Fairies: Real Encounters With Little People

by Janet Bord

Hordes of tiny people playing at a spot in Wales called "Fairies Bog"...an impossibly tiny shoe found in Ireland...fairy dust discovered on Mount Shasta, California...the wondrous sighting of a winged woman inside a rose.

These and many more astounding accounts offer tangible evidence about the existence of fairies, dwarves, gnomes, pixies, brownies, and elves. Amazing facts include information on the healing powers of fairies, the connection between the little people and UFOs, fairy sites to visit in the British Isles, and much more!

Genres: Nonfiction, Paranormal, Mythology, Fairies, Spirituality, Folklore, Research

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 10, 1998

About the author

(1945-)

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 2 out of 5]

The words "objective", "truth", and "conviction" have no place in a review of this book. I used them anyway.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a curious little book. After reading it, I am not sure what the author believes. I found that her speculations taken on the tone of belief when referring to UFOs, but not to fairies... which is downright bizarre in context, but doesn't obscure the fact that it's a very entertaining read.

The book begins sounding entirely credulous about reports of encounters with the Fairies (mostly from the British Isles). Then in most of the first part of the book, Ms. Bord gives the sense of being somewhat skeptical -- as if the silly Irishmen are just having a wee tipple, you know, and seeing what Irishmen see when they get drunk enough. Then, upon reaching the chapter on UFOs, everything is reported as absolute fact, with the speculation being sort of whether UFO visitors are from another planet or another dimension -- NOT whether they (or the fairies) have any objective reality. We get choice sentences like, referring to UFO abductees: "It is unlikely that they have really been taken into a spacecraft, however; but it is possible that their captors have taken them temporarily into another world." Kinda sounds a bit credulous; if her intention is to be even passingly objective, she doesn't quite accomplish it.

My complaints, however, do not take away from the fact that I found this an immensely enjoyable and valuable book. Being, personally, of Irish extraction, fey as all fuck, and fond of a wee tipple, I love the bizarre accounts of fairy encounters in Ireland, which Ms. Bord has done a wonderful job of collecting. She leans a bit heavily on Katharine Briggs, but that's all right, it doesn't distract from a reasonable breadth that makes for a great read. She might have included more non-western sources of encounters with little people, but since that's not my personal interest at the moment I didn't mind it. There are some mentions of African, Asian and South Pacific encounters that will serve as interesting guides to further research.

Short version: Loved it, despite its moderate shortcomings.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read. Written as a study of folklore, the author admits that she is neither trying to prove or disprove the existence of faeries. The book is filled with a mix of legends and "eye-witness" accounts of the Little People (mostly from the UK) interspersed with theories and possible causes for the sightings. I found it quite enjoyable and would recommend it for anyone interested in folklore or anthropology.

[~☆~Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not actually sure if this is the one I read but I have one like it.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

10/13/09 Update: Finally finished...and I actually ended up liking this more than I expected. While the intellectual, thinking part of me kept scoffing at the "sightings" there was another part of me that wished I could feel that belief. And for as much as the author lacked logical reasoning for much of the book, I thought these lines from the last page of the book redeemed her as a reasonable person, and I could actually agree with her for these sentences:

"I may not have proved that fairies exist; I may not have proved that there are any other worlds than the one you see around you - but I believe I have shown that there is some mystery to be explored...I would like to think that the Little People do exist and that there are other worlds than this, but I have not experienced either personally, and so I just can't be sure."

From the end of the summer: So I'm only on page 40 or so, but I just wanted to share that this is the BEST book to read before bed! If I'm reading a novel, I sometimes have a hard time putting it down, and I stay up too late. If I'm reading REAL nonfiction, sometimes I lay awake thinking about what I've learned. Since this is such a strange book that isn't a story but isn't really real I just read until I'm drowsy and drift off to sleep.

And in some ways, it's almost like reading someone's weird dream--which is a good introduction to sleep--because the book is reporting "actual" fairy sightings.

(This was one of the gems from my book swap!)

[Mawgojzeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Janet Bord writes in a very comfortable style, which is why I am giving this 2 stars instead of 1. I found her inconsistent in her arguments and caught more than one blatantly incorrect piece of information. A shame, as I was very excited about and primarily read this due to the section concerning fairies/aliens.

[Lenno Vranken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ondanks de mooie cover en titel, moet ik met schroom bekennen dat het inhoudelijke aspect van dit boek zich als teleurstellend afdoet.
De synopsis op de achterkant begint met deze drie zinnen:
'Hoe ze te ontmoeten.
Waar ze te ontmoeten.
En hoe met ze om te gaan...'
Niets hiervan is waar. In de plaats, krijg je als lezer hoofdstuk na hoofdstuk voorgeschoteld van elfengetuigenissen. Dit was zeker boeiend om te lezen, maar niet voor bijna 200 pagina's aan een stuk. Ik had graag meer informatie over elfenlegendes gelezen, hun oorsprong en hun relevantie binnen onze moderne maatschappij. Het was ook leuk geweest om te lezen hoe mensen over heel de wereld hun eigen opvattingen hebben over regels en gebruiken binnen de elfenwereld. Dit soort zaken vind ik uitermate interessant. Maar in de plaats lees je bladzijde na bladzijde over hoe bv. Lisa Janssens in 1820 in een weiland in Schotland een blauw licht zou hebben gezien. Na ieder van deze getuigenissen drukt de schrijver ons tevens stevig op het hart dat geen van deze getuigenissen op echtheid zijn bewezen. Wat was dan überhaupt het nut van het schrijven en uitgeven van dit boek?! Grappig genoeg genoot ik wel erg van de appendix. Hierin staan lokale legendes en geloofsovertuigingen beschreven van Engeland, Wales, Schotland en Ierland. Op deze manier heb ik boeiende verhalen opgepikt, zoals het bestaan van de Elfenvlag in Dunvegan Castle, op het eiland Skye. Heel jammer dat het grootste deel van dit boek niet bevat wat de cover beloofd!

[brooklenn leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m of Celtic descent so fairy lore is in my blood. I could easily believe they exist.
This could have been a five star read, except for a totally personal thing. The mentions of UFOs in relation to the Fay would sort of take me out of fairy farm of mind and get disjointed to me. Still, this was wholly enjoyable!

[Luciana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it up until chapter 5 when they brought in UFO and they lost me and I got so annoyed with the chapter I skipped to chapter 6 but UFO was still brought up even till the end of chapter 7 though chapter 7 was more bearable. I found it ridiculous to believe fairies and UFO are related

[Laurali Star · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about fairy lore and how the true stories throughout time line up with facts. It was by far, one of the most interesting books on fairy sightings. I can tell that the author, Janet Bord, really did her homework and researched everything thoroughly.

There seems to be a continuing theme with fairies that carries throughout the book, based up the author's research. That theme is that fairies will not just warm up to anyone. You have to earn their trust, which makes perfect sense to me.

It also seems that the people who actually had a fairy sighting, were not looking for it or expecting it. Overall, to me, this is a book about human behavior and fairy behavior and how the two intertwine throughout history.

For example, there was one situation where a woman had brownies cleaning her house for her daily. The woman made the mistake of complaining about the way that they did things. After that, the fairies sort of punished her for it and definitely never helped her again after that.

Fairies are really looking for gratitude and human kindness. Unlike angels, fairies have an ego, and they tend to wreak havoc on people who don't appreciate their kind acts or people who treat mother earth badly.

Throughout the book there is a hint of mischief in how the fairies interact with human beings. The author tells true stories of fairies casting a sort of mesmerizing spell on people if they get to close to where they live.

The spell leaves the person a little lost and disoriented. As someone who has spotted and taken pictures of tree fairies and the gnome that lived in the tree while I was in Sedona, Arizona, I found all of these stories line up.

After taking pictures, after I got back to Florida, I had an accident where I dropped my computer from tripping on the cord. I lost all the pictures. As I was planning on sharing these pictures on my blog, I can't help but think that the fairies had something to do with this. They seem to like to go between the earth realm and the fairy realm without too much attention.

If you are lucky enough to have a fairy encounter or would like to, it is strongly suggested you leave an offering for the fairies. A shiny crystal or bell, light an incense, or give them sweets.

Fairies throughout time have displayed that they like this type of gratitude. Anyways, I could go on and on forever on all the things I learned in this book but I think it be better if you just give it a try and read it yourself!

[Steve Cran]

Fariries
Janet Bord, Carrol and Graf
1997

Pray tell me do you believe in fairies or the " good folk " as they are called? The jury is still out according to the critically thinking author. Plenty of people still believe in them though and there are several people even during modern times that still claim to see fairies. We are distanced from the belief of our elders.

The first two chapters discuss various fairy sightings , both ancient and modern, in that order. There are several salient features. First off fairies are usually seen in groups dancing around in a circle. They prefer to shun human contact . Most of the time they ignore us and disappear. Occcasionally they will retaliate with cruel jokes and even physical injury. Faeries very in their appearance . Some times they are 3-4 feet tall. Some times they are a few inches to a foot tall. At times they have wing but usually they look like bearded dwarves with brown crinkled faces. They ussually wear green and or red.
Faeries tend to live in old forts, ruins, hills and certain trees and bushes and woe to the one who trespasses or destroys their area.

What exactly are the origins are faeries? Who are they? Reading UFO abduction stories and fairie abduction stories revealing many common features. The aliens ate usually tiny and green and are about 3-4 feet tall. Some are even a few inches high . The pictures of aliens usually show them with large heads and large eyes. They also have horns at times. They abductions by and large are similiar to fae abductions. There is the distorted sense of time where in for the abducted a few minutes may have passed where as in reality years and years have passed. Some times human were abducted by both aliens and faeries for pro-creation purposes. Read through some early Garry abduction accounts and you will hear of people being taken onto carriages and flown through the sky and landing far away from the place of abduction. Very similar to a UFO abduction.

Other faery origins include nature symbols, fallen gods and angels and the souls of dead people. The land of the fae has long since been believed to be Under ground. Other believe it is an alternate realm, some thing that physicists are buying into

Either way the truth is for you to decide.

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love collections of first or second-hand sightings of unexplained phenomena. Fairies by Janet Bord is what it claims to be, page after page of folks having run-ins with creatures/beings/fairies. It's fascinating but disturbing. Are all of these people experiencing hallucinations or is there actually something completely outside of reality as we know it? It's an interesting question.

Janet Bord engages in a bit of opinionated guesswork as to what this phenomena may be, which I didn't enjoy as much. If you're interested in a book that reads similarly to this one without the hopeless hypothesizing (because how on earth could we ever prove things one way or another), read Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallee. He presents the stories as they occurred but doesn't attempt to untangle the threads of what they may mean. With his straight-forward approach, I believe he presents a more unified vision of the possible connection between historical fairy activity and the more current ufo phenomena.

The coolest thing about this book is a small index in the back of places in the UK that fairies have been sighted. If someone was so inclined, he or she could construct a "fairy tour" of the various areas that the beings have appeared and try to catch a glimpse for herself. Wouldn't that be fun?

[Eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. If you don't believe in the little people, why bother reading a book about such? Anyways, naysayers aside, I found this book entertaining. This book was recommended to me by a relative of mine (we grew up in a culture that does very much believe in such entities) and I haven't regretted the purchase at all. Fairy/Faerie lore from around the world fascinates me. This book deals mostly with sightings from overseas. Loved the photos, the shoe made of mouse-hide, with a worn out sole is a definite curiosity. Accounts from regular folks, even a Catholic priest, it was a fun read. If you are into studying faerie lore, read this book. If you want to idly pass some time and have an enjoyable, whimsical read, then this book is for you. If you immediately scoff at such notions, pass this book by, you're too close minded for the magick within these pages ;)

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was...weird. I know what you’re thinking: “It’s a book about fairies, written in a manner suggesting they exist. Of course it’s weird. And so are you, psycho.” If you are thinking that, you have a fair point. And yes, I’m a little bit crazy, but in a non-violent, nature loving, pseudo hippie kind of way. My sanity aside, I honestly don’t know precisely what to say about this book.

Stylistically, it was a decent piece of writing. The author only had one or two habits that annoyed me, like starting to address a topic in Chapters 3 and 4 only to tell me that she would go into detail about it in Chapter 6. If that’s the case, don’t bring it up until Chapter 6. That started to grate on my nerves pretty damn quick.

Somewhere around chapter 6 the author took a sharp left turn from “kinda kooky” into “what the hell?!” as she suggested that aliens and UFOs were somehow one and the same with fairies. Um, what? Not only that but from that point forward, it was like she periodically forgot that this book was supposed to be about fairies. Not UFO sightings, not alien abduction stories, not ghosts (although, ghosts are more interesting than aliens IMO.) Nor was it supposed to be a book about out of body experiences. She spent more pages talking about these and similar topics than about actual fairies. ( The author states that she co-authored a book with her husband about aliens and UFOs. It seems like She didn’t understand that this is a DIFFERENT book.) It felt to me as though the description of the book as well as cover and even the author’s own introduction were misleading.

The other thing that was disappointing about this book may have had more to do with the format of my copy vs. anything actually wrong with the book or the narrative. I bought a mass produced paperback version. There are multiple photos included within the text that the author references a lot. The problem is that in the paperback version, they all take on the appearance of that badly photocopied hand out your high school History teacher would give you that was supposed to be pictures of some important landmark or something but really just looked like a Rorschach ink blot.

Overall, I can’t say that I loved this book. (As you can probably tell) I didn’t completely hate it, either. Best thing I can say is that I feel ambivalent about having read it. And there’s just no frickin’ way fairies and aliens are the same. Sorry, lady, but no...just...no.

[Julia Bilderback · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had been sitting on my shelf at home for a while and when it appeared on my recommendations on GoodReads I decided to bump it up to the front of my to read list. It was just ok. It got off topic of fairies several times and started talking about UFOs. I can understand them using this as a possible explanation of fairies (if I push it to the extreme), but they went way too far. I wanted to read about fairies and not UFOs. They also went out into too much detail about other subjects like near death experiences. If you are looking for a book on the paranormal with a small emphases on fairies this would be a good book for you, but if you want something that focuses on just fairies there are better books out there to do so.

[Jeffrey Babbitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really want to believe in fairies, but there is a lot of critical skepticism in my brain that has to be overcome first. Unfortunately, this book didn't do it. Interesting that so many people have had direct experiences. Mildly interesting, the similarities between the Little People and the Little Green Men of UFO fame. But the author's conclusions are not nearly supported by the evidence and theory she presents. Sigh. Back to wishing.

[Lolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was very fascinating. I especially appreciated that there were no truth-claims made in the book as to the veracity of reports. The cross-cultural overlap was also quite fascinating, as was the positing of overlap with alien reports. It inspired several interesting thoughts in my mind, and that makes it especially good.

[Mark Hetherington · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole this is a great book but it drops a star for veering too often in the direction of UFOs alien abductions. I know they're related subjects and can understand why they might get mentioned but this book does it a little too often. Still very much worth reading even so.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably the weakest book on the topic. So many better books out there

[Sonja Sekigahama · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book

This is a collection of reports to sightings of fairies or "little green men", a couple of UFO references depending on the era of when the report was made. Some date in the 19th century, but many people reported in the 20th. Entire as well. It is interesting to read the original reports. Much food for thought.

[Schmoozyschlepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another extraordinary book I read for research on "The Malice of Fairies". It is a list of some nearly contemporary encounters with inexplicable small beings. It naturally links these experiences with those of people who have seen or believe they have experienced, aliens. There are a number of interesting photographs in the book, which, if authentic, would make most people think twice about whether there might not be "something else" going on in this world, that parallels the rational place we live in. I was delighted to see "the fairy shoe" which I was told about years ago in Ireland. It is certainly an impressive piece of work, though whether of human manufacture or not it is hard to say. However, given the prodigious miniature work some humans can create, I would not be surprised to hear it had been made as a virtuoso piece by some cobbler somewhere not far from the Beara Peninsula where it was found.

[The Elves · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book...
dear lovers of faerie lore,

... like Lenihan's Meeting the Other Crowd is a modern supplement to Evans-Wentz's The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries. What is particularly interesting about this book, for these elves, was the chapter comparing ancient fairy sightings and modern UFO sightings; they have a lot in common. This book is perhaps a little less personal than Meeting the Other Crowd, but still filled with good research and well worth reading.

kyela,
the silver elves
authors of 31 books on elven magic and enchantment, including Through the Mists of Faerie: A Magical Guide to the Wisdom Teaching of the Ancient Elven

[Natasha 4E · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book twenty years ago, when I was still deep in my faerie research phase. The book jumped out of the cupboard, clearly asking to be read again.
This is a very interesting collection of faerie story's. But I must say I got a bit tired of all the scary faerie story's now. I suppose people have always liked scary story's, and since they had no tv back then, this is how they entertained each other. Thing is: I don't care for scary story's. At all. Also I did not understand what the ufo story's had to do with faeries, other then that some aliens were also small and green.

[Michael Delaware · Rating 4 out of 5]

A supernatural subject matter with fascinating folklore and first hand accounts well researched by the author. There is a lot of interesting accounts. My only reason for giving it just 4 stars is that I think the book could have used some better editing to make it flow easier to the reader, and there were times I would have liked a little better description on the locations and events.
Overall it is a tantalizing read on a subject filled with mysteries.

[Colleen Bousquet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good account of fairy sightings, and what the fairies activities were when sighted by people. Tell about the good things fairies did, as well as some of the bad things they did to people and their property when the people pissed off the fairies. Lots of discussion on WHO AND WHAT the fairies really are. More like a documentation-type book.

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's stance on the subject (see the tailpiece) made me feel hopeful for the future of collections like these. I appreciated all the information on aliens and their connection with fairies, which I had been wondering about right when this book came to me.

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good one.

[LondonFog · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems poorly researched and the credibility is a bit unstable, however it was a good read nonetheless. Good for stories and comparisons on the subject.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviews claims peoples have made of seeing fairies including the famous British photos of two little girls in a garden with fairies.

[Jessica Kocan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm on the fence with this one. I really really tried to like it, but it just wasn't happening.