So, from all of the stuff from the previous dozen posts or more: YES to both of those questions.
But what IS this "FAERY" anyway?
What do the Witnesses Report?
We've, by now, seen what they report, but to concentrate on those conclusions:
I didn't just look at the 50 credible cases in this way. I looked at a lot more. The above represent the "art" for over 230 of the incidents in Leprecat (some of the 50 are in there but there were many others of the best Fairy Census types as well as encounters spoken about with generally better narratives.) When I look at that larger array. I get both more confident of some things, and less assertive on others.
When I look at the whole mass of Leprecat incidents, that process (more confident about some things; less assertive about others) continues to magnify. So here those views are:
A. People have objectively real encounters with what look to be entities as often described in folklore. These "Little People" are generally of a two to four foot height (almost wholly so in the best interviewed cases, but spreading out to include entities below one foot and over normal sized in the fuller set of reports.) Small sets of entities which do not fit into this category will be discussed later;
Comments on this graph:
1. This was a LOT of work, and I still can't face you and say "take this to the bank." I've commented somewhat on this effort in a previous post. People just don't take care in their descriptions (usually) so as to make a researcher's logging job easy. The biggest deal here was the common use of the phrase "the size of a child" to describe height. Well, I did my homework on that, and we humans reach three feet high rather quickly. The common phrase COULD refer to someone taller (4 foot?), but context and comparison with cases where an actual number was used seemed to be pointing to the three foot measure. SO: I've dumped all those "size of a child" cases into the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 column above. I feel OK about that but maybe you will not.
2. Given that decision, you can see the resultant peak. This peak and the other columns (with the exception of very tall entities) are dependent upon "classically" described entities of the dwarfish/ elvish/ gnomish/ leprechaunish kind (The Dark Green number, plus the lighter green for classic hairy wild dwarves, and the brown/ [showing black above] for the Native American classic entities.) Classic Little People figures very much dominate the peak and middle of the graph. If you "Go down to the Woods Today" and get lucky, they are what you'll likely see.
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B. Most of these entities are dressed but not in modern clothing. They continue to mimic the clothing as described in the older literature. In the cases involving Native American witnesses, this clothing mimics Native American "frontier" attire. Exceptions to these sentences will also be made later. Of the dwarfish tribe, for instance, wearing NO clothes is abnormal, but not non-existent;
C. Interactions with humans vary widely. Most often, the interaction appears on the surface to be accidental. Other times, it is more as if the "Other Crowd" sought out the human involved. Whereas there is much talk of humans deliberately seeking out the Fairy World, there is, with one notable exception, no credible case where that intention actually succeeded. The notable exception is the Moyra Doorly experience(s) on the Isle of Arran, where, on a lark, she and her camping mate, tried a recently learned meditation/ "defocussing" technique to see what might happen, for the adventure of it (and having no real hope that anything would result.) In by far the majority of these encounters, even when the interaction appears on the surface accidental, the feeling that I've received about this is the same one that I've ended up with regarding UFO cases: The interactions occur, perhaps even always, on purpose. The moments of interaction are chosen by the Other Crowd and are usually "Display" for some unknown intention. In Simon Young's Fairy Census, he had a query where the witness could respond concerning this, and many witnesses DID feel that their encounter was a display for their benefit, but still not knowing WHY it happened.
D. The title of the painting above is: Are fairies nice? There is almost no evidence in credible cases that fairy incidents can be judged as clearly "nice." I didn't graph this. Trying to even crudely quantify or even characterize friendliness vs hostility is really rough with these narratives. Here's what you begin to feel about that reading through several dozens of incidents. (a) There are cases of hostility which are just like irresponsible yahooism --- messing with people like the poor mailman and his scattered posts. There aren't many of those; (b) There are cases of avoidance behavior --- seeing you and quickly going away. There are lots of those, and, if we anthropomorphize that, these aren't what you could call "friendly" either. (c) There are cases where there seems to be anger at our intrusion. Again not friendly. (d) There are cases where the atmosphere seems more curious. That's neutral; not friendly. (e) finally there are cases where the entity seems to intend something friendly, a service or even just companionship. These cases can be called friendly, but are far from the majority. The array of differences here makes any general statement impossible to defend.
The cases do not support the general statement that Faery Folk are friendly. The more common case would be that they are a folk with individual varieties of behaviors just like ourselves. However, they do not seem to merely ape the behavior of their "chosen(?)" witnesses --- i.e., if the witness is a "bad" person, he doesn't automatically get a bad fairy; if good person, not a good fairy. One MIGHT do so, but these are not some sorts of Justice Machines.
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I'm quitting for this post now. ... a lot went into it, and there's much to meditate upon.
I still intend to write about some of the less numerous classes of beings, also the Faery/ UFO question, and go "ALL THE WAY FOOL" with some non-defensible speculations.
But, next time.
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