Editor’s Note: This is one of the John O’London fairy letters from 1936. For the whole collection see our bookshop page.

Sir, I have been deeply interested in recent letters from readers who claim to have seen fairies.

Near my home in Co. Derry there is rich grazing plain of about eighty acres, which pastures annually a large herd of cattle. Three of its sides are fringed with a plantation, and the other by a thick wood.

On a certain summer evening about twenty years ago, five men, employees on this estate, were engaged in dredging the canal which runs through the middle of the plain. One of the labourers, who was a little in advance of his fellows, approached a thorn bush which grew on the side of the rampart, and there he had the unique experience of seeing a little man about 18 inches tall with a conical hat and a red coat come out of the side of the bank and dart off as quickly as a rabbit. The man shouted to his companions, who came running up in time to see their friend racing after the conspicuous figure in the red coat. The pursuer was a good runner, but the wee red-coat soon outdistanced him, and although he continued the pursuit with his companions behind him, it faded into obscurity at another rampart on the edge of the plantation. No further trace of it could be discovered.

These men had always been sceptical as regards the supernatural, yet to this day they swear that they actually did see a fairy.

J.H.Craigen, Moneymore, Co. Derry

Craigen ‘An Encounter‘