52 B The Secret Lifi of Nature
stimulating joys through which they have passed, and await the turn of
the tide to once more repeat the vivid experience."
Hodson came across inland water spirits, definitely female and al-
ways nude, near rivers, streams, and falls.At Whitendale in April of 1922
Hodson sat in a heather-covered bower beside a waterfall that flowed
between two huge stones to fall five or six feet to moss-covered rocks.
There he set about studying water fairies. The tallest was about eight
inches high, but all could increase their size to about two feet, some
with rosy-colored auras, some pale green. Hodson saw them as
diminutive human females, entirely nude, their long hair streaming be-
hind them, a garland of small flowers around their foreheads, beautiful
but utterly remote from human life. Because they were more subtle
and quick in their movements and changed their form with bewilder-
ing rapidity, it was hard for Hodson to attract their attention or influ-
ence them in any way as they played in and out of the fall.
Flashing through the fall from different directions, they called out in
wild tones, rising almost to a shriek, sounding to human ears-only
faintly-like a shepherd's call across an Alpine valley, a sound Hodson
believed he could represent by the series of vowels E-0-U-A-I, ending
with a plaintive and appealing cadence:Wagner's Rhine maidens to a T.
With delight Hodson watched as the undines traveled up the fall
against the stream or remained motionless within it, generally playing
and flashing through it, passing in and out of the great rocks without
experiencing any obstruction. When a cloud passed from the face of
the sun and the fall was again bathed in brilliant light, the creatures ap-
peared to experience an added joy, increasing their activity and their
singing.
Hodson found less evolved undines, a foot high, their slim bodies
supple and graceful, constantly assuming poses of great beauty as they
floated in the midst of the fall or hovered just on the edge of the spray,
rising like bubbles in water, body upright, limbs straight, drawing vital-
ity from the sun and the falls until charged to bursting point, making a
strong effort to compress and contain the vital energy until it became
too much for them. At the summit he could see them flash free into
the air, releasing the concentrated accumulated energy with a brilliant