I have a long interest in faery lore dating back to my first reading of Y.W. Evan-Wentz’s The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries. While some conclusions in this book are outdated, modern authors like Morgan Daimler are swift to point out that there is a long folk tradition of faery tribes of varying sorts living side by side with humanity. While usually invisible to us, the fae were known to make their presence apparent and even to be seen by some humans. Contrary to what some may believe, sightings of the faery continue into our time and there is even such a thing as a Fairy Census (https://www.fairyist.com/survey/) – a continuing project to catalog faery sightings.
You will notice that I use the spelling faery unless I am referring to the work of others. I do this because Disney and the Victorians have made the word “fairy” synonymous with tiny, winged pixie-style creatures standing on flowers and scattering magic dust everywhere. While some faery sightings describe tiny winged creatures, the folklore of faery describes a host of beings of varying sizes, descriptions and tolerance of human beings. Encounters with the faery can be fraught and, indeed, dangerous, and I want my readers to be aware that this type of being can be dangerous. I suggest readers research how to avoid angering the fae and the consequences of doing so.
The case we are going to examine today comes from Nick Redfern’s book Men in Black: Personal Stories & Eerie Adventures. This incident occurred in 1936, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The story comes to us from Redfern’s witness, Felix, who tells the story of his mother’s encounter with some mysterious beings on her way home from work in Blackpool, UK.
Child labour laws were not so strict in those days, and Felix’s mother was 13 or 14 at the time of the incident and employed as an apprentice dressmaker. She was travelling home at about six in the evening, walking along a long lane that ran next to the airport, when she spied a bright light shining from behind the wooden fence that surrounded the airport. She reported being “dazzled” by the light and wondering who might be tampering with the fence, since security at the airport was normally tight.
While Felix’s mother was considering what the light might mean, “she was astonished, and then terribly frightened, to see a ‘little man’ emerge, followed by two others, both holding lamps or electric torches and moving quietly so as not to disturb anyone”.
These “little” men were actually about five feet tall, according to the witness, and were described as:
slender but a bit stocky around the middle (padded clothing?) and had spindly arms and legs. Their attire was an all-in-one kind of black or dark-coloured jumpsuit with a hood. Their faces looked very pale, almost luminous, peeping out. She remembers their eyes very vividly – BIG and bright with black pupils
The witness said that the beings reminded her of pixies, perhaps because of the eyes, but that she knew they were “something else”. As with all our cases, the witness stated that, “there was absolute silence, no traffic and she was freezing cold, from fright as much as the winter weather”.
To make Felix’s mother’s sighting even more terrifying, one being turned and made eye contact with her. The witness was certain that the group of “little men” was about to cross the street and approach her. This was too much for the witness and she fled, running a slightly longer way home to avoid the beings, and arriving home in what my grandmother would have called “a state”. Given the deep tradition of faery stealing people and especially children, the witness’ reaction was not entirely uncalled for.
The witness pounded on the door of her home until her grandfather responded and then fell through the opened portal, half fainting, and saying, over and over, that there were “men in black” at the airport. Thinking the young woman had been accosted or assaulted, the grandfather investigated but, of course, saw nothing.
Once Felix’s mother was capable of cogent speech, she described the beings to her grandfather and he mused that they might have been “boggarts”, a species of the local Lancashire fae, “having an evening out”. The witness was certain that these beings knew she was a child and she noted that they seemed to have a sort of whispering language which was not English. Felix’s mother reported that she could understand the language “telepathically” and Felix stated that their mother could recall these events with “utter clarity” into her 80s.
Noted folklorist Katharine Mary Briggs, in her A Dictionary of Fairies, defined a boggart as “a mischievous Brownie, almost exactly like a poltergeist in his habits”. A Brownie was said to be a Faery being that appeared as a small man (Briggs says three feet tall) and, unlike the mischievous and destructive Boggart, often assisted with household and farm chores. Brownies accomplished these activities in the dead of night when no one could see them; however, if someone slighted a Brownie, for example, by criticizing their work, these beings could also be destructive.
In any event, while the witness’ boggarts were certainly taller than the norm, it seems clear from the bright light that first caught the witness’ attention and The Silence that descended as these creatures were about to appear, that Felix’s mother experienced an extraordinary paranormal incident. I find it interesting that the witness’ grandfather seemed to take the experience in stride and even has a ready label for the beings when he spoke to his granddaughter about the event. Any reading of Katharine Briggs will show to the reader the breadth and depth of faery lore in the UK and that these magical creatures were an accepted part of life to certain folk in that country.
There is also no doubt that the faery, unlike some of the other beings we have examined, are beings of the Otherworld. While it is certainly true that, as with any other witnesses, some faery sightings may be mistakes, hoaxes or the result of over-active imaginations. Again, though, given the sheer volume of sightings, both historically and in modern times, it is clear that these beings exist and that they interact with human beings at their pleasure.
Since the faery are creatures of the Otherworld, I would expect The Silence to occur in areas of faery activity and it certainly seems to have done so in this case and in others that I have looked at. Again, we see The Silence descending when the Otherworld touches our world and, in my next blog, I will look at another episode of high strangeness that involved The Silence.