Enchanted Forest

A few weeks ago on my birthday I decided to try to find the Fairy House again, the ruined cottage we visited on a history walk around our neighborhood in April.

I wanted to see it without a crowd of people, and I wanted to make a pilgrimage to a place I'm sure was visited by Ella Young. There are no records that she visited, but the timing would be right, and I can use my imagination.






 

As I wrote before, the Fairy House was on the Marblehill estate. According to Charlie Gallagher, my neighbor, Lotta Law had it built for her children, but her friend George Russell sometimes lived in it.

The Law family posted some photos of the Fairy House interior.

This photo is from a different time because the drawing is changed. This one is obviously painted by AE. The others probably are too.

I found the Fairy House easily. It's there behind the rhododendrons. 

That dark hole is the fireplace, and the crumbling wall next to it is what's left of AE's painting of A Lordly One.

The cottage once had a view of the sea, but monster rhododendrons have taken over.

Other people visit here on pilgrimage. I turned over a stone, and found a ten-cent piece under it. This account, by historian Brian McKernan of the AE Appreciation Society is similar to my experience discovering the Fairy House. He notes that the blue post caught his eye, and he's right, seeing the post in the wood reminded me of Narnia.

Near the front of the cottage, about where photographer of the   above stood 100 years ago, I found a white triangular stone, turned it over, and to my surprise there was something underneath it.









I didn’t dig further, for fear of finding a dead cat, desecrating a relic, or falling through a fairy door.

Then I noticed a thin brownish-golden stone, of a type still used to build houses here. Someone had left it leaning against the bottom of the front wall.

When I picked it up, I thought I could see a face in it.
 

Can you?

 

I’ve been visited many shrines of Saints in Ireland. Some are ruined oratories, some are cathedrals, some are wells, some are a pile of rocks. They never last forever, except in our imagination. 

I imagine the rock shows Ella's face, and it will forever live in me because I left it there. 

I stepped away from the ruin and lay on my back in the woods, listening to distant robins.

 It was a perfect summer afternoon and it was my birthday.





I got up and wandered, until I realized I'd gone beyond all paths, and all sign of any other humans in this place.

I did not see what AE saw, or maybe I did.

I wandered until I got lost.




As an offering, I sang a few songs to the fairies. Then I found the way home.  

On the way, I climbed over a wall and into a pasture beyond. I noticed this foot-high tunnel, which I learned later is a "rabbit smoot," not a Fairy Door–unless you want it to be.

We watched the summer swallows prepare for the evening.

 I will return to the enchanted forest as often as I can, just like AE did. I want to know it in every season, every light, every birthday.