Such a bucolic April day it was.
Such a meandering spirit drove Dairy to the woods near her home in the green hills of Ireland, but close to Dublin and to the source of fairy folklore.
The fairy queen is many times thought to be a form of the Celtic goddess Morrigan. Fairies have become benign having banished the fears of the lonely countrysides.
There is such a thing as a fairy tree. Nearby was a spring where sick people could drink the water and the water healed them. One bore a golden rosary. A fairy, such as a saint, could be capricious, powerful, and the healing prophet.
Daisy liked to go into the quiet woods and search and dream. A simple acorn, a golden sunlit fern twisting toward the light or pinecones would delight her. She had her drawing book and pencils and would write down her thoughts and impressions. She never doubted that fairies existed. She never doubted that the small creatures were magical. So she wrote her poems and verses and imaginings.
The trees towered above her. Sunlight streaming down in shafts all around her. The birds flew from tree to tree with songs matching their swift wings. Daisy would hum along with them and felt such a contentment in her very soul. The forest of the fairies, small winged creatures, was their home. And she was sharing it.
A fairy is a type of mythical legendary creature found in folklore. Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English and French spirits have given us myths and stories that form a collection of beliefs. A fairy may have magical powers with a human appearance. Fairy has meant an enchanted spirit or magical. Think about the tooth fairy of your childhood.
The English fairy derives from the Early Modern English faerie from the Latin for “the fates.” In Old French romance a faie was a woman skilled in magic and who knew the power of words, of stones, and of herbs.
A fairy represented an illusion or enchantment. And Daisy hoped she would see or hear a fairy while she thought about the silence of the forest. Even those thoughts made her smile.
Her watch had come around to show high noon.
It was time for her picnic so she sat on the verdant forest floor and opened the wicker lunch basket she had filled with some of her favorite lunch foods. A chicken salad with pomegranate seeds, soft poppy seed rolls with fresh dill butter, a mixed fruit compote with strawberries and apple slices, and chocolate brownies for dessert. What a repast she enjoyed!
Do you believe in fairies? Do you believe there is a paint pot of rainbows cascading down through the leafy trees with small fairies dancing?
Daisy took a short nap and when she awoke the sun was high overhead. She felt quite sure that some fairies had visited her and they had sprinkled fairy dust all around making for enchantment. Yes, that was what she chose to believe.