F A I R Y C E N S U S 2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 7 1 Fairy Census, 2014- 2017 (ed) Simon Young 2 3 Published in association with Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies, 500 AD to the Present, (ed) Simon Young and Ceri Houlbook. 1 ‘Fairy Queens and Pharisees: Sussex’, Jacqueline Simpson; 2 ‘Pucks and Lights: Worcestershire’ Pollyanna Jones; 3 ‘Pixies and Pixy Rocks: Devon’, Mark Norman and Jo Hickey-Hall; 4 ‘Fairy Magic and the Cottingley Photographs: Yorkshire’, Richard Sugg;5 ‘Fairy Barrows and Cunning Folk: Dorset’, Jeremy Harte; 6 ‘Fairy Holes and Fairy Butter: Cumbria’, Simon Young; 7 ‘The Sídhe and Fairy Forts: Ireland’, Jenny Butler; 8 ‘The Seelie and Unseelie Courts: Scotland’, Ceri Houlbrook; 9 ‘Trows and Trowie Wives: Orkney and Shetland’, Laura Coulson; 10 ‘The Fair Folk and Enchanters: Wales’, Richard Suggett; 11 ‘Pouques and the Faiteaux: Channel Islands’, Francesca Bihet; 12 ‘George Waldron and the Good People: Isle of Man’, Stephen Miller; 13 ‘Piskies and Knockers: Cornwall’, Ronald M. James; 14 ‘Puritans and Pukwudgies: New England’, Peter Muise; 15 ‘Fairy Bread and Fairy Squalls: Atlantic Canada’, Simon Young; 16 ‘Banshees and Changelings: Irish America’, Chris Woodyard. 4 5 Dedicated to Marjorie Johnson and to those who contributed First edition 8 Jan 2018 Copyright © 2018, Simon Young. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. 6 7 Contents Introduction: 10 Key: Part One: Britain and Ireland (England, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales) Part Two: North America (Canada, United States) Part Three: Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden) Part Four: Australasia (Australia, Bali, New Zealand) Part Five: The Rest of the World (Argentina, Chile, China, Mexico, Peru, South Africa) 8 9 Introduction 10 11 What is the Fairy Census? Some five hundred fairy experiences follow in these pages, and over 160,000 words about encounters with the impossible. These were, in the vast majority of cases, taken from the Fairy Census (http://www.fairyist.com/survey/), an ongoing internet questionnaire about who sees fairies, when and why: the questionnaire has been reproduced in an appendix to the present book. The present volume is being published in association with Simon Young and Ceri Houlbrook (ed), Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies, 500 AD to the Present (Gibson Square 2017), a collection of fairylore essays by folklorists and historians. What information is recorded here? I took, for the purposes of the present publication, only the most important parts of the data for each fairy experience. Here is an invented example with key. There is, in bold, the case number (here §123) followed by the country and, when known, the region. After there is the ‘rubric’ in italics. Gender: male/female. The decade in which the fairy experience took place: prior to 1920, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s. The decade of life of the respondent when the experience took place: 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80, 81-90, 91 plus. 12 The location of the experience: on or near water; in woodland; in open land (fields etc); on a country road; in a city; inside a public building (e.g. church, school...); inside a private house; in a garden; I can’t remember; other. Company: on my own; with one other person who shared my experience; with one other person who did not share my experience; with several other people some of whom shared my experience; with several other people none of whom shared my experience; I can’t remember; other. (Note that, for the purposes of the Fairy Census, I did not include dogs as ‘company’: this was sometimes an issue!) The time of day: 12 am-3 am, 3 am-6 am, 6 am-9 am, 9 am-12 pm, 12 pm-3 pm, 3 pm-6 pm, 6 pm-9 pm, 9 pm-12 am, I can’t remember. The duration of the experience: less than a minute; one to two minutes; two to ten minutes; ten minutes to an hour; many hours; other. The mood of the fairy: friendly, mischievous, angry, joyful, aloof, erotic, other. Frequency with which the respondent has supernatural experiences: never or almost never; occasionally; regularly. Any special state reported before the experience: you were undertaking a repetitive task (e.g. picking blackberries); you had just woken up or were just about to go to sleep; you were tired and hadn’t slept for a long time; you had taken alcohol or a medicine or drug, you had just had a burst of adrenalin (e.g. running up stairs); you were very sad; you were extremely happy; other. Any special phenomena connected to the experience: loss of sense of time; profound silence before the experience; hair prickling or tingling before or during the experience; a sense that the experience was a display put on specially for you; unusually vivid memories of the experience; unusually clouded memories of the experience; a sense that the experience marked a turning point in your life; a sudden warmth before the experience; a sudden chill before the experience. 13 Sometimes no answers were given for one or more of these points. When the answer could be straightforwardly deduced from the respondents writing about his or her fairy experience this was written in and signalled with an asterisk. For example, in the example given above the respondent wrote ‘about two seconds’ for duration. This was written in by the editor as ‘less than a minute*’ with the respondent’s answer being given in square brackets. Following the italicized rubric there are descriptions of the fairy experience itself in normal script and the attitudes of the respondent to fairies and the supernatural more generally. These ranged from five words (‘tiny high-pitched bells and flutes’) to several thousand words. Here questions included: ‘Please describe your fairy experience in as much detail as possible.’ ‘If you heard fairy music or sounds how would you describe these?’ ‘Do you know if the place of the experience had a reputation for fairies?’ ‘And if so did you know this prior to your experience?’ ‘Why do you think your experience was a fairy experience, as opposed to a ghost or an alien or an angel or some other type of anomalous experience?’ ‘What in your opinion are fairies?’ ‘Do you have any other comments or thoughts?’ Did you include all contributions? I read all submitted experiences with the greatest interest. However, I only published those where permission had been granted: seven respondents had not given permission so these were removed. I deleted two ‘joke’ replies, though one, involving a fishing vessel from the Faeroes, made me laugh out loud. I deleted a dozen or so entries in which not enough information had been given. A separate parallel survey allowed people to write about second-hand experiences, i.e. other people’s experiences. I include these with ‘A’ after the case number: e.g. §123A. In several cases respondents to the normal questionnaire described a fairy philosophy or a series of experiences, rather than a single experience. I include these in the present volume. However, I added the letter ‘B’ after them: e.g. §123B. I also sometimes receive raw fairy experiences by email, often thanks to publicity with the Fairy Census: these I included, with the writer’s permission, with the 14 letter ‘C’ after them: e.g. §123C. I find ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ entries to be fascinating, but I lay them to one side for the purposes of statistics for the Census. Were contributions anonymous? Absolutely. In some cases respondents left their email addresses, allowing for follow up questions. But these email addresses have been kept apart and I will not, of course, share these with anyone. Even when correspondents wrote their name in the main text I removed them and put asterisks. I also removed most references to places, other than very general geographical ones. In many cases I have been somewhat paranoid. Is it really likely that someone will track down ‘Linda’ in South Carolina? Perhaps not, but better safe than sorry... What editing conventions did you follow? I corrected misspelling: e.g. ‘acording’ was changed to ‘according’. Many respondents had doubtless, being generous with their time, rushed through the questionnaire in their lunch break and I did not want the occasional misspelling or typo to get in the way of the story they were telling. I did not, though, impose British or American spelling. I changed punctuation for the sake of clarity, including brackets. I did not change the language or the grammar even when it was clearly wrong, save for apostrophes. I used [square brackets] to insert information or to introduce words to make the accounts clearer. I wrote all numbers save for time and dates and years (e.g. ‘6’ became ‘six’), and I expanded abbreviations (e.g. ‘approx.’ became ‘approximately’). Do you believe all the accounts collected here? I am convinced of the sincerity of the vast, vast majority of respondents. Whether you believe in fairies or not these people clearly had extraordinary experiences, experiences that sometimes changed their lives. In four or five cases I suspect that the respondent made up the account for fun, or found themselves bored late at night on the internet with a whisky. After reading hundreds of accounts you get a feel for patterns within impossible experiences and these suspect accounts don’t conform.