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‘Many years ago I saw a photo of a tiny creature in the Scottish Highlands, looking at children playing. The family only saw this when they had the photos developed and saw a blob in the grass. They had the photo blown up and saw a tiny girl, with her thumb to her mouth, looking wistfully at the children. Then you look closer and see it is an ancient hag, starring hatefully at the children. It was an eerie photo particularly since it is both girl and hag at the same time. So I was well aware that there are strange things in the Scottish Highlands. I am a Londoner and I don’t walk in the countryside on my own by choice but on a holiday in Scotland my friends got too tired in a walk so I had to go back to collect the car on my own and drive it round to pick them up. The walk was a few miles along cliff tops and inland a bit, with no one in sight. I came to a beautiful small pool in a beautiful setting with the sea in sight and rolling hills and mountains at the back, so I thought I would try to contact the Fairy Folk. I said out loud that I knew they lived in these areas and I knew they could have two natures, both kind and malevolent. l said I hoped to only contact their kind sides but I would love a sign that they were there. As soon as I stopped talking I heard piping coming from the grass to one side of the pool. I know it wasn’t a bird – I may be a city person but I know bird song when I hear it from the sound of tiny pipes – and it definitely came from the ground. I said out loud in a rush ‘Thank you very much. Best wishes to you’ and I legged it for my life.’ ‘Like small pipes. Not bagpipes but fluty-type pipings. Not as earthy as rush pipes – it seemed more like wood or metal. The sound was ‘small’ as if the instruments were small, not large like human-size.’ ‘Because I tried to contact fairies and the sound I heard came from the ground.’