Taken Away by the Fairies

Blueberry season was good and over, and now it was cranberry season—a time of year marked by shortening days and cold. I was six years old, living with my grandmother in a very small town, in a house that backed onto a dense forest of fir and spruce. I secretly loved to go into the woods at this time of year. The sweet scent of conifers mixed with fallen autumn leaves on the forest floor was almost intoxicating to me.

Nan had been trying to get a start on the dark fruit cakes for Christmas, and I was bored—and in her way. So, with admonitions of dire consequences if I strayed into the woods, and a stern warning not to lose my mitts, she sent me outside to play, with the obligatory piece of bread tucked into my pocket, just in case.

All the old folks insisted fairies were real, and insisted that children especially should carry bread in their pockets to give to them while picking berries or playing outside. We were always told the woods were out of bounds when alone, because it was easier to be taken away by the fairies. But I didn’t believe them. I had been sneaking off into the woods as often as I could for about a year, and I hadn’t seen one yet.

So off I went—bread in pocket, thick woollen hat and mitts on—just long enough to be out of sight of the house. Then off they came.

My adventure was ordinary enough at first. I drank in the late autumn scent of the deepening forest. The path was visible, so I wasn’t afraid of getting lost, but I hadn’t counted on being startled. It wasn’t anything dangerous—just a rabbit—but just then a fox dashed out of the woods behind it, frightening both the rabbit and me. The sudden shock caused me to slip on the wet ground and bump my head on a tree stump. Just before everything went dark, I was dimly aware of the fact that I was alone in the woods, with no one around to help or find me.

I don’t know how long I had been unconscious, but it couldn’t have been long, because not much had changed about the sky when I woke up. It wasn’t getting dark or anything—the same overcast grey stretched above me. But then I heard a vague rustling sound, like moving fabric. I slowly lifted myself enough to turn my head in that direction, and nearly screamed.

Sitting on the very tree stump I had struck my head on was a small man dressed entirely in green, with a circlet of gold resting on his head. His expression was stern, and his eyes glinted in an otherworldly way. He seemed to radiate an aura of indescribable magic, and it felt as though he was looking through me, rather than merely at me.

It could have been an eternity, or only seconds—I truly couldn’t say. So much seemed to happen while that strangely magnetic little man scanned my soul with his flickering, bright green eyes. I was brought to fuller awareness by a sudden change in his demeanour. That’s when he first spoke.

What a voice it was—musical, as if made of golden and silver bells. I had the distinct impression that it wasn’t the dialect of English common in that part of the world. It was clear that he was speaking, though, and I had no trouble understanding him.

It felt like a dream, and yet I remember it clearly. He told me he was a fairy—the King of the Fairy Folk who inhabited that part of the forest. Curiously, I wasn’t truly afraid, though I did think that perhaps I should have been.

After a few more minutes beneath those remarkable eyes, he said he would allow me to return home. If he had detected any evil or darkness in me, he would have taken me to the magical land of Faery instead. I almost felt disappointed—until I thought of my dear Nan, who would have been inconsolable if I never came back.

Once more, he locked his gaze with mine and told me I must keep my word never to speak of this meeting. I promised. I saw a flicker in his eyes that suggested he was satisfied I would keep my silence.

Suddenly, it was as if I were waking again. I looked around for the little green man with the crown, but there was no sign of him—only the rabbit that had frightened me earlier, sitting in the exact spot where the Fairy King had been.

I stood, found my hat and mittens, and put them on while the rabbit watched me. I said goodbye, and walked home.

I carried that story in my heart and mind for more than twenty years, never telling a soul about the encounter. The Fairy King remained only a memory—until I was in my mid-twenties.

By then, I had been living and working in the nearest city for several years. My grandmother had passed away, and I was on my own.

I had been seeing a man whose company was fun, if a little wild and roguish. Young and relatively inexperienced, I didn’t recognize that same roguishness as a lack of fidelity—or love. He didn’t truly care whether he hurt me. Of course, I was head over heels, even if quietly dissatisfied with how he treated me at times.

One morning during that period, I woke with an unsettling feeling—as though something strange was about to happen. I couldn’t shake it, though I dismissed it as the result of there being only a little wine left in my glass the night before, and none left in the bottle.

It was Saturday. I hadn’t heard from my fella all day, until around midnight, when he knocked on my door in a rather drunken state. Sighing, I put him to bed and returned to sleep, only to wake again a couple of hours later. I don’t remember what woke me, but I remember the time exactly: 3:33 a.m.

What kept me awake was the shadowy figure of a rabbit in the corner of my room. The streetlight just outside my window illuminated it in such a way that it appeared to be wearing a finely wrought crown around its ears. It watched me as intently as I watched it, and it seemed to tell me it had come to help me—because I had kept my promise all those years ago.

It seemed to warn me that the man in my bed was bent on self-destruction, and that he would gladly bring me down with him. He was a liar, and before long he would break my heart. After delivering this message, I became irresistibly sleepy. I drifted off and dreamed that several small, green-clad fairy men tied up my boyfriend and carried him away while he slept.

When I woke the next morning—later than usual—my boyfriend was gone.

All of his belongings were gone as well. It was as if we had never been a couple at all.

I saw him occasionally after that, but he didn’t seem to remember our relationship. Our romance had reverted to a vague acquaintance. I barely remembered it myself—and I was grateful for that—because each time I saw him afterward, he seemed worse off than before.

So take this story how you will. I have told it carefully; only now, and only in this way.

I never spoke of the Fairy King while my grandmother lived, nor during all the years when I was still learning how easily one might be led astray. Perhaps that, too, was part of the promise.

I sometimes wonder if what mattered most was not whether the fairies were real, but whether I was listening when it mattered.

If I have broken my vow by telling this now, then I can only hope the King will understand. After all, he did let me go once.

Either way, I still carry bread in my pocket when I walk in the woods. Perhaps precaution—perhaps gratitude.