Fairy Reports from the Paranormal Database

Fairies are mythical creatures that are believed to have inhabited the UK and Ireland long before humans arrived. The name fairy can be confusing, as it can refer to the collective of all metaphysical or preternatural creatures (including pixies and goblins), or a specific type of entity within that group (popularly believed to be human-like, small and capable of flight). What follows is a list where fairy encounters have (or are likely to) occur.

Image (left) courtesy of: www.royalmail.com/creatures

Young Girl

Location: Ben Alder (Highland) - Below the mountain, en route for Loch Ossian
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: April / May 2011
Further Comments: Having traversed old drover track on western shoulder of Ben Alder, a walker was looking for a suitable spot to cross a stream. The walker noticed the image of a smiling young girl, dressed in blue/green watery outfit, sitting on a slab of rock amidst the fast moving water. She was pointing to the water, enticing the walker to cross. The walker panicked and moved further downstream, crossing at a point where the water was calmer.

Fairy Song

Location: Bincombe Down (Dorset) - Singing Barrows
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Midday (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Local superstition states that if you place your ear to the ground here at midday, you can hear the soft singing of fairy folk.

Fairy Rings

Location: Birstall (Leicestershire) - Mill Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This area was widely believed to be the haunt of fairy folk, where they would come and dance in the pale moonlight.

Fairy Guardians

Location: Bishopton (Durham) - Castle Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Though the castle is long gone, the area is still a place where fairies hide - anyone trying to steal earth or soil from the land is warned off by whispering voices.

Fairy Fair

Location: Black Down Hills (Somerset) - General area
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Seventeenth century?
Further Comments: Fairies were once believed to hold annual fairs on the hills, singing and dancing throughout the night.

Fairy Cow

Location: Bosfrancan (Cornwall) - Field called Park-an-Ventan (no longer there?)
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local farmer once kept a cow that was used by fairies after dark - the little folk were driven away, and the farmer's luck changed from good to bad.

Little Man

Location: Bottlehill (County Cork) - Road heading towards Cork
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Farmer Mick Purcell was forced to take his cow to Cork to sell. While on the road Purcell met a little man and swopped the cow for a small bottle. Understandably, returning home with a bottle instead of money upset Purcell's wife, until he opened it - out sprang two figures which covered the table with gold and silver dishes.

Figures in Brown

Location: Bournemouth (Dorset) - Branksome Park estate
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: Seen in a garden on this estate, several little people dressed in brown played in and around the bushes before being scared off.

Fairy Home

Location: Braddan (Isle of Man) - 'Real' Fairy Bridge
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Bridge still present
Further Comments: This is another site said to be home to the fairies, although details are fleeting.

Fairy Photographs

Location: Bradford (Yorkshire) - Cottingley, fields around
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 1917
Further Comments: Becoming world famous, the handful of fairy photographs taken here by the girls Elsie & Frances are still a bone of contention in the fortean world. The book by Joe Cooper, 'The Case of the Cottingley Fairies', is worth reading for further (and very detailed) information.

Urisk

Location: Breadalbane (Stirling) - Hills around the area
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Urisk were said to be part human and part fairy, and shunned by both races. They would sometimes be seen sitting by the roadside, or loitering outside farms and other buildings in want of food.

Secret Door

Location: Brecon Beacons (Powys) - Llyn Cwm Llwch, somewhere in the area of
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 01 May (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Once a year, a secret door opens here which will take mortals to the fairy realm. The door was once always open, but after a man stole a fairy flower, access was restricted. The area is also home to an old woman who uses music to lure the weak willed into the lake waters where they drown - once she has killed nine hundred people she will regain her youth and become mortal.

Goat Man

Location: Bridge of Orchy (Argyll and Bute) - Ben Doran
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This Urisk was banished to the mountain by a saint, and has remained here since.

Music in the Air

Location: Bridport (Dorset) - Colmer's Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 1939
Further Comments: Fairy music was once not uncommon in this area. While last heard in 1939 by a group of school children, one hundred years previous it was said a young girl danced herself to death to the tunes.

Market Place

Location: Bridport (Dorset) - Langdon Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The hill and the area around it is said to be a haven for the fairy folk - one man once stumbled upon a fairy market from which he tried to steal gold. By the time he reached home, the coins had changed into pebbles.

Little Red Capped Man

Location: Brixham (Devon) - Area around Lupton House
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The author Violet Tweedale reported seeing a twelve centimetre tall man dressed in green, sitting beneath a small plant. He vanished after a minute of her observing him.

Dying Cattle

Location: Brosna (County Kerry) - Former croft at Knockeencreen (currently a cattle shed?)
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Early twentieth century?
Further Comments: A man whose cattle were dying mysteriously was informed by a passing gypsy that his home was blocking a fairy path, and by leaving the doors open at night, the fairies could pass happily pass through. The man did so, and the deaths stopped.

Gnomes

Location: Broxted (Essex) - Broxted & Tilty area
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Appearing at all times of the day and night, locals have blamed the gnomes and other fairy folk for a multitude of tricks. A number of sightings have been reported, though none in living memory.

Uniformed Pixies

Location: Brynberian (Dyfed) - Pentre Ifan Cromlech
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: These little people, standing a couple of feet tall, wore red military uniforms, as if guarding the burial site. Other people have seen the little people dancing over the dolman.

Fairy Battle

Location: Buckland St Mary (Somerset) - General area
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The town is said to have become a battleground for a fairy war - red fairies with pointed ears engaged little green pixies until the former group were driven out.

Bee Hole Boggart

Location: Burnley (Lancashire) - Area around Burnley Football Club
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Years before the area was developed, the entity patrolled the area looking for people - it once kidnapped and murdered an old woman, leaving her skin to be discovered on a rose bush.

Fairy Hangout

Location: Burnsall (Yorkshire) - Elbolton Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Pixies, fairies and other members of the little people are still said to live in and around the hill.

Last Home

Location: Burpham (Sussex) - Harrow Hill
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The last fairies in England are said to have resided here, until chased away in the 1900's by archaeologists.

Sound of Little People

Location: Butcombe (Somerset) - Fairy's Toot, aka Nempnett Thrubwell
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Sounds attributed to goblins have been heard underground in this area.

Water Spirit

Location: Buxton (Derbyshire) - Moorland near the Roaches
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Appearing just before the witness went skinny-dipping, this thirty foot tall water elemental scared the potential swimmer away.