“There’s no question that they existed. We have two fairy houses quite close by and we have records of conversations between fairies and people on the island”. — Sir Iain Noble
Legends of dwarves, elves, and other faeries are found worldwide. There are the famed trolls of Scandinavian folklore, the wealthy leprechauns of Irish lore, or the Korrigans of Britanny. They have been the subject of dozens of children’s fairy tales, books, myths and inebriated tales. Though it seems that there are not many people who take seriously the existence of elves and fairies in today’s society, numerous sightings of creatures similar to fairies are actually reported throughout the world.
The majority of “evidence” of these miniature humanoid beings are the numerous eye-witness testimonies. Encounters with elf-entities usually occur when the elf approaches a home and requests food or shelter. If the resident refuses to comply with the elf’s demands, they would bring misfortune upon the greedy person. Unless harassed, elves are said to generally avoid contact with humans.
In Stowmarket, England in 1842, a man claimed this encounter with “faries” when walking through a meadow on his journey home:
“There might be a dozen of them, the biggest about three feet high, and small ones like dolls. They were moving around hand in hand in a ring; no noise came from them. They seemed light and shadowy, not like solid bodies. I… could see them as plain as I do you. I ran home and called three women to come back with me and see them. But when we got to the place, they were all gone. I was quite sober at the time.”
In Jerome Clark’s book, Unexplained!, he retells the story of 13-year-old Harry Anderson who had a strange encounter on a summer night in 1919. Anderson claimed to have seen a column of 20 little men marching in single file, made visible by the bright moonlight. He noted they were dressed in leather knee pants with suspenders. The men were shirtless, bald and had pale white skin. They ignored young Harry as they passed, mumbling something unintelligible all the while.