Tag: folkore

A Faerie Correspondence

Tuesday, 24th June, 1919

Dear Reverend Charles Kilpatrick,

I do hope it is not an indiscretion on my part to write to you unsolicited, but I recently read in The Western Gazette that you have reconvened your research in to the faerie traditions of the West Country for a forthcoming publication, after your service in the war. The author of the article in the Gazette seemed to suggest that you were keen to receive correspondence from local folklorists with any verifiable tales specifically related to the belief in faeries in all their forms. I certainly do not flatter myself as being thought of as a folklorist, but I have collected stories from the older folk in the local villages, hamlets and farms, as well as from my late father who was churchwarden at the adjacent parish, a position that often provided him with opportunities the engage with the beliefs  and stories of local worthies, which he would pass on to me to write up. Indeed, I now have three bound folio journals containing these tales, and have recently begun a fourth. I would estimate that a little less than half of these involve stories about what may be deemed faeries, sometimes termed pixies depending on the purveyor. I should also tell you that although a genuine belief in these beings has diminished in recent times, there is still a strong current notion amongst people of the locality (especially the older residents) that the faeries are a living tradition, and that they may still be encountered under certain circumstances. It is, in other words, not a dead tradition, even though many people will be reticent to admit their belief. If you would like me to copy some samples from my collection for your perusal I would be delighted and honoured to do so. But if you are only looking for stories from more serious credentialed folklorists then I would, of course, understand completely. I look forward to your response with anticipation.

Yours truly,

*

Friday, 11th July, 1919

Dear Miss Bartholomew,

I thank you for your letter of last month and must apologise for my delayed response, as since returning from the continent I have, as you may imagine, had much college chaplaincy business to attend to as well as a backlog of correspondence. But now that the Versailles Treaty has been signed, and peace has been assured, I will, as your Western Gazette writer suggested, resume with my collection of West Country folklore, with an emphasis on traditional beliefs in the faeries. I am most interested in what you say about a modern day belief in these beings still surviving in your environs, and would welcome some samples from your collection when you have the time and inclination. I cannot promise a swift reply but I assure you I will always take seriously any genuine accounts of folkloric traditions that come in to my purview.

Yours in haste but truly,

*

Wednesday, 16th July, 1919

Dear Revd Charles Kilpatrick,

I received your letter in the second post on Monday, and would like to thank you for your warm encouragement about my little collection of local stories. I have taken the liberty to copy out, in the finest hand I have, four anecdotes, which I very much hope will interest you. The first three were all collected by my late father, and as you will see, they involve what are known around these parts as a gallitrap, which as I’m sure you know, is a circle of grass coloured differently from its surroundings, and which more often than not has toadstools growing in it. It is a firm belief amongst the older worthies that one should not step inside these circles as they are fashioned by the faeries for their dancing and amusements. Once inside, a person may become disorientated and even lost to this world for a time. The three stories are, as you will see, told by older people about their own grandparents, but I must say, and I hope you do not think this an impertinence on my part, that I sometimes wonder if the storytellers are pushing the stories in to the past to protect their own reputations, when really they are closer to home. I will write more about this if you wish. The fourth tale comes from a younger woman of my own acquaintance who tells a story about her mother (though once again, I wonder if it is really about herself) who had a disturbing experience with a home intrusion. It paints the faeries in a very dark aspect, which I have found a common theme in my collection. I do hope I am not being overbearing in sending these fair copies to you so soon after receiving your letter, and I do very much appreciate that you must have many more important college duties and serious folklore collection to do that will render my correspondence of small importance. I do, however, await your thoughts on the stories with great anticipation.

Yours sincerely,

*

Friday, 1st August, 1919

Dear Miss Bartholomew,

Please accept my deepest appreciation for your letter and for the examples from your folkloric collection. I must tell you, in all sincerity, that I was most impressed at the level of detail you include, as well as the names, dates and circumstances of the purveyors of the stories. All of these things are most important in any authentic folklore collection — may I ask if you have had any training in the discipline? I do have a few previous examples of West Country gallitraps in my inventory, but they are from rendered traditions of the last century, and even back to the late 18th century. Your representatives from contemporary worthies (as you charmingly call them) are of great interest to me, and I would very much like to know more details about how they have come to these stories, and indeed, if they are perhaps closer to home, as you say, than beliefs from two generations previous. I was particularly taken with the longest tale, where the miller became lost to the community for an entire week before returning to regale his story of being caught within a gallitrap by the music-making faeries. The time distortion he experienced is a very common motif in the folklore, but his detailed description of the faeries as small gnarled, wood-like creatures is most unusual, and I cannot think of anything quite like it in my own collection or that of others. The tale from your acquaintance, Miss Everdene, about her mother’s experience does conform to certain traditional motifs about the faeries intruding into homes with nefarious purpose, but once again, I am intrigued at this relatively contemporary rendering. Pinching and tormenting a sleeping householder has its origin in older faerie tales, but the fear it induced in Miss Everdene’s mother was most disturbing in the telling. Once again, I would like to extend my appreciation to you for taking the time to share excerpts from your collection with me, and would be in your debt if you would send me more entries if you are so inclined. I assure you they will be treated with the strictest confidence as I continue my research. I will be returning to the continent next week for an unknown period of time, but I have arranged for all correspondence to be forwarded to my residence there.

Yours truly,

*

Wednesday, 6th August, 1919

Dear Revd Charles Kilpatrick,

I have been most encouraged by your recent letter, and I can assure you that I have no formal training in the discipline of collecting folklore. It has simply been a passion of mine for several years now, ever since I read Mr Robert Hunt’s Popular Romances of the West of England, which as I am sure you know, contains many stories of faerie beliefs from the last century and before. I will also tell you, with some trepidation, that as a little girl I had my own experiences of seeing the faeries. But I will not belabour that point in case you think me a foolish country woman. The fact of the matter is that it was my late father who instilled within me the importance of collecting local folklore, as he was afraid the traditions and beliefs were dying out in the younger generations, hastened by the terrible war and all the changes it has wrought. I see this myself. When I was a young girl in the early years of this century, there would be regular gatherings in various houses in our hamlet where the older people would naturally tell stories, many of them about the faeries, but also more formal tales such as about King Arthur, and also the wyrms that were said to inhabit certain woodlands in the county. However, the war stopped all this, and now I sometimes think I am the only one in our parish who wants to hear the stories. But our correspondence has renewed my determination to collect more stories and I have arranged this very evening, to visit old Hannah Wilkins at the Cider Farm, as she has promised to tell me everything she knows about the pixies, as she calls them. I will do my best to record her words and ensure I retrieve as many details as possible, if this will be of interest to you. Meanwhile, I am enclosing just one of the many tales collected by my father, as I am rather nervous that my letter will go astray as it gets forwarded to you so far away. It is from his fellow churchwarden, Mr Bartlett, who still lives, and is wholly trustworthy and of impeccable character. It tells of an incident that happened to his father whilst supervising the cutting of peat on the Levels close to my home, and involves him being pixie-led, with some interesting details about strange lights on the marshlands. As you will see, he only managed to escape when he remembered to employ the old custom of turning his jacket inside out to break the spell. I should also tell you that the older people here are much afeared of the lights that frequently appear on the Levels, and are convinced they are the faeries rather than some natural phenomenon. I have seen them often when I walk the lanes towards dusk and they do seem to exhibit a strangely animal type of movement. I do hope this letter arrives safely at your continental residence, wherever that may be, and that you will forgive my enthusiasm about this subject matter, but it is dear to my heart and I very much value a scholar such as yourself taking this country folklore, and my collection of it, seriously. I look forward to your reply with much anticipation, whilst understanding that it may take some time for you to write amidst your work, travelling and busy schedule.

Yours truly & sincerely,

PS: My father died last year on Armistice Day, as it happens very close to eleven o’clock in the morning. There was a strange event surrounding his death (he had been ill with a tumour for some time), which I would like to relate to you if you would allow me, as I believe there may be similar precedents in the folklore about such an occurrence. But please do dissuade me if you think I am being too forward and presumptuous in relaying such personal details.

*

Friday, 29th August, 1919

Dear Miss Bartholomew,

Please accept my apologies for my delayed response to your letter of 6th August. I am afraid the forwarding postal service here in France has not been as efficient as I would have wished and I have only received your epistle this week. My time on the continent is coming to an end and I will return to Cambridge, and a more competent mail service, at the beginning of September, when I will reply more thoroughly to your missive.

Yours truly & in haste,

*

Friday, 5th September, 1919

Dear Miss Bartholomew,

I finally find myself with the opportunity to reply to your letter. Once again, I am genuinely intrigued by your collections and very much appreciate the level of detail you are managing to include. There are a few students of folklore here in Cambridge who could take a lesson or two from you in the methodology of collecting techniques! The experience reported by Mr Bartlett of his father’s episode with the lights and being pixie-led does indeed conform in some ways to the motif (primarily Irish) of being led astray by faeries and then becoming disorientated until some simple device, such as turning a jacket inside out, is employed. But the detail you have been able to instil within the retelling is most remarkable, and brings to the story an immediacy not usual within folkloric anecdotes. May I ask, and this is in no way an accusation, whether you have embellished these tales with any of your own words? It is most important in the collection of folklore to always adhere to the maxim of recording only what is spoken. It is easy, and natural, to want to introduce one’s own voice in to any narrative (something I myself have been guilty of in the past), but must be resisted if we are to record with accuracy the beliefs and accounts of people living or dead. But as I say, this is not an imputation; I am merely wanting to guide you in to the best methodologies in folkloric field work, as we may call it. Because I believe what you are gathering together may be an important addition to West Country beliefs in the faeries, and I would be much obliged to receive more transcriptions, whether they be from your late father’s collection or from the stories you continue to assemble together. As for your own personal experiences, I can assure you I will be very receptive and open minded towards anything you have to tell me. As you may imagine, my chaplaincy work involves listening to many supernatural episodes in people’s lives, which, whilst always applying rational thought, I never discount simply because they seem fantastical to the modern mind. Did our Lord not rise from the dead — an event not allowed for in scientific thinking, but something I believe with all of my heart. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ as I believe a wise man once said! I look forward with anticipation to receiving further transcriptions from you Miss Bartholomew, and, despite the imminent start of Michaelmas term here at the college, I should from henceforth be able to reply to you in a timely manner.

Yours very respectfully,

*

Thursday, 11th September, 1919

Dear Revd Charles Kilpatrick,

I was both delighted and somewhat relieved to receive your most recent letter. It is quite an honour for me to have correspondence with a dignified Cambridge scholar such as yourself, and to be taken seriously in my attempt to gather local folklore. I certainly did not take your sage advice about the collection of stories to be an imputation, but rather as valuable counsel to someone with no formal training in the matter. As it happens, my late father used to tell me much the same thing in regards recording anecdotes. He always used to say that the words are theirs, not yours, and must remain so, warts and all. In light of this, I enclose my transcripts from several evenings spent with old Hannah Wilkins at the Cider Farm. I have attempted, to the best of my ability, to record her stories as closely to her actual words as possible, although this was rendered rather difficult due to her monologues attracting the attention of many family members who became keen to listen. Apparently, most of them had not heard many of the stories she told, as she has become reluctant to talk about them in recent years, primarily due to the genuine fear she has of the faeries believing their secrets being divulged, and perhaps punishing her for the transgression. Hannah is a widow and is of some eighty years of age, but very sharp in the mind, if perhaps not in the body. Apart from attending church, she has not left the hamlet since the start of the war. Whenever she sees me, she invariably tells me the story of her grandmother spending a season in London society in 1812 and how she once caught the eye of Lord Byron! I gather that she likes to regale others with the same anecdote. But with a little coaxing she will return to more local tales, and as you will see from my transcripts, they are invariably about the faeries. She can be a little vague about the time periods of the happenings, but you will notice that she often begins with: ‘When I was a girl in the reign of Good Queen Victoria…’ And in the story about the faeries stealing cider from the barrels on the farm, she seems to suggest this happened just prior to the war. I have added my own annotations to provide some clarity on these matters, but her own words are left uncorrupted and as close to how she spoke them as possible. The copies I send you are, of course, fair copies made from my own scribblings at the time of hearing. Her belief in the existence of faeries is as unconditional as her belief in God, and her stories elicited some fragmented narratives from others present, which I also attempted to record. I must say that I was slightly surprised and gratified that most of the gathering seemed to think the faeries must have some form of true existence, although, despite their frequent wickedness, they must be subject to the laws of God, and have their being by His will. One of the cider-makers said he had heard they must have fallen from heaven with Lucifer but were not bad enough for Hell, so they continue to roam the earth separated from mankind, living in their own realm that intersects (my word not his) with ours whenever the situation allows it. I do hope my transcriptions meet with your approval, and may be of some use in your research. Please do let me know if my collecting techniques require further modification. As for my father’s death, I now feel a little timid in telling you about it, as it has little to do with the subject matter of the faeries, but may somehow be related in some way. I am an only child, and my mother died when I was very young, so it was only me and my cousin, John Bartholomew, present at my father’s passing. He was incoherent towards the end, but just before he finally passed, he became lucid and told us that peace had come to the world (you may remember that he died about eleven o’clock on Armistice Day). He then told us that there was an angel at the foot of the bed and asked if we could see her. John was rather dismissive and told my father to rest, but I felt a distinct presence in the bedroom. I saw nothing and yet I knew there was another being with us, emanating love that filled my heart with a tingling joy, despite the sombreness of the occasion. My little, elderly cat Lucy also became most animated at this moment, which is very unlike her. About a minute later my father slipped away and the room became dull and cold. I hope you do not think it inappropriate for me to mention this incident, but I do think there is a link, though I am unsure of its measure, between encounters of faeries and of angels. I should also mention that there has been an increase in the number of sightings of lights on the Levels over the past few weeks, and that I myself have seen several of these strange illuminations, which I will expand on further if you do not think it foolish. I look forward with eagerness to your correspondence on these matters, but as always recognise your college duties and research will dictate the frequency of your replies to one such as I.

I remain, with the highest regard, yours faithfully,

*

Thursday 18th September, 1919

My Dear Miss Bartholomew,

Your most recent letter delighted me. I am, of course, most sorry for the loss of your father, even though he now doubtless rests within the tenure of the Father of us all. But I am in much admiration of your ability to form your thoughts with such panache. I hope it is not an impertinence to ask where you may have been schooled, as I have to say that there are many students here in Cambridge who do not reach your level of epistolatory elegance. I also thank you for your transcriptions from the tales told by Hannah Wilkins, which represent exemplary folklore collection. Two stories were of particular interest to me. First, the association she makes of moths with the faeries, and her observation that moths were known to emerge from the mouths of the newly deceased and that they were faeries escorting the soul onwards. I believe there is a short story by Thomas Hardy that uses this little-known piece of folklore, although I cannot at the moment remember the title of the story. Secondly, the dancing faeries at prominent, large boulders, which are also said to rotate when a church bell strikes midnight. This, and variations thereof, is a motif I have found common in nineteenth-century collections, but fascinating to hear from a living person, even if she does place the anecdotes in the past. In fact, this is an important consideration — that is, to what extent are contemporary purveyors of these tales simply repeating an oral tradition passed down as stories over perhaps hundreds of years, as opposed to tales that have sprung up within living memory and remain current belief. My research to date suggests that there is an admixture of the two, and your own collections are beginning to add much credence to this view. With this in mind, I am taking the liberty of sending my second copy of a recent volume by WY Evans-Wentz entitled The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, published by Oxford University Press. It contains some interpretations that I find rather unpalatable, and has undertones of theosophy and Eastern religious ideas, but the actual collections, from contemporary interviewees, are most fascinating and you may see similarities in the beliefs of our Celtic cousins to those you have been describing from your Somersetshire worthies. Please accept this as a gift of gratitude for the diligence you have applied to collecting local folklore, and your cordiality in sharing the fruits of your labour with me. On a final note regarding your father’s death, I have, as you may imagine, been present at the occasion of death of many people, and that moment of lucidness you describe is actually rather common. I have always thought and hoped that they receive this lucidness as a final gift from our Lord before their souls are taken in to His Being. But I have never felt what you describe, and I think that perhaps this is easily explained by reason of you being a more sensitive person than I. Please do send me any further transcriptions when you have the time, and rest assured that they are being carefully filed along with the gathered material I have accumulated over the past ten years or so.

Yours with esteem,

*

Wednesday, 24th September, 1919

Dear Revd Charles Kilpatrick,

I must first thank you with much gratitude for the gift of this beautiful and fascinating book by Dr Evans-Wentz. I am already on my second reading and taking most copious notes. Whilst I find some of the doctor’s discussions rather dense and obtuse, perhaps this is simply because they are new to me. For example, what he terms the Animistic Theory is something I do find difficult to understand, but then I have not spent years studying the anthropology of the subject matter as he evidently has. It was so thoughtful of you to send it to me. Thank you also for your kind words about my letter writing. I know my handwriting could be better, but sometimes my thoughts work quicker than my hand! My father was not a rich man, but he did inherit some family wealth, which allowed for private tutoring and then for me to attend Cheltenham Ladies’ College as a boarder for three years through to the age of sixteen. I cannot say I enjoyed my time at the college — I was treated as a poor country girl — but I will forever be indebted to the education I received there, which allowed me later to become a school teacher at the church school, although I have not held that position since early last year due to the time required to care for my father, who was mostly bound to the house for the last nine months of his life. In terms of further testimonies, some people in the hamlet have heard that I am collecting folklore and in correspondence with you, and some are keen to have me record their stories, although I have no idea what they may consist of, and whether they will be appropriate for your usage. But I have had little time to attend to this lately, as my cousin John is staying with me for a few weeks, and I am afraid to say that we have had several quarrels regarding my father’s will and the status of the cottage. I am therefore sending another batch of stories from my father’s collection, fair copied, which I very much hope meet with your approval. As previously, most of these anecdotes are from one or, more usually, two generations in the past, and seem to have been passed down almost like family heirlooms to the tellers. You will be interested, I am sure, in the story of Stephen Marsh, an acquaintance of my father, whose uncle was returning from peat cutting on the Levels with several other men at dusk, when they were confronted by a small wizened woman offering them a bunch of withered flowers. The group of men took fright, but the youngest among them, just a boy of sixteen, took the flowers before the woman disappeared into thin air. He died within a week of the incident. I know Stephen Marsh and have heard this story from him myself. His uncle swore this story was true to his dying day, and always thought of the woman as a faerie with malicious intent, although perhaps she may have just been a harbinger of the boy’s demise; a supernatural herald, so to speak, with no malevolent intent. But this is perhaps me overthinking the story and I am sure that you will assess it with much more rationality. As you will see, there are two short anecdotal tales of ‘faerie lights’ on the Levels (one associated with ethereal pipe music). As mentioned in my last letter to you, I have seen these myself recently, once with my friend Elsie, who saw just what I had seen, therefore precluding the possibility that they were a figment of my imagination. I intend walking down onto the Levels this week or next to see if I can ascertain whether there is some natural explanation for this phenomenon, or whether I am indeed seeing faeries! Once again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your gift, which has invigorated me in the study of this most fascinating of subjects. And most of all, thank you for taking the time to engage with me amidst your busy life.

Ever faithfully yours,

___________________________________________

There are evidently several missing letters at this point in the correspondence.

___________________________________________

Thursday, 23rd October, 1919

My dear Grace,

Please do not apologise for not being able to send any transcriptions with your last letter. Rest assured, what you have already sent constitutes a sizeable and important collection, that has been indexed and included within my archive of West-Country faerie folklore. I am, however, concerned about your health after the incident you described about your strange visit to the Levels. I have taken the liberty to discuss this with two colleagues here at the college, which I hope you do not mind, but I did want to get other opinions from gentlemen (both naturalists) with greater knowledge about these type of things than myself. One has suggested the odd lights you describe could be a phenomenon know as ignis fatuus, more commonly known as will-o’-the-wisp or jack-o’-lantern. This, my colleague tells me, is produced by some disturbance of methane in boggy or marshy areas, such as you describe. I do have several examples in my own collection of this type of sighting from the Welsh Borders from the end of the last century. Ignis fatuus often seem to be rendered in human-type form and can seem very convincing to an observer. However, your dizzy episodes and apparent aural communications from these lights are rather peculiar, unless this can be put down to simple exhaustion, as you did say that you had wandered far beyond your usual habit and remit. My other colleague made an intriguing, and slightly disturbing, suggestion that you may have consumed a certain type of mushroom, which has been shown to create both aural and visual hallucinations in people who have ingested them. They are apparently common at this time of year, and I have to ask you if you have perhaps included them in a meal, without realising their possible effects, before your visit to the Levels. These are only suggestions, however, and I in no way wish to disparage your experience, which you describe in lucid detail. I am more concerned with the illness that has taken hold of you since the event, and hope you are resting and taking medical counsel. Please do write when you can to reassure me of your health.

Your obliged and affectionate friend,

*

Thursday, 30th October, 1919

Dear Charles,

I can assure you that I am well again, but would like to thank you for your concern. It is most touching to me. I can also confirm that I have not been the victim of any mind-disturbing mushrooms — I do not like mushrooms and never eat them. But I must get immediately to my news Charles. After the experience previously described to you, and when I had recovered full health, I went again down to the marshy, remote part of the Levels beyond the peat cuttings, this last Tuesday before it became dark. This time my friend Elsie came with me part of the way, and there were the lights again, moving in such a way that she took fright and begged me to return to the hamlet with her. I became, I have to admit, rather obdurate and told her to return home if she wished but that I wanted to find out what these lights were about. So, I went alone along the tenuous path (an old drove-way), all the while watching the lights move at a distance of about two hundred yards away, across a series of large pools of water that have formed after the recent heavy rains. Again I felt a dizziness as I looked at them. If they are the methane phenomenon your colleague has suggested then I think I would have recognised them as such. But these lights move with such dexterity and seem to act like wispy human-like figures. Elsie thought they were spirits of the dead, but I think they are something else — something that struggles to appear in our material world, something faerie-like. And as before, they have voices that ring inside my head. I know you may think this the result of exhaustion or some trick of sounds in the air, and you may be right. But these voices were alluring, a little as in a dream, but I assure you this was no dream. The words sounded foreign to me in no language I knew, and strangely mixed together, almost sing-song, but I somehow understood I was being beckoned. I stood stock still for I do not know how long, and then the lights seemed to be crossing the pools of water towards me, their amorphous feet appearing to tread on the water as if it were solid ground. At this point, for the first time, I felt afeared and made my way quickly along the path, only looking back once to notice the lights had dissolved to points of luminous blue and seemed to sink into the marshy water. When I was home, I made up the fire and attempted to collect my thoughts, and indeed, I have thought of little else since. I cannot emphasise enough how my experiences have affected me, most especially the one I have just described. I am convinced these lights have intelligence and are attempting to communicate with me. I do not know whether that makes them faeries. They have a beauty about them and I feel drawn to them in a most visceral manner. But there is also something fearsome about them. I suppose this matches their representation in much of the folklore, where they can be seductive but also to be feared. Perhaps you might think that my immersion in the stories and tales about the faeries has made me susceptible to believe in something that has a more mundane and natural explanation. I do not know if this is the case Charles — all I know is that I feel an intense compulsion to return to the Levels, most particularly to the spot where I saw the lights last. It is as though I am being called there. If the weather holds I intend doing this alone tomorrow on All Hallow’s Eve, whilst there is still light. You might think this may not be the most propitious day to go seeking faeries, but I simply must satisfy myself as to the reality, or otherwise, of these most mysterious light forms. I should write to you about other things that are happening here, most especially my continuing vexation with cousin John and his demands about the legal arrangements concerning the cottage, but the truth is I can think of little else than my visitors on the Levels — they inhabit my mind throughout the day, and have even seeped in to my dreams. Perhaps after tomorrow I will be able to return to more of a regular life, and will then send you more transcriptions from my collection, as you have so far been sent only about half of them. I value your friendship so much Charles, and deem it an honour that such an esteemed and educated man such as yourself, takes the trouble to communicate so readily with me and to take me seriously. Our correspondence over the months has been a great comfort and solace to me, and I hope it will continue in to the future. Please do write when you have the opportunity, although you may receive another epistle from me if I discover more about my amorphous faerie lights tomorrow.

Ever your affectionate friend,

*

Wednesday, 5th November, 1919

My dear Grace,

I have been away in London for a few days and so have only seen your letter today. I reply immediately as I am somewhat concerned for your welfare. The Levels of which you tell me about sound as if they could be perilous at this time of year, and I counsel precaution and safety. However, I must confess, your encounters with the amorphous lights do fascinate me, and I trust you to render an honest and candid account of your experiences, even if I do not know quite what to make of them. As we have discussed many times, much folklore is a record of the past brought into the present through a variety of storytelling means. Until you and I began our correspondence, it was beyond my purview to think of the faeries as anything but a system of folk-belief, important, but not something a person of the twentieth century could perceive as a real phenomenon. Perhaps I have been wrong to think this. I certainly look forward to your further thoughts on what you have been witness to, even though I am troubled by some of your descriptions. Please do write soon to allay my anxiety for you. And I would, of course, always be glad to receive any more transcriptions from your collections. But first, do let me know that all is well with you.

With sincerity and affection,

*

Thursday, 13th November, 1919

Dearest Grace,

It is now two weeks since your last letter and I have become anxious about your safety and your health. Forgive me if you are simply preoccupied with other matters, but I have come to know you as a punctual correspondent, and so your silence concerns me, especially in view of your recent forays on to the Levels and what you have described to have witnessed there. I have come to think of you as a friend, and thus someone to who I owe a duty of care. I should tell you that I have contrived to bring forward a matter of business I have in Bath, and will be travelling there via London tomorrow. If you do not think it an impertinence I would very much like to visit you on Sunday providing I can arrange transport to Mudgley from my lodgings in Bath. I will also send you a telegram to this effect, in case there are any delays in the post. I enclose my lodging address if you have time to confirm my visit would be appropriate, but I realise it is very short notice, and so if I do not hear from you I will take the liberty to come anyway. Please forgive my haste and forwardness, but my purpose is purely to ascertain your wellbeing and to further establish our friendship and collaboration, which has been such a pleasure to me since you first opened our correspondence in June.

Affectionately yours,

___________________________________________

Hello Sis — You’ll be pleased to hear that completion date on the Mudgley cottage is confirmed for Monday 27th September, so look out for your share dropping into your bank account then. I still feel some residual guilt about Aunty Frances’s inheritance as neither of us visited her very often… but I think I’ll get over it! Gizzmo and I cleared the rest of the stuff out of the attic last week, and he reckons there are some nice antique pieces amongst the clutter. He says he knows a Lovejoy-type character who might be able to get a decent price for them — but I’ll send you some photos in case you want any for yourself. However, what has occupied me mostly this week is a batch of fifteen letters we found in a box in the attic. As you’ll see, they are correspondence from 1919 between a chaplain at Cambridge called Revd Charles Kilpatrick and Miss Grace Bartholomew here in Mudgley. She must have copied her own letters to him as they’re altogether in the box. A few seem to be missing in the middle of the correspondence, and the last two letters from him were unopened (I felt a bit bad opening them, but how could I not), the reason for which will become obvious when you read them. They are quite something, and I must admit I’ve become quite obsessed with them over the week. He was evidently some sort of folklorist collecting stories about West-Country faeries, and she was sending him material from her collection. None of that seems to have survived, all there was were the letters. They really are quite charming, and I’ve come to like them both immensely. The letters get more affectionate over the months and Grace goes from telling him about other people’s stories to recounting her own encounters with strange lights on the Levels, which she seems to have thought of as faeries. But I’m afraid it looks like Grace may have met a bad end, as the last two (unopened) letters are him getting anxious about her not replying to him, and then there are no more. I don’t think she can have had any children, but she does mention a cousin John Bartholomew, who might, in some way be our ancestor. You’re better at the family genealogy than me though. In the last letter Kilpatrick says he is going to come down here — I’d love to know how that panned out. I’ve scanned all the letters. The handwriting is quite easy to decipher, but Gizzmo’s put them through a bit of nifty software that converts the writing to a text document. It makes some mistakes, but I think I’ve corrected these, and so I’ll send you both the scans and the converted text as attachments in a separate email. I know you’ll love them, and I’d very much like to know what you think. Speak soon.

Much love,

n.x

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Neil — the money was transferred this morning. I’m still reeling at the amount and yes, I’m feeling some guilt about how undeserving I am of dear old Aunty Frances’s largesse. Thanks for dealing with everything, and sorry I couldn’t help more — you’re the best brother ever. You’ll have a present of gratitude (clue: something you’ve been wanting for a while), and there’s a big kiss waiting for you when you come to Cambridge next month. But now, to those letters. Wow… what a find! I think I’ve been over them three or four times over the weekend, always seeing something new. It’s a lovely epistolatory relationship isn’t it. And the language — so polite and restrained (and Grace’s handwriting is so beautiful). I like the way Charles warms to Grace over the months, and it sounds as if she were having some genuine sorts of paranormal experiences. Were they Will-o’-the-wisps or faeries? What do you think? I’ve sent the letters to my colleague Dr Mary Hodson, who is researching English folk customs of this period — I’ll let you know what she thinks of it all. And yes, what happened to poor Grace? Taken by the faeries/fell into the marsh/murdered by cousin John! Or perhaps she was ok and the reverend was worrying about nothing — although this seems unlikely as his last two letters were unopened, and there was no more correspondence. I wonder if we can track down some newspaper articles from the time, to see if there are any reports about what happened to Grace. It’s been ages since I made a half-hearted attempt to trace the family tree, and I think I’ve lost everything I did when my laptop blew up (you remember that disaster no doubt). If Grace didn’t have any children then it’s certainly possible that the cousin, John Bartholomew, could be our ancestor, three or four generations back. What if he did do away with her — we might have a murderer in the family tree! But I prefer to think she got whisked away to Faerieland and is living there still. And as you say, it would be wonderful if we could find out if Charles Kilpatrick wrote to anyone else about his trip there. I wonder if he left an archive of any type. Actually, if he did, maybe the collected stories Grace sent him are in it as well. A bit of a long-shot, but if my colleague Mary takes the bait, she might be interested enough to go looking for something. Anyway, thanks again for everything and sharing this beautiful correspondence with me. I’m so looking forward to seeing you next month. Maybe I should sign-off like they did… Ever your affectionate sister.

All my love,

Vix

PS: Mary Dodson has just sent me a message. She says she’s gobsmacked (her word) by the letters and has already searched around for anything published by Revd Charles Kilpatrick, but has only found some religious pamphlets, so it doesn’t look as if he got round to publishing his research into West-Country faeries. But she says she’ll start looking into him, and whether any of his archive survives here in Cambridge or elsewhere. I’ll keep you posted.

___________________________________________

Coda

Tuesday, 18th November, 1919

My dearest sister Fanny,

I do hope you are well and recovered from the coId you told me about in your letter last week. This disquieted me as you will know about the high mortality rates from the influenza outbreaks in recent times. But your description of the mildness of the symptoms has reassured me. I write to you from Bath having just returned from the hamlet of Mudgley. The journey there and back has been particularly unpleasant, most especially the legs between Wells and Mudgley, which necessitated riding in an open trap pulled by an elderly cob through persistent rain. You have heard from me all about Miss Grace Bartholomew and the correspondence I have been engaged in with her since the summer, so you will not be surprised that I felt the compunction to visit her when her letters ceased. I apologise for not informing you of my doing this, but I did not want to cause you unwarranted concern. I will let you have more details when you are in Cambridge at the end of the month, but wanted to set down in writing what happened during my visit, as much to gather my own thoughts of perturbation as anything else. In brief — I arrived in Mudgley at shortly after eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, half wet through, cold, and not in the best state of mind. It is sizeable for a hamlet and the houses (a mixture of good stone houses and cottages) are strung out along several muddy lanes, all of which command views over the Levels of Somersetshire, although these were obscured whilst I was there by the low cloud and drizzling rain. I called at several properties and was met with various levels of surliness, but eventually received directions to Grace’s cottage from one wide-eyed local with an accent I could barely make out as English. Her small stone cottage was very pretty, but I must admit that I felt a type of faintness as I approached and rapped upon the door. There was no answer and no smoke from the chimney, so I decided all I could do was enquire at the directly neighbouring houses, numbering six or seven. I’m afraid I met with with varying degrees of suspicion and obfuscation from the householders, and became rather despondent, not to mention more wet and cold. But by happenstance, as I made my way to the large cider farm at the end of the hamlet, I met with a young woman who was returning home by foot from church in the nearest village. This turned out to be Grace’s friend, a Miss Elsie Everdene. She became very disconcerted when she learned who I was, but with a friendliness I had hitherto not found in the hamlet, she invited me into her cottage, where she lived with her parents. I was rather relieved they were not at home, so that I was able to get a candid synopsis of what had happened from Miss Everdene, who was visibly upset, but keen to impart what she knew. It turns out that Grace did venture out on to the Levels on All Hallow’s Eve, as she had told me she would in her last letter. Elsie had begged her not to, as large areas had become flooded with the recent rains, but Grace had been insistent and disappeared onto the Levels wrapped in her late father’s great coat and carrying a satchel and torch in case the darkness came early. She promised Elsie she would call in on her upon her return, but this did not happen, and once it had been dark for an hour or so, Elsie became concerned. She shared her unease with her parents, and then the three of them called at Grace’s cottage but there was no response. The father made a brief foray down on to the Levels to call for Grace, but the endeavour seemed useless in the dark, and it was decided to leave things until first light. When the next day broke, and Grace was still not to be found at home, a general agitation extended to everyone in the hamlet. A dozen of the men-folk set out on to the Levels (acting from Elsie’s directions of where she thought Grace was heading) to scour the area, but they drew a blank. To cut a long story short, the police were informed and there have been several searches of the area by the authorities over the last two weeks, but there has been no trace of Grace. Her cousin John has been questioned by the police, but Elsie knew no more about this. John was not popular in the hamlet, being seen as an outsider, and much suspicion has been heaped upon him for Grace’s disappearance (especially in light of some legal disputes as to the ownership of her cottage), but Elsie thinks this mistrust is unfounded. In short, she truly believes that Grace has been taken by the lights on the Levels. But when she began to talk about this she became increasingly distraught, and I did not want to press her on the subject. At any rate, at this time her parents returned home. They were cordial, but evidently did not want to extend discussion of Grace’s disappearance, so I left it at that and asked Miss Everdene to write to me further with her thoughts and any more news from further investigations. Grace was evidently much loved in the hamlet, and there is much disquietude about what has happened, which may explain the aloofness I experienced, as people here must currently be suspect of strangers snooping around. As you may imagine, this whole affair has left me most disturbed, and not without a little guilt at not having dissuaded Grace from chasing after her faerie lights on the Levels. I had grown fond of her and have a sense of disbelief as to what has happened. May our Lord have mercy on her. One more thing — as I awaited my trap back to Wells at the edge of the hamlet, the cloud cover cleared for a few minutes and I was afforded a view over the Levels, which are certainly beautiful, but stark and somehow melancholy, even haunted. And in the distance, between pools of water and scrub, I am convinced I saw three lights moving along the side of the water before disappearing from view. It instilled in me a feeling of fear dread and incertitude, and I left with emotions of both great sadness and of a deep incredulity as to what really may have happened to my friend Miss Grace Bartholomew, and to who, or what, had caused her disappearance. This is all I can write at the moment my dear Fanny. We will talk more of it in due course.

Always affectionately your brother,

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Dead but Dreaming the novel is available now…

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