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‘I was perhaps three or four years old at the time. My father and I were attending a pool party. While we were there, he hung around with his friends while I played with the one other child who was present – a young, pale-skinned boy around my age. The kid was fun and interesting, but most of all he was very happy. The main thing I remember about his appearance was his smile. At one point, he wanted us to go into the pool. I explained that I hadn’t learned to swim yet, and he answered by saying we could go on the inflatable floating lounge chair that was perched along the side of the water. I reluctantly agreed and we walked over to the lounge chair and sat down, pushing off the side of the pool with our hands to send ourselves into the middle of the water. That was when the child turned to me and, still smiling, shoved me into the deep end of the pool. The next thing I knew, my father was diving in to rescue me while I cried and coughed up water. The weird thing is, whenever I ask my dad about the incident, he remembers it differently. According to him, there was no other child at that party, and I apparently walked straight ahead into the deep end of the pool as if I was expecting solid ground. For years, I put the incident out of my mind, hoping to forget it in time. That is, until my friend explained the folklore behind fairies, and their mischievous, often sadistic nature. I’m ever the skeptic, but I know what I saw/what happened to me and it’s apparently similar to some other stories people have had over the centuries (such as being lured into the woods or attacked by water).’ Why fairy? ‘The mischievous nature of my assaulter, combined with the fact that a witness had a very different experience of the situation.’