Buckinghamshire Fairies and Little Witches July 12, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
Fairy legends are common in the Celtic fringes and the north of Britain. They are to be found in northern England and south central England: they also occasionally crop up in the English Midlands. However, they were as rare as gold dust in south-eastern England and East Anglia by the time that folklore records were taken down in the nineteenth century. Beach was then, very happy, to run across this bit of gold from 1934 and from Buckinghamshire, a county just to the north of London where by rights fairies should not have been seen much after 1800. This small dialogue is brought up in a village history book: as it is gold Beach is protecting his sources until he can publish it properly. Note that the apparent misspellings are dialect.
‘Did you ever see those little witches that went about the fields?’
‘No, I nevver did, but begoy! I a sin they little pee-pul as dances about in the moonlight.’
The man is asked, then, whether he has seen the ‘little witches’ that go about the fields and he replies ‘No, but I have seen the little people that dances in the moonlight’. If our source can be trusted, and he is a Church of England vicar (unassailable then…) these are south-eastern fairies: this is the supernatural equivalent of seeing elephants in Texas or whales in the Thames. Sit back and marvel. However, Beach should also add that actually the question is pretty interesting too: ‘Did you ever see those little witches that went about the fields?’ What in God’s name does this mean? drbeachombing At yahoo DOT com
