EarthWOrm

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Date: Wednesday, September 1, 1999
Time: 7:52 PM EST
Submitted by: Jenny
Email address: badb_catha_nimue@yahoo.com
Subject: The Isle of Mann

Does anyone here believe in fairies, and I mean, actually believe the Little Poeple listen?
I do, in fact most of my family does, really, it's where I come from (and that doesn't mean inbred madness) the people don't talk in wonder, or talk in a melodramatic fashion, they talk as though the Little People are a fact in existance, and may well be next to them, which is why they are referred to politely as the Little People, or Themselves or some such, never as 'fairies', it's innacurate, insulting and somewhat misleading.
My mother theorised that they may be a living race of people, she thought of the Little People in our history, the Picts, the only Celts who weren't afraid of forests and in fact preferred them, Roman sources back up their small stature and habit of hit and run tactics which involved fighting like maniacs then returning to the safety of the forests, where the Little People live, there and under the Hills.
Of course this doesn't back up the Manx conviction that there are many kinds of Little People, some spiteful, some helpful, though none like to be seen and can cause havoc if they are noticed. Fynoderee, big, ugly and hairy, who likes to thrash the corn for the farmer as help, or Bugganes who can be nasty buggers, of whatever size they please...
The manx are unfailingly polite to the Little Folk, there is the 'fairy bridge' (so named for tourists the actual bridge in question is in a field next door!) and it is customary to greet the Little Folk as you cross, accidents have been known to happen to those who jibed who should have known better...
I don't believe we see less of them now because they never existed, I believe we don't see them now because there is a balance in everything, and magic and technology are on the same scale. The more technology the less magic. The Little Folk are the last remnants of the Pagan times of magic and mystery, and technology cannot be allowed to encroach on their world, the hospitable, polite Manxmen were the perfect people to hide with, as long as they shared their music!
Perhaps I'm strange, but then there's something strange about the Island, and, admittedly, about it's people, the many glens and valleys still intact and undisturbed, the language that can still be heard, the absolute peaceful stillness, the wind strokes you as you would stroke a cat (just don't stand on the Calf!)the people aren't militant, nor are they cowardly, and of course technology is there in it's highest forms, but secluded to the big towns, and rural houses (but they are disparate).
I wish the Little People could keep it that way, but then, there never was a way to fight greed.
All hail to the House of Keys and Tynwald, the oldest continuous Parliament on earth, that lets it's land fall apart 'cause it's not in fitting with the rest of the world to believe in the Little Folk. How absurd.