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‘My husband and I [American tourists] were on our honeymoon visiting Thomas Hardy country. It was the first two weeks of September 1971. On this day we were just driving around, saw a sign for *** Castle and drove up to a ruin. There was a stonemason banging away at the walls, fixing them I suppose? I took a ton of photos of the stone stairways with the blue sky behind. A lovely afternoon. There was a bench in the shade at the edge of a wood and we walked over to have a seat. I thought I saw an animal move quickly from under the bench to the forest. We rested on the bench for a while enjoying the view and the quiet: the mason must have taken a break! Time to go. As we walked to the car I glanced back at the bench and saw two small people about the height of the bench seat, peeking out from behind the bench. One had on a red hat, the other a red scarf or vest. They were friendly and smiled broadly, almost laughing. I whispered to my husband that there were fairies at the bench behind and to carefully look. He did not see them, but he started laughing and said he was oddly overcome with joy or happiness. When I looked back, they were waving and laughing and then suddenly they were gone.’ ‘One seemed to be male [and] wore a red hat. The other I think was female and had on a red scarf or vest.’ ‘It was England. If you’re going to see a fairy that’s the place to be!’ Fairies are ‘earth-based nature spirits.’