The Faery, A Story
by Ida Outhwaite (c 1920)
The Faery is the home of the fae, the forest of the fairies. It is a hidden refuge of elemental nature protected by an age old magic that acts like the repulsion of two magnets near one anther with the same north / south poles, for all those that come near. Those that brush up against that realm just shy away from it without knowing why nor even knowing it is / was there at all. It is a timeless place, described by others as the underworld, the hidden kingdom, a mystical island, the invisible realm, even parallel dimension for the more scientifically minded, and it is all these things, but mainly it is just a forest, and more.
The Faery exists at the edge of human habitat, alongside hidden by nature and magic. Sometimes, somehow humans step into the Faery for a while, knowing there is ‘something’ but missing it altogether, even if they stay a while, overnight with a fire or some such activity, resting in a meadow, sitting by a stream, but eventually the Magic of the Faery will gently push them back out into the human world. That said, there are a few stories of men who by whatever means, have sojourned in the Faery for extended periods. It seems the Faery’s magic has a wisdom of it’s own and will allow an occasional visitor to linger. Fia, a fairy friend told me about one time when she… the story goes like this…
She, Fia was out mushroom hunting, and had wandered some ways from her treehouse. Like most fairies she lived near the edge of the Faery, well way from the human world, far enough away from the noise and such stuff of human beings, but at the edge of Faery, which was wild and endless and even dangerous the further one went into its wilds. One could also get lost too far in, so most all the fairies lived somewhere near the edge, and it made it easier to visit each other, and trade gifts, and attend fairs and so on. Anyways she had gone further than usual away from her home, and towards the northern direction which was also unusual, but she hadn’t been that way for some time.
Anyways, she was sitting on a tree branch when she smelled a wisp of smoke! That caught her attention. Nobody lit fires in the forest. For one thing, fairies didn’t really feel the cold much, just part of their nature, and the second thing was, it was a forest. Trees burn! So she took immediate attention, and once figuring out the winds around her, followed the smoke, flitted up near where the Faery met the human world, and there she found the fire. And him.
Her immediate thought was to put it out, sprinkle some dampening in the air, a wet wind or similar magic, but as she watched him and his fire from high up in the tree branches where she sat, she saw it was small, and carefully tended, so decided to watch instead, rather than possibly draw any attention to herself, and that is what she did. And once she got over the shock of the fire, she just watched him. It was mesmerizing, a man, a man in the Faery, it was so surprising she didn’t know what to think. And the fire. The only times she really saw fires were at the fairs, where they were carefully managed and meant as entertainment. The attendees would throw different sprinkles on one making the flames and sparks all kinds of colors. This was different. He was shivering and hovered close to it, his hands right up near the small flames. And he was tired, she could she. She also realized that the day had grown long and the evening shadows were creeping in around the forest floor.
Carefully she moved closer down the tree to a lower branch, one with a lot of foliage to hide in. and continued to watch him. It got slowly darker, and colder, but he kept the fire small, kept looking around, jumping at the sound of an animal somewhere near by, a squirrel or raccoon or maybe rabbit, but they were usually pretty quiet. Fia just kept watching, wondering what to do, or to do nothing, waiting for the forest magic to push him away, but instead he got tired and eventually curled up next to the trunk of the tree in a little hollow and fell into a cold sleep. And the fire went out soon afterwards without him adding sticks to it. He shivered in his sleep and Fia watched him.
After a long time of indecision, Fia floated down to the earth and carefully walked nearer, standing a little distance away in the dark. She was torn, wandering what to do or just go away. The Faery would deal with him, but he looked so miserable in his restless sleep. And she had never dealt with humans, at all, only from a. great distance a couple of times, just seeing them. This was all so new, and confusing. After a lot of back and forth thought, she decided to treat him like any other forest creature, and to pretend he was just a rabbit stuck in some briars, or a fawn struggling to get up a muddy bank from a pond it had slipped into, help him.
It took her a while, but she went back to her treehouse, and there collected an old blanket made of leaves, stitched together with pine needles and reeds, and some chestnuts she had gathered some days before, and set aside some of her mushrooms she had found, and then returned back to where she had left him. It was still dark and in her excitement she had flown pretty fast, so hadn’t been gone that long. He was still sleeping, nothing had changed. Quietly she put the mushrooms and chestnuts down on the ground near the fire, and then very carefully with a little air magic, one of her talents, laid the blanket gently on top of him, with a gentle warming spell, not her forte but just asking the earth to remember the sunlight on her body from the earlier day. Then she sat back in the foliage of a nearby tree and watched him sleep.
He slept well past dawn, but finally stirred. Fia herself had drowsed a bit, the excitement of the day catching up with her. But she was wide awake when he finally awakened. At first he just opened his eyes a bit, fluttering, and moved slightly, then all of a sudden sat up, the blanket sliding half off him and didn’t move at all, except his eyes. He looked all around, wide eyed, aware, looking at the blanket, the surroundings, finally noticed the chestnuts but didn’t move or anything. He sat there for a long time, slowly drew the blanket back over him since it was chilly. She could see his breath. Then he looked up and Fia froze. She knew he couldn’t see her, both because of the leaves around her and because she didn’t want him to, her natural magic. But it seemed like he knew she was there.
Anyways, the story goes on. Fia did end up helping him a little, even revealing herself at some point. He had a story and once he started the telling, she was enchanted herself, with a weakness for stories. His name was Chance she learned, that he was being chased and the forest had called to him he said, and then he got turned around and lost and finally stopped and made the fire last night. That was when she had found him and things had happened as described above.
But this writing is about the Faery and Fia’s story is just a small distraction, and Fia is a story all by herself. But about the Faery, which is more, so much more.