OLD BELIEFS INA NEW WORLD
There is a long-standing idea that European
fairies did not make it to the Americas.
The immigrants crossing the Atlantic may
have had, at home, theirduendes, theirfate,
their pixies and their trolls, but ‘the other
crowd’ never got through Ellis Island. North
Americanfolklorists tend
to go along with thefairy-
free claim, and articles on
Americanfairies concentrate
on Amerindianfairy
traditions.
I, too, used to take the
absence of Europeanfairies
in the 13 colonies and their
successors as a simplefact.
However, I kept a fi le for
thoserare instances when
Europeanfairies turned up
and – in theway of things–
the fi le grew. I then pooled
resources withfortean
historian ChrisWoodyard
(who had aneven largerfi le)
and we put together a hand-list of European-
stylefairiesrecorded in North America prior
to World War II. Our only rule:we ignored
Newfoundland, wherefairy traditions had
been amply documentedby the brilliant
Barbara Rieti.
The list took a couple ofyears to write
but it will soon be published and hopefully,
at that point, added toby forteans and
folklorists alike.There are justover 150
entries: ifyou ha ve any obscurereferences to
share there may still be time to slip them into
the fi rst edition.The most impressive thingabout the list, at least to me, is itsvariety. We
have an Irish mother in NewYork burning
her baby because she believed that hewas a
fairy: thechangeling tradition brought from
the west of Ireland to the ‘freshgreen breast
of the NewWorld’.There are the supernatural
dancers circling around a tree, seenby the
celebrated journalistWilliam AllenWhite
in Kansas:were they on
theirway to Oz?There were
the fairies who ‘pixilated’
travellers and sailors on the
coast of Massachusetts.There
was the girl in SanFrancisco
who saw two gnomes at her
bedroom window. There were
the imps that lived in a cave in
Oklahoma.There was a fairy
well in NewJersey .There were
knockers in a mine in Utah
(and severa l otherwestern
states).Then therewere the
banshees howling or playing
dirges on ghostly instruments.
Havingread andrere ad
this catalogue,my impression
is that it is not that thereweren’t European
fairies in thewestern hemisphere.There
demonstrably were. It is that European
fairy beliefswent undocumented.Folklore
collectors in Canada and the United States,
for the most part, ignored anything to do with
the fey. Even in Newfoundland wherefairy
traditionswere an important part of life, they
were barelyrecorded before the 1960s. Most
of ourreports come from incidental mentions
in newspapers.
SimonYoung’s new bookMagicalFolk: British
and IrishFairiesis out now from Gibson Square.,
Fairies, Folklore and Forteana
SIMONYOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA ANDFOLK BELIEF
THEREWAS
THE GIRL IN
SAN FRANCISCO
WHOSAWTWO
GNOMESAT
HER BEDROOM
WINDOW
FT383 31
quash the conviction.
The media continued its
interest,reporting that an
imprisonedFarrant prayed
naked to the stars, and that this
“terrified” his axe-murderer
cellmate, who beggedfor
solitary confinement.Farrant
made an unsuccessful applica-
tion to the European Court of
Human Rights to have Wiccan
beliefsformallyrecognised as
a religion (ultimatelyfailing in
1977) and in 1976 commenced
a hunger strike, leading to his
release after sixweeks.
After staying with a friend,
he moved into afl at on Muswell
Hill Road where heremained
for therest of his life. He
found work as the manager
of the Stormont LawnTennis
and Squash Club, adjacent to
HighgateWood, andresumed
his research work, lecturing
and broadcastingextensively.
In 1983 he investigated a con-
centration of hauntings on the
Suffolk-Essex border, ascribing
them to battles in the mediæval
period, and in 1987 investigated
a supposedly haunted painting.
In 1991 he publisheda
pamphlet,Beyond the Highgate
Vampire. Later, he issued an
autobiography in twovolumes,
In the Shadow of the Highgate
Vampire, andOut of the Shad-
ows, as well asDarkJourney, a
collection of accounts of other
cases he investigated.
DavidFarrant married Mary
Olden at St Stephens Catholic
church on Highgate Hill in
September 1967.Their son
Jamie was born two months
later. In 1975 hewas briefly
released from prison to attend
a di vorc e court. In 1979 he mar-
ried Australian artist Colette
Sully, which quicklyfoundered,
though theyremained friends
thereafter. His secretary, Della
Vellacris, became the third
Mrs Farrant in 2010.Farrant is
survived by his sonJamie, his
granddaughter Lauryn, and
three wives.
David Robert Donovan Far-
rant, psychic investigator, born
Highgate, north London, 23Jan
1946; diedTottenham, north Lon-
don, 8 April 2019, aged 73.
Alan Murdie and Gareth J Medway
STRANGEDAYS