fairyseeker

May 21, 2011

Clock Fairies

Fairies have been known to inhabit almost anything they take a fancy to, but old clocks seem to hold a special fascination for them, as do grandfather clocks. I’ve heard from other people that they’ll even mess with alarm clocks that have a bell in them. Bells and fairies….long story there.

My own mantel clock that I inherited from my grandmother is a beautiful old thing that hasn’t worked since 1963. Apparently, the Fairies don’t care about that. They take particular interest in the glass door that covers the face. The old hands on the face are very delicate and I don’t want to have to dust them often, so before I go to bed I make sure the door is firmly closed. And, like clockwork (hmm), that door is wide open when I get up the next morning. I think they swing on it, and push each other on it like a rope swing, laughing hysterically. They fall off a lot and drop five feet to the floor, but that seems to be part of the fun.

There is a one inch clearance under the clock, that, when I move the clock to clean, is strewn with and odd assortment of fairy droppings. An empty aluminum tealight cup, some hot pink bookmark tags (by Post-Its, of course) a finch feather from my aviary outside, a popsicle stick with runes scribbled on it, the cap off an acorn (we live in an old oak grove) which has been filled with sand. I recognize that sand. It’s from the special sand box in my studio where I make the fairy cottages. They play in it all the time, throwing it on the floor, hiding my tools in it, or leaving me gifts in it. (I recently found 9 tiny brass bells buried in the sand, so they went on the cottage I was building at the time, called PineSong.) I’m not quite sure what to do with the droppings. Leave them? Throw them away? Relocate them to the fairy altar? What do you think?

If you’ve found any fairy droppings, please tell me about them.

May 19, 2011May 19, 2011

Mysterious Disappearances

I’m just going to say it straight out. Fairies take things. They have a very skewed sense of ownership, as in, if I live here, I must own it; therefore I’ll take this pretty thing. It’s not the queer two dollar bill your Auntie gave you for your 10th birthday that they want. Value as we see it has nothing to do with value the way a Fairy sees it. They’ll take a pad of Post-It Notes with 2 left on it. Or the only sharpened pencil in the cup. Or the back off my earring. Not the gold earring, mind you, just the back.

Some have suggested that they aren’t fairies, but rather, Borrowers. Well, no Borrower I’ve heard about would want the back off my earring. There’s absolutely nothing they can do with it, and besides, Borrowers are only after practical things they can re-purpose.

It’s impossible to know what a Fairy will be attracted to. Many say they love bright, shiny objects, but how shiny is a Post-It Note, exactly? And have you ever seen the back of an earring?? I do have a bowl of plastic Mardi Gras throw beads to which they seem attracted. At least they poke around in it a lot.

Mardi Gras beads — I found just one strand pulled out of the bowl...like they changed their minds suddently.

They never take any, though. I suspect they’re bummed out by the plastic aspect of it. Yet, they absolutely adore my tiny wind-up plastic chicken that lays jelly bean eggs when she walks. I think they wind it up and watch it walk at night. It sends them into hysterical gales of laughter and they crowd around it and shove and poke one another, and take turns marching up and down the bookshelf imitating the chicken. The next day I’ll find that chicken across the room on a high bookshelf, with jelly beans strewn across the floor. They don’t eat the jelly beans, but they do love to throw them at one another. And that one sharpened pencil in my desk cup? Later that day I found it (with a broken point, of course) sticking out of a book on fairies on my nightstand. They’d scribbled in the margins a bit and corrected a few of the author’s errors. Ahem.

Occasionally, they’ll take something that is important to me, and I’ll have to ask for it back. Like my glasses. They are either in my purse or on my face…nowhere else. Suddenly gone. My fault, having left my unzipped purse in the dining room. I should have known an open purse would be irresistable. I was desperate to get the glasses back, so I wrote a very small request on (what else) a Post-It note, and left it on the fairy altar in the dining room. I put a small cup of fresh water on top of it….fairies need fresh water and will be attracted right away. Then I waited. The cat drank all the water, so I had to refill it a couple of times. Two days later I heard a crash come from the dining room, and running back in, I found the cat staring intently up at the ceiling, where my glasses swung every so gently and precipitously from the chandelier.

April 25, 2011July 13, 2011

How to hear fairies – Pinesong

Most people don’t know this, but fairies often sing to the Moon. For them, the Moon represents all that is beautiful and precious. Of course, because of the curvature of Fae eyes, the moon appears a hundred times bigger than it does to us. If we saw something that big rising over the horizon, we’d be awed, too. So, fairy culture mandates that when respect or honor or awe is offered, it is done in song or chant.

There is a pod of Fae that regularly show up on my property, and sing at the full Moon. I can’t go outside to listen, or they will slowly de-manifest . So I sneak around the house and peer out the windows, especially around midnight. (Fairies love those liminal times; not quite day, and no longer night.) It starts with a sort of whispered cacophony, gradually taking shape into a chant. The chant goes on for a while, then one by one, a single descant is heard above the others, in a perfect counterpoint. The intensity builds and peaks, then after a while, the voices fade out, one by one, and the Moon has been properly honored. There are a variety of chants, one for each phase of the Moon.

I have spent years developing the ability to hear their song. But it began not with my ears, but with my heart and eyes. Let me give you an example. Have you ever driven into Yosemite Valley in California, and come around that curve that exposes Half Dome, a mighty granite face that has to be one of the most breathtaking sights in the world? Or have you ever seen dolphins body-surfing just for the joy of it? Or perhaps a huge wheat field blowing in the wind? Those moments when you catch your breath in wonder is your recognition of fairy song. Even though you think that response is coming from your visual cortex, it’s actually a response to what you are hearing with your “inner ears”.

fairy house cottage pine song — A fairy's eye view...

A good place to begin learning to hear fairy song is to stand beneath a pine tree when a wind is up. Raise your mind up into the whispering needles, close your eyes, and listen for the song, embedded in the soughing of the wind through the branches. Call them with a small jingle-bell; roll it around in your palm. Listen, listen and listen some more. Pine trees hold many fairies.

The Fae who live in my pine have asked for a purpose-built cottage. The many steps leading to the front door strengthen their lungs for singing. On the back side of the roof is a special Moon Window. It is specially angled up so that a fairy sitting in the window seat can easily view the Moon. The branches that reach out from this house are, of course, pine; they are from my huge pine tree that has been struck by lightning at least two times that I know of. Very magical wood, that. There is a string of tiny bells attached. (Fairies are very fond of bells.) Somewhere above the front door is a special stone that will help you talk to fairies when you place your finger on it. You just have to figure out which one that is…

PineSong has been sold to a young musician.

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011

Windspinner Cottage

Fairy cottage house fae faery faeries windspinner sail — Sign in front of the cottage

The fairies of Windspinner Cottage live in tree branches when they’re on land. They spend most of their days running over the surface of ponds, lakes, and anywhere they can find quiet water. Fish are sometimes fooled into thinking they are little insects on the surface, but are never quite quick enough to actually catch one.

Why the constant movement on the water’s surface? It is thought that they have something to do with oxygenating the water in quiet, slow flowing places. Their shoes are like little cushions that allow them to glide over the water’s surface tension, without breaking the surface. The slightest breath of a breeze can propel them 15 feet if their wings are fully extended.

When they asked for a cottage of tree branches, I was happy to oblige. When it was finished, I sat in my studio and stared at it. There they were, again, nagging me about something. (This was a very vocal group.) It isn’t finished yet, they said. There is something more, they said. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I went to bed. The next day, the moment I sat down in front of the cottage, they cried out, “Make a sail! Make a sail! We need a sail!” On a tree branch house? Never second-guess a fairy. Just go with it, I thought. So here is Windspinner, under full sail.

Windspinner is currently available at: www.fairycottages.etsy.com

April 21, 2011November 17, 2011

Tricklewood Cottage

Tricklewood Cottage is a fairy dwelling with a past. It used to be a fairy church. Time and weather have had their way with it. Bushes and trees grow up and around the windows and across the front door. And though it looks a lot like regular fairy cottages, if you look closely you’ll see a different architecture. The sapling trees in the woods bend toward one another to frame the walls, resulting in a perfect Gothic arch on all three sides…irresistable to the Fae.

What do Fairies do in church, you ask? Well, since they love to imitate what humans do, they file in somberly and sit for a while. Then they sing, which is their favorite bit. One will sit up front and pretend to bang on a pretend organ. Then one will pass the offering basket, and everyone gives what they can. A quick glance in the basket will reveal some string, a penny, some fishing line, a crumpled feather, some dryer lint, and maybe a marble. Soon they run out of all the Fairy songs they know, so they light candles and hum for a bit. When restlessness gets the better of them, they file out with great dignity.

Who knows why this Fairy church was abandoned. Pesticides? Developers? Feral cats? We’ll never know. But if you sit at a distance and watch it carefully at twilight, that sacred, in-between liminal time, you’re apt to see the flicker of a candle or two.

Tricklewood has been sold. More cottages are currently available here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fairycottages

April 19, 2011April 30, 2011

Fairy houses for homeless Fae?

Pic of fairy house - Hollis Hollow — Snugged up against my Oleanders, Hollis Hollow is for the slightly wild Fae that live at the bottom of my garden.

I have a pod of fae that are trooping around the west side of my property. I suppose they’ve always been there, even before we remodeled the house and extended the new kitchen out into their space. Now my pantry is right smack in the middle of the fairy highway, and none of us are too pleased.

It started with unseen things that the cat would stare at, endlessly fascinated. I would turn to look at that spot on the ceiling, but couldn’t see a thing. Then there were noises. Little scritching sounds, like that of a mouse scratching along a baseboard in an empty room. Noises that spooked the dog. He would jerk awake from a sound sleep on the living room floor, and stare down at a spot in the dining room. I heard the noises; rather like the quiet whisperings of those who really wanted to be quiet, and, if not for the sensitive ears of my dog, would have gone totally unnoticed. I think at first they didn’t want to disturb; they seemed to never want human attention.

Then it progressed to moving stuff around. Eyeglasses, keys, the remote, the good scissors. Never where I left them. We took it all in good humor, even to the point of asking them to return things they’d “moved”. We would write very small words on tiny Post-It notes and leave them in the dining room, where most of the activity was occurring. Usually they’d take the Post-It notes, too. But once in a great while a “borrowed” item would re-appear in an unexpected place.

I determined that they needed a spot of their own, a little shelf in the dining room where I could leave notes, and little offerings of milk, honey, and fresh water. It became a faery altar somewhere along the way. There are a couple of phony faeries there, and interesting sticks, acorns, and tiny gourds. Plus some shiny beads that I got at a Mardi Gras party (and irresistible to the Fae). They pretty much ignore it, but they do like the spring water. That was easy enough to live with.

Then I saw one.

It was about 3:00 in the afternoon, on a weekday. I was home alone, and puttering about the kitchen. I was at the sink and happened to glance out the huge window over the sink that looks out over the backyard and the mountain range behind our home. Right in front of the window, on the walkway that led to the chicken coop, was a woman. An old woman. She was about 4 1/2 feet tall. She had white hair that fell to her shoulders and moved with the breeze. She was wrapped in a gray sweater that had a large turtleneck top that was pulled up high enough to cover her mouth and chin. She walked past the window, never looking in at me, but simply moving straight ahead. I froze, totally gobsmacked. She passed out of view to the left. When I regained my wits, I ran to another window 3 feet away, to see who in the hell was in my backyard. There was nothing there, just a very still, slightly cloudy afternoon. The hens pecked around in the dirt as if nothing had happened. I went outside and continued the search; front yard, back yard, side yards, garage, up and down the street….nothing. It didn’t escape my notice that she was walking on the west side of the property, near the newly remodeled area. I mulled it over for a couple of days and what kept occurring to me is that she had a rather dignified homeless look about her. Slightly unkempt, but regal, nonetheless. Had we displaced her and her kind by expanding our house out into the west side green space? But what about the faery altar…wasn’t that an apology of sorts? Apparently not. What I think they want is a house.

fairy house faery faeries cottage Hollis Hollow — Close-up of the eaves at Hollis Hollow

Now available at: www.fairycottages.com