Have you heard that fairies (or faeries or fay folk) are alighting in town and country, making their homes in hollows and gardens and tucked away places? It’s true, and they are everywhere. My mom and my sister have many residents in their yards, and have supported them by building houses, installing fences and paths, and planting beautiful gardens to encourage them to stay. I didn’t have any fairies in my yard, so my mom and sister helped me out, and sent a fairy, a castle, and a couple odds and ends to me.
It was quiet this afternoon. We had the requisite barbecue yesterday, children and extraneous friends drifted off on their own agendas, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. I decided it was time for my little adopted fairy to have a home.
First, I put their tower castle on a hill. It reminds me of the towers the monks in Great Britain built to protect themselves for the marauding Vikings.
Once that was done, I added the plants, a pond, a path, and a bee hive! Then I introduced the fairy to her new home.
She looks pretty happy sitting on the side of her pond. If she is still there tomorrow morning when I step out into the back yard, I will know she plans to stay.
Edmund Dulac
I knew there were fairies when I was a child. There were no fairies at home in the city; they lived in the woods where I spent summers at my grandparents cottage. I built houses for those fairies. First, I would collect the supplies: twigs, bark, acorns, moss, and lichen. I had no idea what lichen was, botanically, but I loved its appearance. My very favorite was called British Soldiers, which evoked all kinds of magical stories for me. I have since learned in Latin it is Cladonia Cristatella; really quite a beautiful name. I’ve also learned that lichen is a symbiosis of two organisms: fungus and algae. That didn’t matter then. What mattered was it made a comely, red and green garden for my fairy houses.
Warwick Goble
First, I would search through the woods near the cottage to find the perfect little nook between the roots of an oak tree. It had to be an oak tree; fairies were particular about that. Then I would use twigs and bark to build a cozy, small cottage. I would lay moss on the floor before adding the roof, so the interior would be comfortable for the fay folk. When the house was complete, I would line a pebbly path with acorns, and cover the ground around the house with a garden of moss and lichen. If I had a found a particularly nice rock on my walk that day, I would add it as a piece of sculpture to the garden.
Arthur Rackman
I checked on the houses when we returned, every weekend. Sometimes, after a storm or a ravaging squirrel, the houses needed repairs. I maintained them all summer. I don’t know where the fairies lived during the winter, when we didn’t go to the cottage. Maybe they hibernated in hollow tree trunks, I wasn’t sure.
John Anster Fitzgerald
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