Fairies: the little people of Newfoundland
Fairies are a real presence in Newfoundland outports, not just children's stories.
Fairy belief is a genuine, documented part of the province's intangible cultural heritage. Folklorist Barbara Rieti's 'Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland' (ISER Books, Memorial University, 1991) is the standard academic study, drawing on the Memorial University Folklore and Language Archive; Heritage NL's Intangible Cultural Heritage office maintains a resource list of fairy-tradition research, and academic dissertations on Newfoundland fairylore continue to be written. Belief narratives were collected across the island well into the late twentieth century.
The story they tell
The tradition itself, told as living belief: the good people living in gardens, barrens and cemeteries, leading travelers astray at dusk, punishing those who disturb their places or mock them. These are collected oral narratives - Skipper tells them as folklore, never as fact.
How to get there
No road to it. The stories belong to the woods and the older people who tell them; the Irish Loop and the Cape Shore are thick with them.
Story
