Tag Archives: woo

We See the Wee Folk and They Ain’t that Wee

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Way back in high school, some friends and I went to hang out at a coffee house that was only open on Saturday nights. They always had one local folksinger or another performing. It was in the basement of a convent.

A few hours after we got there, one of us went out for a bit of fresh air. A few minutes later, he came rushing back in, all oddly excited and perturbed. He said we had to go out in back, where the parking lot was, and look at the trees at the back edge of the property. He wouldn’t tell us what we were going to look at, he just wanted to see what we thought was going on. There was a good singer wailing away on his guitar so we said no. Our friend sat down and fidgeted until the song was done, and then compelled us to get outside.

It was dark, there was no moon up. It was summer, but no special day. We got to the back edge, where there were some trees. We all stood there quietly, looking at the trees, because our friend said that was where he saw it. It looked like a very dark grove of trees.

Gradually, though, the scene changed. Just past the trees you could see a meadow, with a pond in it. The area was lit up as though the moon was full and high. Wisps of fog drifted about. You could hear music playing, a bit like bagpipes, but much sweeter and enchanting. A drummer was playing, a medium quick beat, sounding a bit like an Irish bodhran.

A few minutes later, next to the pond, a circle of dancers appeared, not fully visible, but like a misty, foggy, circle of dancers, dancing in long diaphanous robes. The dancers and robes were indistinct, but had the glowing, blue-white color of the full moon. They appeared taller than us and slender.

We watched, gob smacked speechless, for maybe five minutes. I then started to walk down toward the dancers. Suddenly, a fear began to rise up in us. It felt like something off to the right of us, in very dense woods, just noticed us being able to see the dancers and was very pissed off about it.

We turned tail and ran to the car, jumped in, and hauled ass out of there. For several miles it felt like something very tall and dark was watching from the convent grounds, looming toward us, making unclear but very dire threats as to what would happen should we come back.

Now, we had only ever gone to the coffee shop after dark, so we never had really seen what the property behind the convent looked like. A few weeks later a couple-three of us convinced each other to go have a look at the forest and pond in broad daylight.

There was no pond. There was a narrow thicket of trees and then a farmer’s field. There was no dense forest off to the right, where the guardian of the fairy dance had stood guard.

First shared on the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEYgLxAEH-M

The Junkroom Part 2: The Ghostly Doggie

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Last week I told you about the real haunted house my family lived in for a few years and the small second floor bedroom that my siblings and I kept our horde of toys in. We called that room the junk room, because that’s what it usually looked like. I also mentioned the larger bedroom on the same floor, where my next younger brother and I slept. My bed was at the end of the bedroom away from the door. My brother’s was, obviously, next to the door. The junk room was down a short hallway to the right, maybe fifteen feet away from our bedroom door. The stairs down to the first floor were immediately to the left of our door. The stairs to the basement were under that staircase. The basement door had a hook and loop lock that we always used at night because the basement door to the outside was a classic, old farmhouse, slanted cellar door, that could be easily broken into. Our dad worked nights and my mom feared burglars.

One night, around two in the morning, I was woken by the sound of the junk room door opening, which, as I said last week, we kids kept locked from the outside. I heard the sound of a large dog, German Shepard size or larger, walk from the junk room in the bedroom, its toes tapping heavily as it walked. We had no such pet dog. We had a Toy Manchester Terrier which is a Chihuahua sized little black dog.

This big dog, toes a-tapping, went straight to my brother’s bed and sniffed at him loudly. He did not wake up. I then heard it circling tightly for a few seconds and then lie down. I was petrified, not the least because there was a large, oval rug right where it somehow tapped its toes before laying down.

It lay there for about twenty minutes, then got up and went down the stairs, toes still tapping away. It then went down the basement stairs. The stairs to the second floor were fully carpeted, yet those toes tapped. It went down the basement stairs though the basement door was locked.

A few minutes later I got cautiously out of bed and looked at the junk room door. It was closed and locked. I carefully went down the stairs, woke my mother to see if she’d heard anything like a big dog walking around. She had heard nothing and our little dog was sleeping at her feet, under the blankets. I went to the basement door, unlocked it, turned the lights on, looked down the stairs, saw no dog, turned the lights off, closed the door and locked it. No way in hell was I going down those stairs and check for stray ghostly doggies.

Re-shared on 6/7/2017 in the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:

 

For the reading impaired, an audio version of this quasi theory may be found here:

The Forces of Annoyance Hypothesis

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I am certain that the Universe itself is intelligent and creative, from the highest heavens to the lowest atoms beneath our feet. From the beautiful form of a galaxy to the little whorls of a mouse’s toe print, creative intelligence is displayed. In ancient metaphysics, the one initial intelligent force was said to have become two, then three, and then many, while still being one force overall, with all forces sharing in that intelligence.

All the ancient cultures gave names to these individualized forces. At the higher, more cosmic end, you’ve got your archangels, your gods of Olympus, your Hindu devas. Down lower, you get your Arabian djinn, or genies, your leprechauns, your Lorelei, and your kobold. Down at the bottom are your fairies.


When you get down to our level, the subsets of subsets of forces we encounter are less intelligent than cunning. The force I will discuss today is a small force, localized to your immediate vicinity. It is the force that ties a knot in the garden hose you just straightened out, that jams a spatula half upright when you go to open a kitchen drawer.


You can tell when this force is activating. You brush your teeth. Then, when you bend over the sink to spit out the toothpaste suds, and rise back up to see how white and shiny your teeth are, the medicine cabinet door is just a tinch wider open than you left it, so that you bang your head on the corner of it. Then, when the tears of pain subside a bit, you look at your smile, you see a little piece of spinach that was not there before you started brushing.


Then, your coat pocket will snag on the doorknob on your way out, and rip that pocket just a bit. You think, “I couldn’t do that on purpose if I tried a million times.” Yet, it happened. Next, your untied shoelace, which you know you double tied, will get caught between the door and the door sill, as you close the door, on your way out. This sequence of events is now beyond all likelihood of being random. A low level of cunning intelligence is implied, with the sense of humor of a clown with a pie in his hand.


Then, you release a stream of invective so loud and vile that your neighbors slam their windows shut. Then, when you squeeze your fist so tightly your door key draws blood from the palm of your hand, it will stop, for you have made a blood sacrifice. Bloody fairies were at work.

First shared on the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbBzIeanXsg

For the reading impaired, an audio version of this quasi theory may be found here: