A couple of weeks ago TWH ran an article on an Irish woman who reported her experience of becoming “fairy led” in County Meath, in the Irish press, and you may remember that we asked readers to contribute their own experiences. The response was so overwhelming that we’re now able to present, “Fairy Led Part Two!” from Pagans in the U.K. and Ireland, and those visiting.
Somewhere in Scotland – Image credit – Jan Blanke from Pixabay
Nick Ford, who identifies as a Pagan shared an experience in New Forest, “I used to run a pagan festival camp in the New Forest, at Beltane and Lammas. Late one Beltane Eve – close on midnight – I was fetched to arbitrate as a fight was about to break out between two quite powerful individuals – it would have soured the whole weekend as others would have taken sides and some would have left.
“I was listening to both sides of the quarrel when suddenly what sounded like a dozen voices harmonizing in a wordless chant lifted through the trees beyond the river on the other side of our field. It was ethereal and beautiful, and silenced the argument as we all stood to listen. There were half a dozen of us by then, standing at the field’s edge, far away from the campfire where everyone else was drinking and talking. After a few minutes it ceased, and there was peace.
“The following morning I crossed the river and went into the woods to see if there was any sign of other celebrants from the previous night (it can get crowded in the New Forest at Beltane). There was nothing. Not a drop of candle wax, not a scorch mark, not a thread nor a hair nor a broken stem nor a dog end nor any sign whatever that anyone had been there (which is unusual in the extreme, in my experience). And there had been no other sound from over there, before or after…I discovered, after later interactions, that [it] is ancient woodland and inhabited by a clan of Fae.”
* * *
“A humorous one (and some aren’t) was at one of the weekend Pagan Camps that [we] ran for many years; after a ritual the Fey decided to stick around with the result that all weekend the camp rang with the shouts of ‘Mark, your bloody fairies have taken my car keys/best tankard/knife’ and just about anything that was not nailed down, all returned but at their pleasure.
“[We] moved home and friends kindly looked after my altar with all its accouterments. When it was returned my friends remarked that they did not mind doing me the favour but next time could I please ask the Fey to “behave” as the week had been a nightmare of missing objects, time being out of synch, things being broken etc. The altar [was] back with me and normality was returned to them.” Shared by writer and Druid, Mark Fitzpatrick.
* * *
Pagan, Karel McCoy related an eerie experience meeting themselves coming and going in Scotland, “We were moving house – my son was 11 at the time. I dug from my garden a full circle of snowdrops. They are a bulb you can transplant in full flower, they are so tough. I decided to take my son with me up to Peggie’s Knowe, which is a formidable place in itself. A rocky hill that no man can build on or destroy. All the way over the field, we made our way, with me warning my son to behave himself because we [would] be entering a place that does not welcome humans.
In the mists of South Lanarkshire – Image credit: James Denham – CC BY-SA 2.0
“As we approached the wall surrounding the Knoll, I recognised a gateway and opened it, telling my boy to be silent. As soon as we stepped foot inside we heard a loud crack from inside the woods. I noted this in myself, and told my son it was probably a deer. We continued on with our business of finding the right spot for our snowdrops to be planted.
“I felt ‘watched’ but was working with Elementals at the time and thought nothing of it. My son and I climbed a tree, and we ate the sandwiches I had made. Just as we finished lunch, we heard voices talking, it sounded like a woman. My son asked me who it was, I said I didn’t know, because it was quite a remote location. I jumped down from my treehouse seat, causing an almighty crack of a branch I landed on.
“My son and I looked at each other and knew. He said, ‘Mum!! It’s Us!’ We gathered our things and went anti-clockwise around that hill. Time, shape and Dimensions belong to the Faery realms. We heard ourselves arriving. It was one of the experiences that stood out for me. No one else shared this with my son and myself, and neither of us have spoken of it since.”
* * *
Sarah Thelwall, Pagan/Druid, shared the story of her grandson’s fairy experience, “When my 6-year-old stepgrandson came to stay, in the summer holiday, I taught him a little song I’d made up – the words to it were: ‘Follow me, to the Hollow Tree’ – I told him that by singing, as we walked through the woods, we forewarned the fairies of our approach.
“We reached the hollow tree and I explained that this was where some of the woodland fairies lived. All of a sudden, my little companion exclaimed that, inside the tree, he could see a fairy! He appeared utterly convinced.
“The next day, on a visit to St. Michael’s Mount, we bought a small wooden sword. On our return to the hollow tree, that evening, little Cosimo remembered to sing our song. In front of the tree, he then stood, with his sword.
“Unprompted, my six year-old friend made up his own address to the fairies. Then, with one clear, chop of his wooden sword, Cosimo ended his magical time by ritually lopping a twig and leaf, looking for all the world a master of the arts and a confident seer of fairies…”
* * *
Pagan, Andrew Phillips, told TWH of an odd occurrence in Windsor, “Thirty-five years and a couple of weeks ago Nancy [my wife] and I were traveling in Britain, where I proposed to her. One of our stops was at Windsor, where we visited the chapel.
“Along one aisle, the sword of Henry the Fifth was hung on a pillar toward the center. As I neared it, I caught a flicker out of the corner of my right eye. When I looked, there was a side chapel with a velvet rope strung to block entry, and nothing seemed at all strange or remotely interesting. Still, when I began to turn away, there was the flicker again. Looking at the area, I noticed that every single person who came along the aisle, even if they had been examining the chapels along that wall, turned toward the center when they got to this chapel, and didn’t turn back till they were beyond it.
“I pointed out my observations to Nancy, and after a moment to focus, she also picked up the flicker, and confirmed that other visitors seemed to be turned away from that side chapel. We found the friend we were traveling with, but he saw nothing strange about this spot when we made him look, and seemed entirely disinterested in what we saw of the behavior of other visitors.
“This certainly wasn’t dramatic, or on a large scale, and there was nothing to indicate an agency behind what we observed. Still, for all these years I have wondered who was protecting that spot, and what was really in that chapel, and whether it is still going on.”
* * *
Malcolm White, a Pagan and an archaeologist, shared a spooky experience that occurred decades ago but has stayed with him, “Some 40 years ago I went on holiday over Christmas with a group of friends and stayed in a cottage near Penrith. One night after we’d returned from the pub I had the urge to wander down the lane by myself. It was a full moon and the light was so bright you could have read a book by it. It was also nearly midnight and although it was late December it didn’t feel cold.
“I wandered along the lane for at least a mile feeling at one with the world. The lane then dipped down passed through a hamlet then crossed a small river on a low stone bridge. No sooner had I crossed the bridge when the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I felt terrified. I turned around and did the fastest nonchalant walk you ever did see back across the bridge. Once over the bridge the feeling of terror vanished. Needless to say, I went straight back to the cottage.”
* * *
Adrian Middleton, who identifies as a seeker, shared their experience with a “guiding light,” “I took a shortcut along a gulley on the edge of Birmingham. It turned into a Holloway that hid the moon and any decent light, so I was forced to carry on blindly, nearly straying from the path and tangling myself in brambles, until I picked out a distant light, which I walked towards.
“The light never got any closer, but it acted much like the North Star for me, and brought me to a familiar road less than a mile from home. There were no street lights as the road was on the edge of farmland, and I couldn’t find the light once I had stepped out of the Holloway, and when I took the same path a couple of weeks later there was no light, and I got lost.”
* * *
And finally, a tale from Pagan, Dean Powell, about his fairy encounter in Scotland, “This happened the evening of Sunday 6th August 2006 at Dod Mill, just north of Earlston, on the Scots Borders. We all gathered for a workshop run by Lodge Bride and Lodge of the White Dove – I was the only representative of my lodge, Lodge Wyfern, from Somerset. It ran from Friday to Sunday. My flight to Bristol from Edinburgh was [the] next day so I had paid an extra night to stay on. Everybody left, including, later, the two owners. I decided to have a good nosey around the grounds – this being about 7 pm or so, in the evening.
“Eventually I came to a [Romany] caravan [and] I noticed across the pond another building made of stone and walked around through honking geese and quacking ducks to a charming cottage, behind which was a stile going into a steep field. I looked up to the top of the field and remembered it was very near, if not, full moon, and wondered if I might be able to see it rising. As soon as I entered the field the hairs on the back of my neck alerted me to ‘something’! I’m pretty sensitive and my psychic abilities wax and wane – but on this occasion, it felt like a warning! I wasn’t exactly [sure] why I should feel like this – it was a warm, still evening, the sun was setting and it was in fact, the perfect summer evening in southern Scotland. I noticed a group of horses up the field, and they noticed me, and all decided to walk downhill to greet me, perhaps twelve of them. All pretty large beasts and mostly white with some piebald, and one black.
White horses in Srath a’ Ghlinne, Scotland – Image credit: Alan O’Dowd – CC BY-SA 2.0
“I milled amongst them, some pushing – I have always had an odd relationship with horses – I’ve never owned one or ridden, yet they always love me, even feisty individuals, and do my bidding!! It has been remarked on by more than one horse owner! I pushed on through looking to the east for the rising moon and because of the high and steep hill I knew I’d have to go some way up the hill to be able to see it rise. The horses followed, but one was in front of me and kept looking back. All the time I felt this odd uneasiness and by now, a presence of some sort. The horses continued to follow and at last caught sight of the golden harvest moon. So I faced east but soon noticed the horses had arranged themselves in a perfect circle around me. ‘ Whatever,’ I thought then looked back to the moon which, by now, should have cleared the trees on the hill perhaps two miles distant, but…no moon! I was confused because I had stopped when I had first seen it – albeit the bottom third covered by the distant trees, and it should have cleared those by now- but no sign of it!! So, off I trudged uphill, with horses following me, but the same white one in front of me.
“It was at this point I kept seeing in my peripheral vision movement amongst the horses – a sort of shimmer of people in white weaving in and out but would see nothing if I looked face on. So, got to a point where, once again, saw the moon, again, perhaps from my perspective at least half was still obscured by the distant forest upon the hill. So I watched and witnessed something impossible. I saw the moon moving at that imperceptible velocity sink below the trees going from right to left as it did so!! Now, when one watches a moon rise it rises very slowly in the east quarter rising left to right, at an angle. This was the opposite. So I walked maybe a couple of hundred yards upslope to see the moon again with half of it obscured by distant trees, only to see it slowly set, right to left…. ‘Impossible!’ I thought. At which I distinctly heard laughter around me from several directions. By this time feelings of confusion and unease had also developed into fear and I hadn’t [a] clue what was going on – my rational mind fighting what I had witnessed on this beautiful evening, but by now sensing danger and it was then I realised it was Fey magic and I had been led up and away from Dod Mill and charmed into confusion by their trickster magic! I did one last walk so I could see at least the top of the moon and as before, it set. ‘ That’s it!’ I thought, ‘I’m getting out of here!’ and turned to go downhill but all the horses were blocking my path.
“I pushed one, only to be blocked by another and I’m sure I heard, ‘He’s scared!’ and again, laughter. I dodged sideways to break free of the horses, only to trip up and go tumbling… It was actually really scary as the beasts soon were over me again, but not in a friendly way. I managed to get up and break free again and started to run downhill, only stopping when I got to the stile by the cottage. I looked back but the horses were well up the hill having stayed put. As I looked up I caught a flash of light to my left and a loud bang – I’m not sure what the hell that was but more Fey ‘stuff’ no doubt.
“Years later I recounted the story to Dolores (Ashcroft-Nowicki). She laughed and said, ‘Yes! Typical fairy magic – especially getting the horses involved. My dear, you know there is a simple way to undo their magic because their magic can very easily turn our brains against ourselves and create illusions. You should have taken items of clothing off and put them back on upside-out or back- to front. It undoes the magic, so you know what to do next time…!’
“Subsequently, thinking about what Dolores said, plus my own research, I realised something. Our brains actually turn the image of what we see the right way up as the lens of the eye does actually record an upside-down image of what we see – physics! So yes, what I saw was used to confuse me as, indeed, what the eye sees would be a moon going right to left downwards….only the brain has to reverse that image to see the reality of it actually going left-right upwards, as it rises.”
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.