Fairies Of The Pacific Northwest, And Where To Find Them

By Chetco Timmins, distinguished scientist

I, myself, have never actually seen a fairy, if I am being quite honest. But, as it happens, neither has anyone else. Fairies, by nature, are a reclusive bunch. However, the presence of fairies, particularly in the dampest of forests in the Pacific Northwest, cannot be understated. After all, they aren’t the tidiest of creatures. As undetectable as they themselves are, they are well known for the clutter they leave behind.

When in the search of such a thing as a fairy, as everyone is welcome to do, with proper care, the first thing to consider is geographic location. By principle, fairies will never construct a home anywhere that can be seen with minimal effort. Busy streets, neighborhoods, and parks, are the last places you’d want to begin your search, although they have been known to populate the undersides of rural homes.

Fairies build their homes far from prying eyes, and can often be found under logs, between rocks, or cleverly hidden in beds on moss. The tell-tale signs of a fairy residence are, of course, the same as for any other sophisticated creature. A front door, a roof, and occasionally a front-facing single-paned window. The major difference will be the size. Fairies, in the Pacific Northwest, average at about three inches, though some variants, namely those residing at high-altitude, can reach heights of even six inches. Typical construction materials include tree bark, moss, sticks and twigs, mud, small stones, the shells of nuts, and various discarded tin and paper boxes.

One most notable discovery regarding the existence of these winged creatures, is the frequency of their home building. A rather astute individual might, upon proper investigation, observe a high volume of fairy houses in a given section of deciduous forest. Their first assumption would likely be that they have stumbled upon a large population. In actuality, this individual would likely have stumbled upon the various homes of a single, or perhaps pair of, fairy families. Assumed to be either indecisive, or instead absent-minded, fairies will construct upwards of a dozen different homes in a single month, packing up and vacating each sequential home. Rather curiously, there have been some recorded instances of the same group of fairies returning to the same house as before, months apart, for reasons unknown.

The only way to know when you’ve stumbled upon a currently occupied home is the faint orange candle light burning inside, usually in the hours after sunset and no later than 8:30 pm, as fairies are famously known for their early bedtimes. The main difficulty in observing the phenomenon is the fairy’s innate ability to detect, and evade, a human’s presence.