Newfoundland Fairies...

I'm so excited to finally be able to share this. For years I've been working on a teen fantasy series based on my childhood neighborhood, as well as a few of the legends surrounding it. My sister-in-law and I sat down and came up with the concept and character names and then kind of forgot about it. I'd worked on it in secret over the years in hopes of surprising her for her wedding with a physical copy however that didn't happen. I was a month or so too late but none-the-less, its in the editing stages!

I realize that in this day and age, fairies are about as realistic as vampires, werewolves and zombies - probably even less so considering the fact that you can find shows and movies about the other things and not so much about fairies, however, in my day - which wasn't that long ago, be nice! - we legitimately believed in them.

Being surrounded by woods, Shea Heights was shrouded in mystery, with plenty of room for kids to wander, get lost and draw their own conclusions. Not wanting to constantly be under the watchful eye of our parents and nosey neighbors, we'd retreat to the forests with our coats, sweaters or t-shirts turned inside out or with bread in our pocket - to ward off evil sprites of course - and to do the things that kids and  teenagers do, still hearing our parents and grandparents voices in our head, "Watch out for the fairies". I cant think of a time that we'd ever really sought them out, preferring to trust the adults when they told us stories about their relatives who'd gone missing for days, were pushed into wells or simply disappeared because of the little people.

A couple stories that stand out specifically to me were that of a perfectly healthy boy who'd gone out
for milk at his mothers request only to show up two years later with it in his hands and unable to speak a word. He'd walk past us in the street and we'd glance at him curiously, but always with caution. Another instance was of a young girl heading home from a party down the street from her house during a snow storm. She would continually walk toward the light over her front porch, just barely able to make it out from the blowing snow, but never reaching her destination. When her body was found the next morning, she'd worn a path on her front lawn from walking in circles. Others include aunts and uncles being found naked and stuck in a tree mumbling words about fairies and little people.

Whether or not the stories were told to us to simply scare us from wandering too far from home, the countless Google results that turn up when you type in Newfoundland Fairy Legends suggests other wise. My front lawn in the summer gets 'fairy rings' - mushrooms that grow in a circle - and despite being a fairly logical, educated adult, I still haul my kids back when they attempt to step in the middle.

'Don't let the fairies take you!' I say. ;)