax, with tiny wings but no clothes. “They were certainly more than a daydream,” she said, “for when they landed on a branch the branch swayed a little so they must have had some body to give weight. I don’t think a child of seven would have reasoned this out. They were very sweet, and please mark this. I loved them, though as a child I could not stand babies because my sister and brother always referred to me rather contemptuously as being ‘only a baby.’ Therefore it was odd that I was so delighted at seeing what I firmly believed were fairies. I drew my mother’s attention to them, but she could not see them, although she admitted that ‘probably they were there,’ and was willing to stay while I took my fill and until Victorian papa commanded that we should follow the rest of the family.”

  Mrs. Elsie M. Shilleto, of Kent, said that her late sister used to have a fish pond in her garden and had often seen hovering around it a dainty white fairy with small wings.

  There are several different kinds of dreams, but this “dream,” recalled by Mrs. McKay, of Glasgow, is one of the “true” types in which the ego, while the physical body sleeps, is shown some aspect of life and receives information concerning it from a more advanced soul, in the hope that the knowledge may be remembered in waking consciousness. “My dream took place in the spring,” said Mrs. McKay. “I was walking near an expanse of water. The sky was very colourful, though, in darkish shades. In the distance was a patch of turquoise, and a rainbow hung over the water. There were creatures, which made me think of the illustrations one sees in fairy-tale books of mermaids and mermen, long flowing hair, bodies resembling humans as far as the waists, and fish-like tails; and they were floating in the water. Now this is the strange part: near them, also floating on the water, was some transparent jelly-like substance bearing half-formed creatures resembling the mermaids and mermen. My companion (I have no idea who it was) explained that these little half-formed beings were freshwater-sprite life in the process of creation.”

  Mrs. McKay’s last sentences about the little creatures of transparent, jelly-like substance are of special interest in view of the next account from Surrey. Miss Stella Watson, an artist and modeller in clay, told me that when she was 50 years old she actually handled a water fairy. She made a note of her experience at the time, and here it is: “Yesterday (October 25, 1948) I was sitting on an old wooden bench in my garden, enjoying the lovely blue sky, the sunshine, and my tea. Near me lay my two dear dogs, and in front of me was a small pond with lilies and goldfish in it. As I was feeding the fish with a few crumbs, I noticed lying on the water face downwards a little creature like a man in shape. I bent over and carefully lifted him out. He seemed very light and lay as though dead on my warm hand. I put him down on the bench and had a good look at him. He was about nine inches in size, with very long, thin legs. His dragonfly-shaped wings were like a fish’s scales in colouring, and they seemed to join on at the back of his neck. His face (to our ideas) was ugly; he had very large, round, prominent eyes and no nose to speak of, but a big mouth, a very round head, and no neck as we know it. The creature’s body seemed to be made of clear jelly, like a jellyfish, but looked at from some angles it appeared to be striped yellow and green and a bluish tint. His eyes were this clear colour, too, and had no black pupil. The texture was rather like a shrimp, hard yet very fragile.”

  Miss Watson went on to say that her dogs took no interest in him, but she was so excited over finding him that she dashed into the house to phone for her nearest friend to come and see him. When she came back, he had vanished, and only a little wet cross on the bench showed where he had been. This strange creature may have been there for a definite purpose. He was probably in a state of transition to a higher form of life, and the powerful vibrations from Miss Watson’s hand could have been instrumental in helping him on his way. Miss Watson also saw some fairies playing in a well at Talsarnau, in Merioneth; and she knew a little grotto on the old Roman Road near Tan-y-Bwlch, where she had often seen fairies swinging about on the overhanging fern-fronds, though she said that at times the entire grotto seemed to disappear.

  Not all sea spirits adopt the human shape. Some are bird-like in formation, and when holidaying on the Lincolnshire coast in June 1955, I saw a number of these silver-white beings flashing swiftly over and through the waves. They resembled the sea spirit portrayed in Geoffrey Hodson’s book The Kingdom of the Gods (Theosophical Publishing House, London).

  While my sister and I were walking along a lonely stretch of shore at the Seacroft end of Skegness, Lincs., I caught sight of a very beautiful and unusual shell half-hidden among the pebbles. My sister was some distance away, so I called to her and drew her attention to it. I was just walking closer to it to pick it up when I received an unmistakable thump in the back and a push that sent me flying into a sea pool, where I was drenched up to my knees. My sister, who had just reached the spot, looked on in amazement, as there was no other person in sight and she could see me being propelled forward. After that incident, I decided to leave the shell alone, as I felt that some little sea-sprite must covet it more than I did!

  The sisters Jane and Marie Elfram, whose articles on nature spirits appeared in some of the old issues of a paper called Light, used to have wonderful experiences with garden fairies and sea fairies, and I remember that one of them, while picking up a crab to show to her sister, slipped on a rock, cutting and bruising herself. At the same moment a sea spirit appeared before them and said “Put that crab down!” She admitted causing the accident but seemed to think the chastisement was well deserved. Meanwhile the crab had sidled behind her and remained there the whole time.

  This sea spirit was dark-haired, fair-skinned, and green-eyed. She had a tail that glinted in beautiful colours, and two large and two small opalescent wings. For the sisters’ benefit she raised herself and flew round some six feet above them. On the shore they saw many little entities dressed in a greenish brown seaweed colour, with tails instead of feet, and they noticed that when the tide was up these tiny creatures played and rode on the tops of the smaller waves. They could fly and swim, and their work seemed to be in helping baby crabs, which were stranded. Sometimes they allowed the sisters to see their pretty seashell treasures.

  “In 1949,” Miss Dawn E. Mooney recounted, “I was staying with the late Mairi T. Sawyer in her marvellous sub-tropical garden of Inverewe, Wester Ross, and as the midges were too bad to allow me to work outside I went off by myself to visit the Fionn Loch at the back of Beinn Airidh Gharr, which in those days belonged to ‘Aunt Mairi,’ as I called her. There is a rough road along the river Ewe from opposite Pool House Hotel, past Inveran and the little MacKenzie shooting-box called Kernsary, and then the track climbs up through some of Osgood MacKenzie’s tree plantations and out on to the plateau where the Fionn Loch lies, I think about 1,000 feet up. It is nine miles from Inverewe by the road, and there are several gates, one of which Mairi Sawyer kept locked. It was a hot July day, calm and clear, and I saw no one once I had left the Inveran gates behind. I was tired and thirsty by the time I got to the boathouse at the road-end, so I sat down on a rock beside the loch and started to eat an apple. The water was rippling on the loose stones of the shore near my feet with a pleasant tinkling sound, but clearly and distinctly above the water sounds I heard children laughing gaily and in a high trilling key. It sounded so infectiously light-hearted that I thought it worth putting my hot and tired limbs to work again, and I clambered over a high boulder to spy where the picnic party was in progress—for such I assumed it to be, though it surprised me greatly because there was no car parked at the road-end by the boathouse.

  “My investigations led to nothing, for there was no sign of any beings within sight and no
more sounds were audible. I resumed my seat and continued eating my apple, thinking that I might have dozed off without realising it, when at still closer range I heard the laughter again. Deciding that there must be some ventriloquism going on, and that I should find the children in the opposite direction from which there laughter sounded, I explored the shores to the north, walking towards the An Teallach hills of Dundonnell. But a thorough search convinced me that there were no human beings within miles of me. I went back to my place and lay down flat on my back, and the laughter seemed to flash about from rock to rock all round me as I lay, but I saw nothing whatever.

  “That evening, when I told of this occurrence over the peats and eucalyptus log fire at Inverewe, Mairi Sawyer was so interested, and so convinced by my telling, that she had inquiries made by her men to discover if any cars or parties had passed up the Kernsary track, but she was assured that I had been the only person to go that way on the day mentioned. Nobody had asked for the key of the locked gate and no car had passed along the track, which, although it could be driven over, was little more than a pony track. To walk from Letterewe or Dundonnell would tax the legs of most adults and be impossible for children young enough to have such high-pitched laughter. Old ‘Teeny’ MacGillwray, childhood companion to Aunt Mairi and later housekeeper at Inverewe, said that it was not human voices I had heard and that ‘some other people’ in the past had heard things by the Fionn Loch. But more she would not say. Aunt Mairi herself seemed a little apprehensive, saying that she felt like avoiding the place because she did not care to be in the power of the little people, but I assured her that these were entirely friendly and that there was nothing bad in it at all.