Fairies: Truth or Fiction?
By Veronica MacDonald Ditko
An Accidental Anthropologist
I once visited a quaint British island called the Isle of Man, located between Wales and Ireland in the Irish Sea. It is surrounded by water and covered with little rivers and streams, which over time, gave the Manx people a real respect for bridges.
The patrons of our Bed & Breakfast told us of horrible things that happened to people who did not thank the fairies before they crossed a bridge. The fairies, I asked? Oh yes, the fairies, they said in all seriousness. For the rest of the trip I faithfully thanked the fairies everywhere I went. And no bad ills happened to us.
The belief in fairies dates back thousands of years for Celtic peoples. The Celts believed rivers gave life, fertility, and health, and were rich with plenty. Many waters were believed to be haunted by beautiful women, which gave rise to “fairy wells” dedicated to them. Sometimes the fairies appeared as fish or eels, and they could be kind or malevolent.
The Isle of Man has an artificial mound called Fairy Hill, or Cronk Howe Mooar in Gaelic. Though no one knows for sure, this mound could either have been a timber fort for King Magnus of Norway in 1100 AD, a motte (a former grove of trees), a castle mound, or a natural hill created by the glaciers during the Ice Age. The eerie thing about it is that you can reportedly drive up the hill, however if you look out the back window, it appears that you are going down the hill. Is this a trick of the fairies?
The idea of fairies or leprechauns is not just a British Isle or Irish creation; many cultures believe in little people causing mischief in countries/regions such as Japan, China, Tibet, Greece, Germany, Hawaii, and Polynesia. Some realists, however, blame the fog of the isles for making people believe they saw things that were not there. Those whirls and eddies of mist can be tricky.
People of the Cherokee Nation may have been an exception to that rule. They believed in small, helpful people with very long hair who drummed and danced. They were actually considered miracle workers.
Some say that the idea of creatures that looked like us, only smaller, dates back to our evolutionary days. There were instances when more than one humanoid creature lived at the same time, such as on the Island of Flores in Indonesia.
My mother always blames “the little blue men” for putting her car keys in the wrong place or hiding an important document. It was influenced by either a “Twilight Zone” or “Amazing Stories” television episode, I can’t remember which. But I know for sure there are times I’ve looked for something somewhere, and it mysteriously appears there the next day. Fairies? Blue men? Or is it just my sneaky two-year old!? I may never know…