The Unseen World Just Off Main Street

Just off Main Street, and right under your nose, there may exist an unseen world of creatures we call faeries and pixies.

All of us probably have some memory attributed to the influence of faeries and pixies. When I was a kid, I visited a place on the Oregon coast called Pixie Kitchen. The food was magically good. 

But the idea of sweetly, child-like faeries are largely a product of the Victorian age. In ancient lore, faeries were a mischievous, and sometimes downright murderous, lot.

And Cornish pixies (or piskeys) could be be the most magical and evil of all.

According to Pixie Folklore and Legends by Enys Tregarthen, God once called on Adam and Eve after they’d been driven from Eden. Eve was washing the children (she had a lot by then) but still had some unwashed. She presented the clean children to God, and when when He asked if she had other children, Eve said no because she was embarrassed that some were still dirty. God was upset at her deception and so decreed that the children Eve hid must remain hidden. The children went away into the forests, hills, and lonely places where they remain hidden from man, ‘not good enough for heaven and not bad enough for hell’.

So maybe they have a reason to be annoyed. But a quick note to kids—don’t fight bath time!

 

When they’re in a good mood, pixies might clean your house when you’re not looking (please come to my house—see I left out milk for you!), and have parties complete with tiny horses and chariots when you’re asleep. If you happen to wander into a ring of stones or mushrooms, you’ll be pixie-led, destined to wander aimlessly, speaking jibberish (or maybe that was too much whiskey—which oddly enough rhymes with piskey—but I digress). 

Truly evil pixies are called spriggans and have been known to steal babies from their cribs, leaving behind one of their own kind called a ‘changeling’. A formerly sweet, perfect child grows into a sullen troublemaker. Who’s with me in saying they’ve met one? I know, right?

Explore this unseen world off Main Street with my Tennessee Waltz series, where fireflies and pixies intersect with a singer just trying to make it to Nashville, a yoga instructor trying to keep the doors of her studio open, and a travel agent who wonders if she’ll ever truly feel at home. 

 

Magic is always just around the corner…