#290: A Faerie Garden

Finding joy in an imagined world

Katie Harling-Lee
Nov 6 · 4 min read

Why do we build make-believe gardens? Why do we encourage the creation of a fictional world, making it ‘true’ even when we know that it is not? When we know it’s fake, why do we still find joy in it?

These thoughts, and more, were crossing my mind as I wandered the Brodick Castle Faerie and Legends trail last week. I walked along a path in an autumnal forest and tried to spot hidden faerie houses in trees and mounds of dirt. I would get excited at each one, and I would try to tug each door open—to no avail. When I tugged that door, my make-believe was halted, the reality hit me that there was nothing behind that door but the other side of the tree.

But, like Schrödinger’s cat, there was both nothing and everything behind that door. And so, I would let my mind wander. Perhaps the faeries were out and had locked the door, or perhaps they didn’t take too kindly to large strange humans tugging open their home. I could pretend that I had opened the door, I could imagine the miniature house inside, the space for faerie families with kitchens and beds and cosy spaces, maybe even miniature libraries and musical instruments. The world was what I made it.

It wasn’t real, and I knew that it wasn’t real, but I still enjoyed thinking about it. Faeries have captured our imaginations for centuries, and the idea of a more magical, miniature world living alongside us is held in the hearts of many. Think of the famous Cottingley Fairies, a collection of photographs taken by the young girls Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths in 1917 which appeared to feature real fairies, and caused a sensation when some people thought they might be real.

We also have different spellings: fairy, faerie, faery, fay. When I see ‘fairy’ I think of child-friendly smiling figures with bright colours and goodness in their fairy dust. When I see ‘faerie’, I think of darker and more mysterious creatures, more glimmering in their flickering existence at the edge of my sight. It was this latter option that I thought of as I wandered the faerie forest.

I know that these are fake faerie houses, but oddly, that doesn’t make them disappointing. They are still fun to find, to think about, to imagine. They are impressive in their craftspersonship, and I can imagine the fun that the creators must have had. The faerie garden was artfully done at Brodick Castle — it could have been a tacky thing, with outrageous colours and plastic everywhere. But this wasn’t. These were little houses built mainly from the materials around them — wood, leaves, moss—and entwined with their forest setting.

Amongst the natural materials of the forest there were little tokens on or around the houses. A seashell on a doorstep, a penny on a seat. I put a 10 pence piece on a little wooden faerie plate. The coin added a shine, a glimmer. A human token in an imagined faerie world, imaginatively repurposed.

I had a lot of fun spotting faerie houses hidden in the trees, and I walked away wondering what I had missed. Wondering about what I hadn’t seen in that magical, beautiful forest, but was there, glimmering in the corner of my eye, just out of sight.


Katie writes regularly about random objects that she finds in her everyday life. If you’re interested in reading more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Eleanor. You can also follow us on Twitter @ ObjectBlog.

Katie Harling-Lee

Written by

Musician, reader, writer, and thinker, studying for a PhD in English Literature at Durham University. Interested in all things objects, music, Old Norse & cats.

Objects

Objects

Adventure into the world of objects - their significance, their stories, their histories - from the mundane to the obscure, one random thing at a time.

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