I grew up and still live in rural Newfoundland. My great aunt Marjorie firmly believed in fairies. She was never afraid of walking in the dark because she said the fairies were with her. There are still no streetlights in the community and you can't see a foot in front of you in the dark most times. She passed on many years ago but was as tough as they came. She certainly would have been a great source to speak on this topic.
Great video. Me nan always forced me to turn me socks inside out or take something shiny to give to them before I went in the woods as a youngster. Over the years I've had some strange experiences relating to the woods that just pure mystify comprehension, and I attribute these to what we call fairies. I don't believe they are little flying michevious people but rather spirits of the forest for lack of a better term. The closest way I can describe what I mean is when you come across a particular tree, outcroping of rocks or a freshwater spring or what have you and you feel a peculiar sensation that's not entirely fear or excitement; it's a sensation that brings out the goosepimples on your arms and sends chills down the spine even though what's directly infront of you should be the pinnacle of the mundane. I dunno, I probably sound like a loon but it's the closest way I can describe what I mean to say.
Our mom used to tell us to wear our jackets inside out if the fairies took us. She also said that the fairies didn't like swearing because they were really fallen angels. Not to mention how scared we were about leaving windows open at night. I hated berry picking because I was afraid of the fairies.
As a child I saw will-o'-the-wisps in a marsh in Normandy during warm summer nights. They were so strange and moved so creepily that I could easily see how people would think they were fairies.
I lived in Labrador for a few years and they had similar stories except bread was enjoyed by the fairies and if you scatter bread in the forest or around the crib of a newborn the fairies will instead take the bread instead of taking you or the baby.
I moved to pouch cove(just outside st.johns) when I was 10, my mom grew up here. She always tells me a story about her great grandmother, when she was a little girl she got lost on the mountain behind my house for a couple days and then she just showed up again. When asked, she told the family that the fairies helped her, that a little girl walked her back out.
The fairies followed us from the British isles and lived alongside us. When our menfolk left for the war, the fairies followed them, for they could cross the sea on the wooden ships we still used in those days. They wished to see their kin in England and Scotland where the Newfoundlanders stayed at Edinburgh castle and the woods of Salisbury Plain. When they left for France and Gallipoli, the fairies followed. They were curious to see how the world had changed since the days of Offa, and Hengist, and Drake. There, they found themselves trapped and left behind as there was too much cold iron and steel, and the ships we took to come home were made of steel as well. They’re still hiding, and waiting for us, and will wake our dead and bring them home when we return to fetch them. Or so my grandfather told me.
"The Secret of the Faerie Ring" by Patrick Collins is entertaining and compelling fiction. Set in 1920's Newfoundland, it explores the mystery of a "Faerie Ring" of ancient beech trees on a farm in Harbour Grace on the Avalon Peninsula. The trees are still there today...
I been in the woods a millions times everywhere and never seen a fairy or one bug me or even a bear. You got to have love in you and not be a wierdo and nature just fits with you.
There is multiple different accents. People in the 1600’s from, say, Cork, all moved to one area. Dublin to another. French to another and so forth. There was no real roads between most of these communities for hundreds of years and the accent stayed pretty pure. A fair amount of the older crowd can speak some Gaelic still round the bay, specially the southern shore.
my grandmother believed in the Fairies. that was common thing, to warn me not to wander too far, or the fairies might steal me away! she was born in Spaniards Bay, NF, and also believed in ghosts, spirits, and tokens.
Their destiny is different from ours,they crave what we have,which makes them dangerous, some say they are some of those Angels who fell,not good enough to return to the firmament, and not evil enough to decend into the abyss....you don't want to run into one of them..it's not like the Walt Disney fairies ...not at all..you come across one of those lads you might be in real trouble.
I was telling my buddy that they are real.I sent him a video from you tube "strange things found in a basement in london" @ weeks later he called me from Georgia and said he saw a fairy man with a beard and clothes 3-4 inches tall looking him right in his face.I said did you get a pic or a video he said when he took his phone out it started flying fast like a bird at night.you really cant see exactly what i was, but was kinda big like a bird size bug. Never heard of them taking people away.I thought they were angels that. mixed with insects.still do.They mixed with gods creation thats where you get giants and dinasoars and mermaids according to the book of enoch.
One day in late August of 59, I (was 12 years old) I went very picking with my mother and her friend and her daughter.. As was typical in that place, we had bought food, and we made a fire and “boiled up. We were 😂sitting down eating, when the other lady started talking about the fairies. I listened, fascinated. She started talking about how the fairies took children and how there was this one child in the place that nobody ever saw because the family kept him hidden. He actually wasn’t the child because the fairies had taken the real child and replaced him with, this fairy child. I was not at the age of discretion, and knew nothing about keeping my mouth shut so I started to laugh, and she said, what are you laughing at Missie? I said that nobody believes in fairies. There is no such thing! She got absolutely furious, and grew herself up to her full height of five foot two, glared at me and shouted “Miss know it all. Well, I can tell you people a lot more educated than you believe in fairies .You are just a stupid child! I was in the doghouse, but sufficient to say, I still didn’t believe in fairies. She was never really friendly with mom again. By the way, this wasn’t a isolated village somewhere the outskirts and outlying areas of Newfoundland this was a small town yes but it was like the suburbs of a much larger town and it was within 20 miles of St. John’s.
That's a wonderful story, thank you for sharing! I find Newfoundland's fairy folklore very fascinating...the concept where they swap a human baby for one of their own is called changelings, and it's so interesting to realize that a large portion of the population held these beliefs, and some still do...
I’ll tell ya I’m got turned around in the woods on night probably 2 or 3 am in the woods in the Newfoundland and at one point I got to a small pond with blueish lights in a semi circle in front of me. Creepy as fuck I’ll tell cuz I was in the middle of now where
Newfoundland's population was split between Irish from the very South of Ireland and from the South West of England. Depending where you are, some of the accents are lifted right out of specific counties. Most of the Irish immigration occurred before the Famine, so the interaction with the English colonists was different, though strained in it's own way.
@AAH Replies my knowledge of English settlement is less than Irish, I didn't study this period of history, per se, but I think that it was mainly from Somerset and Devon regions. Irish is primarily from Waterford, Wexford, and some from Cork. My knowledge is based mostly off of what we learned in our Newfoundland Culture classes in school. :)
@@alexkilgour1328 They would have spoken both irish gaelic and english ,depending on where they were from.Wexford for example would have been english speaking in the 18 century whereas people from cork waterford and tipperary would have spoken irish as the mother tongue and irish gaelic was still spoken in newfoundland as late as the 1920s.Most countries cities in the world have gaelicised names like nua eabharch for new york,iodail for italy ,but Newfoundland is the only place outside ireland with an original irish name Talamh an easc land of the fish.
I'm the tallest lepacaun in the world now..My cousin mad Sweeney was but I am now the Mad Tom of bedlam..if you sit on a rock wall leave me some honey bread and coin and if you have a shite in woods put a rock on it or the Chieftain who ran from a fight shall take your children in flight
Always evil, fallen spirits can appear as angels of light. They were all over the world. The Name of Jesus is the only power that can protect a person.
Jesus is a modern Roman Greek name created in the 15th century ... The true name of the man spoken of in biblical text is Yeshuah.. That is your personal belief.. What you believe will protect you may be different from the belief of another. Also ... Just because something isn't Christian doesn't mean it's fallen or evil .. There are many religions many cultural beliefs .. None are absolute.
