May 13, 2004

"Elves and fairies are usually considered to be part of our folkloric and literary heritage, not creatures we might actually meet. MOYRA DOORLY certainly thought so until, living on a Scottish Island, she had a series of unnerving encounters with the Little People." [Via Disinformation.]

(The relationship between elves and monkeys is well established.)

posted by homunculus 20 years ago
  • Umm . . that's . . .weird.
  • Elves are prevalent in Iceland, too.
  • I'd love for their to be elves and faeries and dragons and wizards! But... I ain't seen nothin' to prove that there is. And this little story doesn't offer anything except anecdote.
  • There are faeries in most countries. Most folklore-believing cultures (not the neo-pagan people, but the originals) are scared stiff of the unseen realm, and the anecdotal evidence strongly recommends their attitude.
  • well I was all excited until I noticed the source. not to imply that the fortean times is unreliable, but...
  • And unicorns and manticores and pete_bests and flying monkeys and little green men. Oh wait. One outta the five is real. I saw a flying monkey yesterday.
  • My grandmother used to tell how, while a child in a forest near a small city, a couple (man & woman) came from behind the bushes and asked her to accompany them to their home. They were short, pudgy looking, dressed like tirolese or mexican dancers. That their kept referring to their home being underground made her bolt and run away.
  • their invisibility a consequence of both the prevailing materialist and scientific worldview and the bad press they have received. Fairies get bad press? I mean, there was that time I was hoping for a five-spot from the Tooth Fairy and got two quarters instead, but I didn't take out a newspaper ad to complain.
  • There are faeries in most countries. Most folklore-believing cultures (not the neo-pagan people, but the originals) are scared stiff of the unseen realm, and the anecdotal evidence strongly recommends their attitude. Well, but we're all scared of the "unseen realm" to a certain extent. I don't believe in ghosts, but graveyards at night give me the heebie jeebies. Doesn't mean that there are faeries and goblins out there. One anthropologist proposes the idea that we're scared of the dark because of predators that would attack in the night and the emotional vestigal "tail" of that is night fears. I just haven't heard or seen anything that I'd even actually call "evidence" of the little folk. Do you have any?
  • Now don't you be disbelieving the little fair folk. They'll sour your milk, scare the cat, and give you the double whammy like nobody's business! Fortean Times may be the greatest magazine on the planet. Their interest is unexplained phenomena, but they're skeptical of everything, including skepticism.
  • My grandmother used to tell how, as a little child, she once stumbled upon a couple (man & woman) that came out of the bushes, in a wood near her hometown. They wanted her to follow them to 'their home'. That they were short and pudgy, wore clothes like a tyrolean dancer, and referred to their home as being in a nearby underground cave scared her so she ran away. Handn't she, maybe I wouldn't be writing this..?
  • The subtle is a mysterious place: be careful for what you look for you might find it: reality can only be defined collectively with communication: science is common ground. certainsome1,The psychology of fear is quite extraordinary: I remember reading in Time magazine when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace first was released, as to how the new evil character they introduced was basically a sum of all the fears of humanity. Even so, he did not scare me for a second. I think the reason for this was that he was a creature of the light - something we could see. Maybe we are most fearful of fears we have not discovered. The writer's comparison of the 'unseen realm' to magic eye pictures is very interesting. Here's an experiment you should NEVER try at home: sit in a room, preferably at night and look at everything as if you are looking at a magic eye picture. Try to clear your mind, yet try to increase your level of primal observation: your instincts. Keep this going for a while and you will probably see something extraordinary - usually accompanied by spine tingling. I believe this is the path to madness: the reduction of what is real, and what isn't into an incoherent blur. If you cannot relate to reality, you cannot function logically. My point here is that you should think twice before looking for fairies.
  • niccolo- ever consider that reality and logic may be a crutch for those who can't handle the mysterious?
  • Here's a MeFi thread about elves in Iceland.
  • Ol' H.P. said it best, paraphrased mind, "Logic is an island in a sea of insanity. There are things down there that'd eat a man without noticing." Reality may be consensual, but if you lot don't stop poking holes in it, with your fairies and your dragons, then the Things from Below will catch on and then we all get eaten. Just 'cause they're out there doesn't mean we should invite them back. It's like a dam. All it takes is a few elves in the wrong place and Whoops! it's hello Cthulthu /five in the morning insane ramblings.
  • Do I have evidence of the unseen? No. Nor do I have evidence of its non-existence. No one does. All I know is that a few hundred years ago, before the scientific world-view came to dominate, the faery-realm was as real to the population as Jesus is to Christians today (who's gonna tell Dubya he's delusional?). I'm not in a position to consider the pre-scientific world view wrong, although I -- like the whole of the Western world (except Dubya and his predecessors, like Kenneth Hagin) -- have never seen an invisible being.
  • I ... have never seen an invisible being. Of course you haven't. That's because they're invisible!
  • Hello Cthulhu, while terrible in his own way, is no match for the great dread Plush Cthulhu, who sits on my desk watching... always watching....
  • Do I have evidence of the unseen? Well, these faeries appear to be pretty "seen" by a select few... I'm just thinking that with, you know, cameras and everything we got now that there might be a few pictures... Preferably not of the grainy, shadowy variety. I'm not in a position to consider the pre-scientific world view wrong I understand what you're getting at and do think that there are things that our Western point of view can't explain, so we ignore or laugh at them (Eastern medical practices for one), but... Aren't we all in the position to consider the pre-scientific world wrong? Without evidence other than anecdote, they're just a cool story. "How could so many people see the same thing?" you may ask. The same way that people who read the famous book on alien abduction, which introduced the current football-shaped eyes, upside-down pear-shaped head suddenly started seeing those aliens... they expected to, they wanted to.
  • Every one knows that you can't take pictures of fairys and elves and ghosties and Bigfoot!! And they don't like skeptics. So there, certainsome1. phuttt
  • They certainly could exist. It'd be awfully hard for 'em, considering how much iron we have in things these days.
  • Eerie flit the Seely Folk.
  • Well, there are some photographs of fairies...
  • The fairy pictures were admitted to be fakes just before the women who had faked them died. And is pictorial evidence any better than anecdotal?
  • Maybe we don't see fairies because they have purposely pulled their kingdom away from ours, or maybe just hidden themselves in a carpet. But, of course, we should never get too sentimental, because everyone knows the fey are not wonderful creatures of magic and light, but cold bastards who would rip off our limbs if it would amuse them.
  • Well, there are some photographs of fairies... Except, I remember reading that the photographer admitted, eventually, that they were fake. (no link, unfortunately)
  • [post-preview: what Skrik said]
  • See, now I'm all disappointed, see, cause I thought like fairy ring fungus was all like ring worm fungus, see.
  • PF, is fairy ring fungus like, some sort of new STD? There is an infestation of fairies in the living room. Get out the DDT.
  • some magic mushroom books claim that a sufficient dose of the fungus allows the visionary to take up an "I/Thou" relationship with the trip... in other words if you get really tripped out you can end up talking to the spirit of the mushroom, which is said to be an intergalactically connected being in at least 7 dimensions
  • CAUTION: links contain saccharine, especially the second one! Read at your own risk. Fairies have no aversion to revels in horticultural settings, but under no circumstances should they be treated with fungicides or DDT, either, BlueHorse. Otherwise, the gobble-uns'll getcher!
  • if you get really tripped out you can end up talking to the spirit of the mushroom Mush in da Room, reprazent, reprazent!
  • They have fairy rings in the garden of the house where I am staying. I had no idea that fairy rings really existed in the UK. Are they in Europe as well?
  • They're pretty much everywhere that the fungi that cause them can grow, jb.
  • Anyone know the range of the fungus? I have never seen/heard of them in North America. And for some reason the rings in the college garden here have no mushrooms - I thought it was because the groundskeepers would have killed them (they are obsessive about their grass), but my fiance thinks it's another form of similar fungus. (This is basically a transparent plea for a friendly biologist or botanist to share any info they might have : )
  • We get toadstool rings in well watered lawns here in the desert, and especially in the rainy Pacific Northwest--same same?
  • *hides behind chair Oh, Beeswacky, how did you know that was the poem that used to scare me stiff as a kid? I had a book with pictures of the goblins--horrible creatures with long goblin noses with long grabby boney fingers and arms. I'm ashamed to report I scribbled in it with ink all over the goblins at age four. Mom said it was the only book I had ever defaced. Scary goblins. Hold me.
  • Pooer BlueHorse! -- a clear case of child abuse! Many think James Whitcomb Riley was a montrously over-rated poet. And I'll bet that's what terrified you, as your horse sense shyed from the innate ghastliness of the Gobble-uns piece. Concepts of what's funny change over time -- anyway, Riley's style was considered 'humourous' once. Think of it as kitsch, it's slightl;y less awful. Maybe.
  • Go, Vaclav! Ingesting mushrooms can be fun! Whee!
  • Heh! Chalk one up for the Good Folk!
  • Sue them!
  • For god's sakes, make that an FPP!! That's awesome!
  • Go for it.
  • Um... no. Writing all that a href= crap hurts my pinkie.
  • I've got blisters on my pinkie.
  • Um. I just don't know how to describe the conflict within me.
  • Elf ears are definite no-gos. Spock ears I can totally get behind.
  • If you check out her blog, you can also see her new finger-tattoos, if you're so inclined.
  • > Body-Mod: Elf Ears It's quite a good job, though, isn't it? I mean the final result is clean and almost scar free. Though I would've expected elf ears to be longer, I think.
  • Not as bad as I'd thought it would be. Human ears are such a strange shape anyway that having a pointy bit on top looks almost appealing. I predict it will catch on.
  • It may catch on, but will eventually fall out of fashion.
  • Though Eric Bana has a previous form playing a character with deformed ears.
  • I think they're hot.
  • Some people do some odd things in a desperate bid for attention. No, really...I mean, most times, people do these things to be "different". But doesn't "different" come from within? Personally, I'd rather be friends with Albert Einstein than someone who cuts up their body and rearranges it in odd ways so as to be noticed. I mean, c'mon, who do you think would carry on a more interesting conversation - this person, or Jon Stewart? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for being unconventional...ah, I could tell stories from my youth... well, and from my middle age, too, truth be known. But there's a difference between carving yourself up because you want to be noticed, and oh, maybe choosing to live in an underground house (which a lot of people think is freaky), because it's more energy efficient. I suppose there's a infinitesimally small chance that she's doing it as a way of taking a stand against racism - trying to point out that you shouldn't judge people by their appearance - but somehow, reading her livejournal, I get the sense that it's more about "Look at meeeeeee! Aren't I unique?" Yes, I'm cranky today. So what? I only have a few short years left to practice if I want to be a curmudgeon when I grow up....
  • So why is it you never see anyone with Dumbo ears and crossed eyes as a body mod? That's unique. MonkeyFilter: I just don't know how to describe the conflict within me. "Look at meeeeeee! Aren't I unique?"
  • I think some of it may also be about control. We come into this world and we're just handed this sack of meat to live in whether we like it or not. As the years go by, it sinks in that there's not a heck of a lot about our lives we have a ton of control over. I had been toying with the idea of getting my birthmark tattooed over, and it struck me that my motivation for doing so was to have some small triumph over nature, to exert some small measure of control over what I had been given. On se croit mèche; on n'est que suif.
  • > Some people do some odd things in a desperate bid for attention. > ... > posted by fairywench at 11:46PM UTC on August 09, 2008 Yay! Faerie-fight! (joking) I agree with TUM about the control thing. I think people who modify their bodies (surgically, or through body building, or through diet), are frequently seeking to exercise control over their beings, at least in terms of what they present to the world. I don't think this is bad in and of itself. In moderation, it can be a good thing (healthy eating, exercise, and so on) and in extremis it can become very bad (anorexia, for example).
  • ...my motivation for doing so was to have some small triumph over nature... I think Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist would agree. [SFW wiki link -- where you go after that is up to you]
  • When Vaclav Halek looks at mushrooms, he hears music emanating from them. Physicists Use Electrical Signals From Slime Mould to Make Music
  • Climbing the... where's music? Oh.