This is a very unusual kind of fairy sighting. c. 1824 ‘the Colonel’ was born at Virginia (Cavan, Ireland), a ‘dwarf’ who was widely believed to be a fairy changeling: his nickname came from his supposed rank in faery! A journalist here describes the Colonel in 1854:

For instance, no one has ventured to deny that he first saw the light upon a Hallow Eve; and some hags who were in his immediate neighbourhood on that occasion have left a record of some very inauspicious circumstances which accompanied the events. Again, the Colonel, like many who have not as good reasons to allege an excuse, has, up to the present, most scrupulously absented himself from all public worship. This, most likely, was prompted in the first instance by the fear of derision, with which during early life his appearance in public was generally hailed, and what is still more remarkable, and what we have had opportunities of testing both privately, and before others, is the strange aversion which he shows to repeating any form of prayer. Numerous experiments have been made with a view to induce him to do so, but in every instance without effect. He has resisted the most liberal offers of many rather than comply with a request to repeat the Lord’s prayer, even word for word after another person; and where persons have tried to make his hands passively describe the form made use of by Roman Catholics in blessing themselves, he has been seen to kick and bite in resisting their attempts to do so. In fact, we doubt not he would be disposed to undergo a small martyrdom rather than conform to any known religious practices (Young, 2013, Some Notes).