‘I had been playing with a younger brother in our backyard, in the summer twilight. It had been a botanist’s house, and he had installed many rare and unusual specimens that frequently grew out of season. Where the back garden appeared to end at a river stone wall jutting past both sides of the garage, actually there were hidden stairs to a private upper walled garden that was wilder and quieter than its closer counterpart, and on a steeper hill than should have been possible. The night grew suddenly silent. Clouds of lights like fireflies rose from the ground, but the light seemed more diffused into a bright cloud. The light grew to doorway size, and people began to walk through it. There were male and female, taller than the adults I knew, and so beautiful that I ached to see them. They wore strange robes and were on foot. Somehow, they seemed familiar, and I moved closer, to see them better. One woman near the front seemed to command a group of short, stout beings with skin like dark tanned slick leather, hair, more like dark animal fur, longer alike arms. I had felt no sense of fear or danger until I saw these creatures, and I broke into a cold sweat of panic when I saw them. Like the taller people, these seemed familiar somehow, but dangerous. Unlike the taller folk who walked forward at a stately pace, the dark creatures scurried near the ground, snuffling and grumbling as if they were tracking something. One spotted me watching, and began to crash through the brush toward me, but a very blonde woman near the lead saw it. She looked me straight in the eye, and her eyes widened as if she were startled to see me. I knew that she communicated mentally with the creature, and she seemed to rein it back with something like a slender golden cord that materialized at the creature’s neck. Complaining, it rejoined the party. A short distance forward, the party entered another glowing door like shape, and gradually faded to nothing. I tried many times to see the party again, or any trace of a portal, but I never did there. The following year, my family moved away.’ ‘Some were moving forward with a purpose that did not involve me. The shorter, darker ones seemed dangerous, hostile, and hungry.’ The large party was very quiet, with a dry leaf rustling sound. The short, stocky ones made animalistic grumbling, growling, sniffling noises’. ‘I suspect [fairies] inhabit another dimension that overlaps our own from time to time.’
§880
Virginia, US
1960s
Female: Age 11-20
occasional supernatural experiences
‘in a somewhat wild walled garden within the city’
6 pm-9 pm
no duration reported [‘very hard to judge. It seemed that moments had passed, but it actually was longer’]
on my own
no special state reported
no fairy mood reported
loss of sense of time, profound silence before the experience, hair prickling or tingling before or during the experience, unusually vivid memories of the experience, a sense that the experience marked a turning point in your life, a sudden warmth before the experience, a sudden chill before the experience