Where the Fairies Went

I've seen them ever since I was young.

They used to be called the Fair Folk, because the peasants were afraid of pissing them off. They weren't the type of beings you wanted to piss off, because they could mess you up big time, and I'm not just talking about souring the milk. Back in what we as children called Olden Times, they were a power to be reckoned with.

Now though… Belief is power. Belief is what gives them existence. And hardly anyone really believes any more. They're called fairies and pixies and sprites, and most of those words have other meanings now in our modern, oh-so-wise, sardonic era, as language has evolved and changed over the past hundred years, faster than ever before in human history.

Now people only believe in what they can see, and what they can see can be easily recognized because of the indoctrination we receive as children and teens and adults, bombarded by mass media. Fairies are small and have butterfly or dragonfly wings. They dress in flowing pastels. Sometimes they carry wands, and grant wishes. That's what people want to see, and if it doesn't fit, they don't believe what they see.

But I've always seen them. Out of the corner of your eye, they watch us. Not menacingly. Not angrily. Just curious about us. They've devolved as our belief changed. They're simple creatures now. So they don't understand us, and they watch to see what we'll do. Not for long, because their attention span isn't what it used to be.

When you walk into a spiderweb in the dark? That's them, trying to catch us. Old habits die hard, though they aren't strong enough to stop us and carry us away to FairyLand any more. Once they captured humans on their Wild Hunts and stole children and brought them under their Mounds and through the Rings of Mushrooms to live in the Twilight Lands, as slaves and consorts, but now they couldn't catch a fly in their feeble nets. And if they did catch someone, none of them would know what to do with the person. They've lost more than their power, as the old beliefs died and were scoffed as little more than ignorant superstition. They've lost their purpose.

The first time I saw them it was autumn, and the wind was whipping the dead leaves down the street. The leaves, I realized as they tumbled along, were dancing! They were playing with each other, tag, or catch, or follow the leader.

That's when I saw them for who they really were.

The Fair Folk. Fairies.

Dancing in and among the dead autumn leaves, carrying them along in the ancient spiral dances of their ancestors. Not merely carried along the capricious eddies of air. And the simple joy of chasing after each other, of dancing to the timeless rhythms of the elements, air and fire, earth and water, was so infectious, all I could do was grin as I watched.