§582

‘Late summer 2009 in a place called *** reservoir valley in Staffordshire. I walked my dog here on a regular basis, but on this occasion left my dog at home because she would get in the way of my labours picking Boletus mushrooms that I had found the previous day. The reservoir has [a] path that encircles it and is about one and a half miles around the perimeter. There are three distinctive landmarks to look out for at the site, a nineteenth century warder’s tower, an eighteenth-century bridge and on the west side of the reservoir, a car park. The weather was fine and bright. It was a very warm day but the woodland surrounding the water gave welcome shade. I entered the grounds of the reservoir via the small gate on the east side and started my way toward the area where I had seen the mushrooms. I passed two of the landmarks I’ve mentioned, I crossed the bridge and walked past the warder’s tower which was elevated to my right. This took about ten minutes to reach this spot. I walked on for a further three hundred yards and saw in the middle of the path a weasel, probably twenty yards in front of me. I stopped and watched it for a few seconds. It was then joined by another weasel. The two weasels were romping about as I watched them, completely unaware of my presence. They then scampered up to the right where there is a wooded bank. I followed them up the bank but could not see them, so I came back down the bank and made again for the mushrooms. On reaching the path I noticed a distinct change in both light and temperature. I looked at the sky above the water and it had become very overcast and looked like a thunderstorm might appear, typical of late August. The temperature dropped significantly, and the wind had picked up considerably. I took it that a storm was approaching so I turned around to make my way back as I didn’t want to be around the water during a thunderstorm. I made my way back but after about ten minutes [I] started to feel that something was amiss. I hadn’t seen the warders tower or the bridge. At first I put this down to being occupied with the weasel situation, and must have walked further than I anticipated so I pressed on but it was soon clear to me that I must have become disorientated and gone the wrong way. So, I turned around and set off back to where I had just come from. I had been walking a good twenty minutes and had no sighting of the landmarks I spoken of and I suddenly started to feel anxious. It then occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any other people, dog walkers, people fishing or joggers, usually a common sight here. The wind was blowing gusts and my anxiety levels were rising. Then I started to hear laughing, faint laughter, becoming quite deep and resonant fading in and out. I then started to have a stern word with myself and made a plan to just keep walking. After all, the path is only about one and a half miles around I would soon either find the carpark or gate. I walked and walked, my anxiety building to the point of tears. I hadn’t seen [a] soul and I checked my mobile phone as there was no signal (but that was always the case being in a valley). I was becoming thirsty, my legs wobbly, the whole affair lasted at least three hours and I was getting nowhere, again hearing laughter seemingly on the wind. No matter which way I went I could not find my way out or sight of any landmarks and my anxiety turned to fear. The whole place was becoming increasingly unfamiliar. It was still stormy, and I was hearing laughter I could not place. I decided to sit down and try to rationalise what was going on, intermittently hearing the laughter. I then just said out loud ‘I just want to get home’ somewhat defeatedly. I noticed the sun break through on the water and the wind subsided. I decided to try again and within ten minutes came upon the warder’s tower. With overwhelming relief I broke into a run to get out of that place.’ ‘I explained the experience to somebody who then told me I had a fairy encounter even though I didn’t see a person or goblin-type creature. They told me It was a spell to make me lost and that the fairies were laughing at me, the same person also said I was lucky?’ Fairies are ‘something other than us but I could not even guess what they are.’