Professor Ronald Hutton shares his fairy encounter with a Leanan sídhe

I had a strange experience as a child & to this day cannot explain it. I'm 60 now & live in Australia but as a child lived in England. My favourite place to go was an old church graveyard. I'd spend all day reading tombstones looking at statues. I would see some that had lots of flowers on (I called them rich graves) & some with no flowers on (I called them poor graves). I used to share out the flowers & give the poor graves some (I was only about 6 or 7yrs old). I also used to collect daisies buttercups & clover for the graves. When my cat got run over by a car we buried him in our garden & made a little headstone for him. One morning really early I woke up to tapping on my bedroom window which overlooked the garden & when I looked out my cats grave was covered in flowers. (not growing flowers but picked & placed ones). I was completely delighted It was a cold morning so I rubbed the inside of the window to see better & there were tiny handprints on the outside of my window. I wanted to tell my mum but everyone was still asleep in the house. I went down to the garden everything was wet & sparkly from frost. My cats grave was just to the side of the only big tree in the garden a pear tree & I could see the flowers all over it but they were not wet like the grass. As I got closer what I think was a butterfly landed on the little headstone then flew away. But now that I'm old & grey I think it would have been too cold for a butterfly!!

Many years ago when I was 18 I was still living with my parents having failed to get into university I took on a very physically demanding job and inevitably seriously damaged my back spending weeks and months bedridden. One late evening whilst in bed in particular pain I saw a light under my curtain, I thought a car had pulled up outside but somehow I managed the strength to open the curtains , there on the garden was a beam of light roughly in the shape of a human figure maybe five or four foot tall , weirdly all I did was return to my bed , fell asleep and in the morning I awoke and my back was miraculously considerably better not totally healed but within a week or so I was back to my old self. I told ppl of this experience at the time and met just ridicule and to this day I have suppressed the telling of this story.

Even chilling out at home with a blanket on his knees, he’s got his jacket and waistcoat on. Bless Ronald

I was going through a bad time ( long story). I became aware of a person sitting beside me in my car. But the 'person' was so blindingly bright I couldn't look. A voice said , 'why are you so worried , you are only in this life a short time . I am with you.' A great peace came over me. Afterwards everything changed for me for the better. I was to find out this appearance was on the other side of a high wall that sheltered an old catholic church where I hadn't attended since a youth. A friend of mine , an atheist , said I was having the beginning of a breakdown. But I was to discover that many people in different parts of the world. have had the same experience . Why would a similar experience be experienced all over the world in different cultures and people if it was a breakdown ? ( which I never had.) I was an academic social scientist which dismissed all metaphysical phenomenon.

When I was a child I was playing in the grass outside the Chapel, and saw a little man about a foot high and dressed in green, running through the grass. I ran after him, wanting to say hello, but as I got near to him he suddenly turned into a big black stag beetle. I'm 72 now, and to this day I swear blind that I definitely saw him saw him for real 🧚‍♂️

As a young teenager I went on a school trip to the Island of Eigg and saw something that I've never shared with anybody even today. However, a few years later an old lady one day spoke to me in the voice that sounded like a twelve-year-old and descried what I saw and told me about what they will do if I get harmed and she told me about everything that will occur in my life and it has. I have no idea why me, I’ve been blessed with extreme luck, fortune and I’m able to see future outcomes. Sounds crazy, but true.

...and how Delightful that the Professor makes himself available to sit for a relaxed, wry chat about faeries --as he sits in a fire-side chair with a blanket tucked around his legs...

I wasn't much more than a toddler. Us kids were waiting in the car, in front of a store, for my parents to come back. I was in the back seat, standing up to the window, When I saw this couple come out of the store. Dressed in modern suits, hers was a light blue jacket and skirt, and he in a dark suit? She was my focus. An older couple. They couldn't have been any taller than 15 inches. Perfectly proportioned. I don't know if I ever told anyone. They wouldn't have believed me anyway. I remember it almost clear as day. It has been over 65 years. It was all so vivid.

As a child in southernmost Illinois, I lived with my family in the country, and behind our tiny home was a pond. When Mother was busy in the house and Dad was at work, I ran out to the pond (I was about 6 or 7 years of age) and for some reason, I set my teddy bear on the shore and it got wet. I was sad and then I felt I was being watched. I remember looking over at a large tree that stood right by the pond and down by its roots stood a little man. He was probably about 7 or 8 inches tall. He had on earth-colored clothing with a slouchy hat. I noticed that he was very old and had rather greyish-colored skin. He had piercing grey eyes and he looked right at me and we stared at each other for a bit. The fairy or elf or whatever then turned on his heels away from me and vanished. I did not feel threatened in any way but I was in awe. I am 73 years of age now and I have never forgotten it. I feel that I was granted a blessing in seeing this tiny creature.

I live in Illinois in the st.louis area and in 2020 I saw something that i can only describe as a fairy. It looked in the middle bottom window on the front door at around 11:30pm on sept 15th 2020. I'll never forget that day. I wasn't the only witness to the creature that was in the room. as im trying to adjust to what i think I saw, they said the F word and they backed up what I think I saw. I still don't belive I saw what I know i saw that night. it,'s not like I can just go around telling strangers that I saw a fairy without geting admitted into ketler mental hospital. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!

I was driving in Eliot Maine, USA, back in about 1989. It was a beautiful day in June and I had the windows down. The sky was clear blue, and I did not have the radio on. I was alone and driving slowly on an on ramp to a bridge which would take me to the state of NH. I had noticed, the week before that some person had stuck a sign in the ground which read FOR SALE HERSEY, so I assumed someone was selling their piece of land. On this particular day, standing beside this relatively new sign was a little man. He had his teeth clenched and his lips pulled back, enough so that his clenched teeth were obvious to me. He had his fists clenched also, and he was jumping up and down. What made it unquestionable to me that this little man was not a human short person, was that he had his knees bent, and they never unbent as our knees are won`t to do when we jump. I had no question about why he was so incensed. As quick as a wink I yelled out the window of my car `Don`t worry, the land won`t sell, the economy sucks`. And with that I had rounded the turn up to the bridge and was gone. I have thought often about this encounter, and have to my own satisfaction, decided that the only reason I saw him at all is that his emotion, his anger made him somehow, visible. I also believe my yelling out the window, beyond giving him information, also surprised him greatly, for I believe that he did not believe he could be seen by human people. My intention, seeing his distress was to relieve him of the burden he had just discovered in his heart. How he was able to read English I know not. I truly believe we share this planet with others who are kinder to this blessed earth than we. I am sure that I did nothing that day to have made myself an enemy of any sort, because other beings judge us by our intentions. Thank you for this platform.

When I was 13 i was walking in the woods when I heard someone say look how funny he looks... what is he.... there was nobody there but the voice was right in front of me

It is beginning to dawn on me that the world is much stranger, more uncanny than I could ever imagine.

I was staying in rural County Clare and daily walking in the local wood. A magical place with woodland flowers in bloom. I spoke to the nture spirits, telling them I came in peace from England and was walking gently through their wood. Next morning in that place between sleep and waking I saw a person dressed in a brown, quilted outfit with a smiling, healthy face, curly light brown hair and pointed ears. I just felt they had connected with me in the woodland and were greeting me kindly. I cant think my mind concocted this, as I would not have imagined a fairy dressed in brown quilted clothing!!

I was walking along a riverbank in Edinburgh when I stopped a man to ask directions. He looked slightly dazed and told me in a puzzled manner that he'd just heard a womans voice calling for help.He looked in the direction of the voice and saw a "very little woman" ( about 3 feet high) slipping down the steep bank. He grasped her outstretched hand and hauled her up. She thanked him and then disappeared! She was dressed all in black with long black hair, he said. I immediately thought of "The little people", but didn't say anything to the man as I could see the concept was outside his frame of reference.

Ronald, as an OBOD Bardic student, I have followed you for a while, and I greatly appreciate hearing of your experience. I know several people in whom I have the utmost confidence, and they have seen multiple Cherokee Little People. I saw my own member of the faerie fold many years ago in my early 20's, while canoeing down a river, and I find it sad that folks can't be open to the possibility that we are not the only two-legged sentient beings in this world. Blessings, Ronald!

When I went to Mauve's Tomb in Sligo County and saw a purple fluorite stone on the rock pile after meditating. I asked her if it was for me. I gave her all the rocks from my pocket and sang for her. I took the fluorite and meditated with it on my forehead before I slept. In the morning I wore from a long dream about my mother dying and the weeks afterward until sitting around the kitchen table with my father. In a panic I called my parents to be sure they were okay. I woke them. But I didn't tell them the dream. A week later when I went home I gave my mom a small gift from Ireland. A few days later the dream unfolded with a call from my dad that my mom had a stroke. The next weeks were the same as the dream. That is my Ireland story. There is a special energy there.

This comment section is possibly the only place I can publicly share that I saw Pan several years ago. I was walking in a suburban neighborhood that I've walked many times in my life, it was a sunny central Florida afternoon, and I felt pressure (not painful or uncomfortable) in my third eye and there he was! Unmistakably, Pan! About a foot or so tall, a jet black pointed goatee, goat hindquarters, with a sly smile, no horns though... just looking at me. I closed and rubbed my eyes and expected him to be gone but no he was still there at the base of an oak tree. I wish i would've tried to communicate with him but I was dumbfounded. He eventually faced away, the concave feeling of my 3rd eye opening hugely closed, and I continued on my walk. :)

I had an encounter of some sort years ago. I was hiking alone in a forest and came upon a little waterfall, maybe 4' high at most. The sound of the water attracted me to more closer. Staring at the water, i began to see flecks of rainbow colors in it. And then i heard a female voice talking to me. I thought for a moment i saw a face in the water. Next thing i knew, i was on the trail walking home. I had no memory of how i had gotten there. The sun was lower in the sky. I felt id lost time. It took me 8 years before i worked up the courage to go back there. It seemed an ordinary place and i never had any other experiences there.

My family's English/Irish, and it was my English mum who was out walking in the woods in Oxfordshire with my three sisters (before I was born), when they encountered the little people. From some bluebells underfoot flew out three perfectly formed fairies with gossamer wings. My sisters told me many times over the years of their encounter, describing their high pitched tinkling laughter as they flew away. All of this happened within a moment or two, but it left all three of them with a life long conviction in fairy life, and mum too. When they told my dad back at home, there was no hesitation in believing in their encounter. He'd grown up in Ireland with knowledge of all sorts of fairy folk encounters.