Week 12 Story: The Vengefulness of Fairies

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When Anwyn was a little girl in the Welsh countryside, she was often bullied at school for being small. Most nights, she went home at night and cried alone in her bed. One night, she heard what sounded like faint footsteps next to her. When she looked at the ground, she saw a number of little fairies dancing in a circle. When Anwyn spotted them, the queen fairy flew up to her and wiped a tear off of her cheek.

“Now, why are you crying, love? We were out in the garden dancing among the mushrooms and we heard your wailing.”

Anwyn had heard tales of fairies, but was surprised that they would bother coming to comfort her. “Well, ma’am, I’ve been picked on a lot at school. The other girls say I’m small, and sometimes they push me down for fun because I’m weak.”

The queen fairy’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, I see. Well, you won’t need to worry about that anymore. I’m sure that you will grow into a big, strong girl and no one will pick on you ever again.” Then, the queen fairy pulled out a little blue bottle, said some funny words, and sprinkled some powder in Anwyn’s hair.

“What’s that for?” asked Anwyn. The queen fairy didn’t reply, but started dancing in a circle again with her followers.

Anwyn eventually drifted off to sleep, and when she awoke, she found a coin on her nightstand. When she went to school, the other girls did not seem interested in bullying her. Anwyn thought that this was strange, but she realized in the weeks to come that they weren’t going to pick on her any longer. Each morning she found a little gold coin, and this continued for a number of years.

As Anwyn grew up, she felt the protection that the fairies provided her with wherever she went, even after the gold coins didn’t come anymore. She grew into a tall, strong woman, and eventually found a husband and had a beautiful, large baby.

One day, Anwyn and her husband were at the fair. Over a row of shrubs, they heard a distinct type of music and new that the fairies must be dancing somewhere nearby. They stopped to listen until the sound faded. Anwyn recalled the help that the fairies had given her, and she realized that she had never told her husband. Anwyn then decided to tell her husband about the protection that the fairy queen had offered her and the spell she performed with magical words and powder.

When the couple returned home from the fair, they sent the babysitter home and went to check on their child. What was once a large, beautiful baby was now small and weak-looking. Anwyn grew sad and realized that she had made a mistake in telling her husband of her interaction with the fairies.

Author’s Note: This tale was inspired by the Welsh (Emerson) unit. Many of the stories in the unit are about fairies, and I realized that although fairies can be very helpful when they want to be, they are also frequently vengeful. A lot of the time, a person who has been helped by the fairies makes the mistake of talking about their experience to someone else. The fairies do not like it when people talk about their deeds, even if it is in a positive light, and they take revenge. My story draws particularly from Three Short Tales of Fairies and The Fairies of Caragonan. One of the three short tales was about a girl who fairies visited every night and left her money. She grew into a tall, strong woman, found a tall, strong husband, and they had a child with these same attributes. When she tells her husband about the encounter, their child is made small. I added the Welsh name Anwyn, her trouble of being bullied at school, and I created all of the dialogue. Also, I took the idea of the queen fairy, dancing in circles, and the spell from The Fairies of Caragonan.

If you would like to read these tales, click here: link.

Emerson, Peter. Welsh Fairy-Tales and Other Stories. 1892.