My name is Aldora, Fairy Queen of Macroom and I am about to learn you a lesson bout us wee folk you have made up legends and myths about. We do exist ye know. Fer many yars, more than kin be remembered we have been in the barley fields, wild flower patches, yer barns, houses of the daed and dyin’, bell towers of churches, forests of the night and just about any place we kin make merriment and mischief, aye.

We are a wee people, that we are, and as small as we may be, our magic is large. Me people are found all over this world yer call earth. Sometimes yer see us sometimes yer don’t, for we only reveal ourselves when we want and to who we want.

We have enchanted and haunted the wild places with our mischievous ways and elf magic has existed longer than time has been written of. When yer started to grow up, many of yer could not see us any longer, that is until yer grew old and wise. Then yer remembered us from yern young days when we were with thee in the fields and places of playtime.

Yer dictionary, by Webster calls us “a mythical being of folklore and romance usually having diminutive human form and magic powers”. So yer thinks we ain’t real do yer? I know many of yer believe we are real, cause if you haven’t seen us, you have seen what our surprises kin do. Let me explain who we are.

We are spiritual ethereal beings with supernatural power that affect many happenings and events of the places we live within. We are called by many names: gremlin, imp, pixie, hob, brownie, gnome, sprite, Puck (by the poet Shakespeare), Robin Goodfellow (known mainly by the English folks), fairy, fay, fata, fey, nymph and many other wonderful names. Many times yer have blamed on us things we never touched and other times yer ignored our magic and made us mad.

Oberson was our most famous King of Fairies and Titania his Queen and they lived a long life in a time not long ago, when yer Kings were constantly fighting and knights were riding off to war or to gather the thing yer call The Holy Grail. Yer Kings and Queens send yer to fight contantly, arn try to protect us while keepin’ peace among fairy people.

In Erin, the land we love to enchant and dwell, the Irish have defined us well. First you may find the dullahan who has the “gift” of supernatural sight. Dullahan can see far, far away across the land even on dark moonless nights and into the houses of the dyin’. If you seen him pass by yer window as he watches, yer may be struck blind in one eye.

Next you may encounter the malicious pooka fairy, most feared in Ireland, because he only comes out at dark and creates terror and harm by changing into horrible creatures of fear.

Irish women are well aware of the changeling fairies. Fairy women have difficulty with giving birth and many fairy children die before they can be born, while many who are born may be deformed. The fairy people try to swap their children with healthy mortal babies. The “wizened, ill tempered creature left in place of the human child is generally known as a changeling and posses the power to work evil in a household”(Leeper,1999). This is why yer should have yer baby baptized very young, as a fairy will never cross the power divide and steal a child promised to the light.

The grogoch fairies are “half-breeds” who came from Kintyre in the Scottish Highlands, to settle in Ireland. These fairies fear the clergy and will never cross the threshold of a priest or wherever a priest might be. These are nuisance fairies and cause much household chaos with strange noises, things missing or moved around. The clergy often expel these imps from homes upon request by the human owner of the house and they move on to mess with another home.

Ancestral spirit fairies that come to forewarn blood relatives of their death time or other tragedies are called “banshee” or “bean-sidhe” (women of the fairy). It is said in Irish tradition that the banshee spirit fairy will only cry for five Irish bloodlines: O’Neills, O’Briens, O’Connors, O’Gradys and Kavanaghs. The banshee fairy appears in one of three forms, either a young woman, or an older woman of stately manner or a ragged old hag. Always when she is seen dressed in a dark, hooded cloak or grayish, grave robe cloth. When humans do not see her they hear her mourning cry in the wind howling like a dying wolf and her cry has been said to shatter the panes of glass in the windows of the houses where death approaches.

Now the Celtic folks are not the only ones who have known us or seen us. Many caves in Germany and France are home fairy clusters. Many stories abound about me people in the New World” continent, from Newfoundland to the wilds of Yukon Bay to the Mississippi Gulf to New Orleans to Memphis to Morganstown, we are there. Arn wings have taken us many places and of course arn size helps us stay hidden in the wild places, unless we choose to be seen. Aye, we look like miniature versions of all the big earth people, except when we shift shape into creatures to scare or haunt.

It has always been good advice given by the “old ones” to avoid us, cause many of me fairy people are malicious and arn magic is strong. If ye wants to protect ye from arn evil fairies remember the best charm of protection is “cold iron”, but bells, St. John’s wort and four-leaf clovers will scare most fairies away. None of me people are like that Disney fairy, Tinkerbell, that I kin think of.

Ye have always been fascinated about us and so many stories, plays, movies, television shows, paintings and comic books tell arn tales, yet ye really do not believe we are real and ye really do not know us. Ye only know … what we let ye know when we want to. After all we are fairies and we really do exist (if only in ye minds eye).

Sources: www.geocities.com (Nancy Leeper, 1999)
www.faeryfaith.com