There's a Thing in the rural areas of England and other Atlantic islands that often goes completely unspoken, unwritten and unbroken and that is respect for the unusual creatures that lurk just out of sight. Call them fairies, fae, the fair folk, the good folke of the hills - call them whatever you like just not too loudly in case they're near enough to hear you.
It's those parts of our mythology that have survived unchanged to the modern times in literature and physicality. All the old bedtime stories about changelings and baby snatchers who demanded ridiculous or impossible things that the human heroes always somehow managed to produce. Our ingenuity is the thin line between our perpetual survival and their multitudinous attempts to end us.
It's not that they don't like us (on the contrary they find us greatly entertaining) it's that they don't care about us. Presently they couldn't care any less for our rules, our physical limitations, our feelings - all just silly human things to them. It's the main reason that they are so well known, so loved and feared to this day.
We teach our children all about Rumpelstiltskin, Thumbelina and Tam Lin in the hopes that they will subconsciously understand that fairies aren't those cutesy little flower babies, they are fully grown beings who will quite happily turn your mother into a pumpkin and kill your dog because you forgot to call them "sir" or "ma'am" once.
They aren't seen as much any more, thankfully. We use so much iron that our homes have become physically repellent to them, even our mobiles and their lithium iron phosphate batteries are miniature wards against them but it doesn't stop them from trying to get back at us in their little ways.
It's why fairy circles appear in crowded suburbs, casually scattered by playgrounds and the small patches of grass beside local shops. It's why the woods near my own home haven't changed in size or shape for over five hundred years and why all streetlights are still made with iron cases.
We don't talk about them but we do everything we possibly cal, as casually as we can, to avoid them.
It's those parts of our mythology that have survived unchanged to the modern times in literature and physicality. All the old bedtime stories about changelings and baby snatchers who demanded ridiculous or impossible things that the human heroes always somehow managed to produce. Our ingenuity is the thin line between our perpetual survival and their multitudinous attempts to end us.
It's not that they don't like us (on the contrary they find us greatly entertaining) it's that they don't care about us. Presently they couldn't care any less for our rules, our physical limitations, our feelings - all just silly human things to them. It's the main reason that they are so well known, so loved and feared to this day.
We teach our children all about Rumpelstiltskin, Thumbelina and Tam Lin in the hopes that they will subconsciously understand that fairies aren't those cutesy little flower babies, they are fully grown beings who will quite happily turn your mother into a pumpkin and kill your dog because you forgot to call them "sir" or "ma'am" once.
They aren't seen as much any more, thankfully. We use so much iron that our homes have become physically repellent to them, even our mobiles and their lithium iron phosphate batteries are miniature wards against them but it doesn't stop them from trying to get back at us in their little ways.
It's why fairy circles appear in crowded suburbs, casually scattered by playgrounds and the small patches of grass beside local shops. It's why the woods near my own home haven't changed in size or shape for over five hundred years and why all streetlights are still made with iron cases.
We don't talk about them but we do everything we possibly cal, as casually as we can, to avoid them.
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