Category — Strange things

I was sitting around with my wife’s family one evening a few weeks ago. It was one of those cool, late-summer nights, and we got to the subject of fairies. It was maybe because a few weeks before that night my wife and a crowd of her family went over to Woods Island, where some of her people had been resettled from.

The Fairies on Woods Island

They were joking that an older cousin of theirs who came from the island was a firm believer in the fairies. Which sort of belief was not always so unusual. I would venture that it’s a rare one now that believes in those kinds of things, but the days are not so far gone when the fairies were more than stories. I’ve been told that believing in fairies was especially common among the people from Woods Island. Or maybe those people just let go of old things a little more slowly. Anyway, on Woods Island it was important, especially for children, not to stray out after dark or else the fairies would come out of the trees and down to the houses and get you.

Mind the Children

Because, at least to my knowledge, there were no good fairies known in Newfoundland, or least not on Woods Island. Fairies were always bad. The really bad ones were known to take unwatched infants through open doors and windows and leave fairy children in their place.

Nobody believes in those things any more. And shortly after all this we gave up the stories for the night. I have to admit though, that I had to go and peek at our three-month-old daughter, who was sleeping in our room. The window was open after the hot day, and a cool breeze was shaking the leaves on the old tree in the garden. Just for a second, in the dark, I was superstitious enough to close the window little, and have a close look at the baby. I immediately felt very foolish.

At least until a few days later, when I was wandering around the bushes in the garden.