Sir,

As a student of ‘Faerie’ and ‘The Sight’ I was particularly pleased that you gave space to E Bayly Lampeter’s inquiry (March 7). Let me briefly describe four experiences.

The first fairy I met was alone upon a hillside near Aberfoyle, where Robert Kirk wrote his Commonwealth of Fairies. She was very friendly, beckoned me to follow her, and eventually showed me the most wonderful of sights.

One afternoon in Arran I saw ten fairies playing out and in among gorse bushes and round about the grazing sheep. The sheep were quite undisturbed except that if a fairy went too near one of them it would trot off for a few yards.

Wandering in a wood in Arran one morning I heard the silvery, plangent accents of fairies, and following the sounds I saw quite a clan of them hurrying along a green footpath. They seemed angry about something. Observing me, they chattered loudly, scattered as one sees a flock of excited sparrows scattering, increased their speed and fled.

Tramping near Loch Rannoch I was attracted by tuneful tones coming from clumps of rhododendrons, and advancing cautiously beheld the most beautiful dancing. I was too interested to count the number of fairies, concentrating upon how close I could get. When I was within ten paces of them one sighted me, and alarming the dancers she shepherded them in among the bushes. I shall never forget the glance she gave me as she disappeared and the gesture and grace of her exit, I have seen approached only by the incomparable, Pavlova herself.

Struan Robertson                                           Buchlyvie, Stirlingshire

Robertson, Struan ‘Fairies Are Not Dead!’, John O’London Weekly (28 March 1936), 1023: for other John O’London fairy letters follow the link.

In Upper Rosses Point, Mrs. J. Conway told me this about the ‘gentry’: ‘John Conway, my husband, who was a pilot by profession, in watching for in-coming ships used to go up on the high hill among the Fairy Hills; and there he often saw the gentry going down the hill to the strand. One night in particular he recognized them as men and women of the gentry and they were as big as any living people. It was late at night about forty years ago.’ Evans-Wentz 66-67

A cousin of mine, who was a pilot, once went to the watch-house up there on the Point to take his brother’s place; and he saw ladies coming towards him as he crossed the Greenlands. At first he thought they were coming from a dance, but there was no dance going then, and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them and moving as they were could have come from any part of the globe, and in so great a party, at that hour of the night. Then when they passed him and he saw how beautiful they were, he knew them for the gentry women. Evans-Wentz 67-68

Nothing is more certain than that there are fairies. The old folks always thought them the fallen angels. At the back of this house the fairies had their pass. My neighbour started to build a cow-shed, and one wall abutting on the pass was thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it. The third time the wall was built it stood.

Where MacEwen’s house stands was a noted fairy place. Men in building the house saw fairies on horses coming across the spot, and the stone walls did not stop them at all. Evans-Wentz 67

We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one day too late for his morning’s work, and he in excuse very seriously said, ‘May be if you had travelled all night as much as I have you wouldn’t talk. I was away with the gentry, and save for a lady I couldn’t have been back now. I saw a long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew and some I did not know. The lady saved me by telling me to eat no food there, however enticing it might be.’ 68

‘Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the gentry down on the Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in daylight. He was a young man at the time, and had been sent out to see if any cattle were astray.’

And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now a sailor on the ship Tartar, sailing from Sligo to neighbouring ports on the Irish coast, asserts in confirmation of Owen Conway’s statement about him: ‘I saw the gentry on the strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years ago. It was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer pointing at me what seemed a sword; and when I got on the Greenlands I saw a great company of gentry, like soldiers, in red, laughing and shouting. Their leader was a big man, and they were ordinary human size. As a result [of this vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother milking cows, and we heard the gentry all round us talking, but could not see them.’ Evans-Wentz 68

A young man at Drumcliffe was taken [in a trance state], and was with the Daoine Maithe some time, and then got back. Another man, whom I knew well, was haunted by the gentry for a long time, and he often went off with them (apparently in a dream or trance state). Evans-Wentz 69