When a tiny fairy was born one day with shiny black hair and exquisite chocolaty skin, her parents were so delighted with her arrival and with her beauty, they overwhelmed her with names. And so it was that Lucinda Hester Penelope Astrid Miracula, who came to be known as Lucy, started out life carrying not only her own precious name, Lucinda, but also the names of her two grandmothers and the names of their mothers. It’s not that she minded the names, really. She just felt dwarfed by them, as if they hovered over her head, en masse, like a giant cloud, attached to her shoulders by wispy thin, unbreakable strands. 

         As the beautiful little fairy reached the age of maturity she started to worry that she hadn’t grown very much in stature. She was still tiny while all her friends were getting tall and shapely. When a fairy starts to mature, her wings get itchy and begin the unfolding process. It’s one of those natural developmental processes sparked by the change in hormone balance that comes with puberty. As pre-teen human girls start to see hair under their arms, fairy girls start to feel their wings itch and twitch in the middle of their backs. All the fairy girls in Lucy’s age group were getting itchy wings and one by one, their dormant wing follicles started to spread open, a little more each day.

       Lucy would go home at the end of every day, gather up her thick, silky black hair off the back of her neck and examine her back in the mirror. There was no itching! There was no sign of opening! Her dark, dormant, folded wings remained stubbornly tight against her back. She frowned at the image in the mirror and pulled at her unbudging wings with her other hand. She would say to herself:  “Lucinda Hester Penelope Astrid Miracula! We expect great things of you! How much are you going to accomplish if you can’t even get your wings to unfurl?” And she would admonish herself in this way, calling on her many names to bear witness to her distress.

You see, it wasn’t just that Lucy wanted to be like all the other girls. And it wasn’t that she wanted to achieve maturity and become an adult-fairy, really, either. The real gift of wing-opening in fairyland lies in what comes with the opening of wings:  magic.  Lucy knew that until her wings opened she would not receive the gift of magic.

           Not given to complaining, Lucy kept most of her misery to herself. But her worry became hard to disguise. Lucy’s mother felt for her daughter and reassured her often that her wings would open in good time, and that her magic would come, too. Her father lectured her on the virtue of patience and he was secretly delighted that she would remain a little girl longer than usual.

           Privately Lucy was nurturing her own theory to explain why her wings weren’t opening.  The only difference that she could see between herself and all her contemporaries was the shade of her skin. Once she used to marvel at its deep, rich tones and thrill to watch the way water droplets glistened on her beautiful arms and legs. Now she was beginning to resent the darkness of her flesh compared to the colour of other girls whose wings had opened. Suddenly she came to regard her darkness as a flaw, and began believing that the hue of her skin was the reason for her developmental delay.

            Every day that did not bring a sign of hope found Lucy drooping closer and closer to the ground. Once she walked with an erect spine and a purposeful stride. More and more her shoulders curved forward, her head dipped down at the neck, and her gait was slow and measured. She stopped meeting people’s eyes. She no longer cared about her work or her friends. She stopped reading her favourite books.

           Lucy’s mother grew desperate watching her daughter droop and fade. She couldn’t think how to help her, so she finally made an appointment with the Fairyland wise woman. Lucy agreed to go, reluctantly. She was convinced there was no solution to her defective state and so she held no hope for the outcome of the wise woman’s advice. Still, she did have a lot of respect for the aged Tamara, and she figured that she had nothing to lose by visiting her.

           Tamara’s startling green eyes twinkled keenly as Lucy walked through her doorway. Most people had to duck to get into Tamara’s room, but Lucy was small in stature and so she had no trouble. Tamara had once told her that the reason the very old and the very young are small is so that they never look down on anyone, and that way they become closer to wisdom. Lucy thought of this as she walked through the diminutive opening. She smiled in spite of her mood and so the first thing Tamara saw was a little smile flash across the young fairy’s face.

            Lucy sat at the old woman’s feet and immediately put her hands up to Tamara’s lap. The wise woman clasped Lucy’s hands in her soft, bony ones and smiled into her eyes. Lucy immediately felt a wave of warmth and peace wash over her. She sighed deeply and drank in the unconditional love that poured out from Tamara.

           “You are so troubled, little Lucy,” Tamara said after a long silence. Lucy felt tears forming in her eyes. But she managed to say,

          “Yes I am, grandmother Tamara. But do you know why?”

           Tamara smiled and nodded and gazed more penetratingly at Lucy.

          “You must speak this fear out loud,” she said softly. “Until you do this, you cannot overcome the fear and move on.” Lucy started to cry and she considered how she could speak about her fear. She felt a pain that stretched from her throat all the way down her chest, through her abdomen, down her legs, ending at her toes.  When her toes started to throb and the pain was unbearable, she spoke:

          “I am sure that my wings are not opening and I’m not getting my magic because I was born with skin the colour of the night sky.” Then she lay her face down on the wise woman’s lap and sobbed into her soft robes. Tamara stroked her beautiful black hair and murmured softly to her while she cried.  When Lucy had cried herself out, she wiped her face on Tamara’s skirt and looked up at her lovely wrinkled face. Green eyes sparkled at her with love.

          “You have a great ancestor, little Lucy. I think it is time you met her.” Tamara smiled a wide, optimistic grin and gripped Lucy’s hands in her own.

         The next day, following the directions Tamara gave her, and which she memorized, Lucy made her way to the outer reaches of Fairyland. She had to walk farther than she had ever walked before. She had to pass through forests and valleys whose names she did not know. She had to climb over fences and wade through streams. She walked confidently, with purpose, and she began to hope, just a little, that there might be something to be gained from visiting her ancestor. The sky grew dark and she was still walking. Trees were black outlines against grey. Water was a trickling sound or a glimpse of light reflected in a moving surface. The ground was getting rougher; there were more stones in her path. She felt the way grow steeper and she realized she was walking up a hill.

 
By the time she reached the summit the night was completely black and the moon had risen. So what was immediately before her was dark and obscure, but things in the distance were illuminated.  At the top of the hill she was to look for an oak tree. The trees didn’t look natural. They were hard to identify: shiny and bright on one side but black and mysterious on the other. Everything looked different: the grass, the rocks, the small tufts of shrubbery. Lucy felt as though she had entered another world, a strange world. She looked down at her own hands and arms. They glowed white and eerie in the moonlight. She could scarcely recognize her own chocolate-tinted skin. She shivered in a sudden gust of wind and then started walking from tree to tree, touching their outer skin, feeling their breadth, smelling their essence. In this way she found the single oak on the hilltop.

“There you are, my old friend. I’ve found you at last,” she murmured, her lips against the coarse, richly-textured oak bark. “You might look like a stranger in this light, but I know who you are inside.”  She sat down at its base and leaned her back up against the strong width of the oak. Then she folded her hands and closed her eyes and started to imagine the shapes that Tamara had given her. Then she started mouthing the words of the chant Tamara had taught her. She breathed deeply and felt the scent of the trees enter her body. She whispered the words of the chant, watching the shapes pass before her eyes, over and over again. She breathed deeply, and felt her body relax against the sturdy oak. Soon the shapes were blurring together behind her eyes and her chanting became a monotonous humming sound.  As Lucy entered deeper and deeper into the world beckoned by Tamara’s shapes and sounds, her body became more and more relaxed until she was slumped up against the tree trunk, her cheek against its bark, and her arms draped around it in a loose hug. Her legs angled out comfortably from her body resting up against a large old root that protruded from the ground.

Find out what happens to Lucy in the next "Fairy Tales" newsletter where the conclusion to Lucinda's Magic written by our friend and customer Win Mellor-Hay will be published.

Our Christmas Gallery will be online on November 1.  Check it out at www.fairys.com

We are proud to announce that www.fairys.com has been awarded our third Golden Web Award.We are even prouder to announce that Fables, Fantasy & Fairy Tales won the “Best Booth” Award for the Queen Elizabeth Building at the Canadian National Exhibition.  Judging was based on product, presentation and service. 

As the monarch butterflies are migrating south, the leaves are turning colour and a new year of learning begins, we are proud to present the fairy
Autumn

Autumn is dressed in a hand painted silk starched gown that combines all the glorious colours of the season. Rich red fades into glowing orange. Bronze and russet blend together. Deep hunter green fades to sage. Trimming her gown is fairy dust reflecting the same hues of the season. Autumn is kneeling on a book of classic literature and holds a smaller book of her own. Her imagination takes her on a journey as she gazes into the distance. Majestic monarch butterfly wings and a golden tiara complete this charming fairy.

Introductory Price:  $124.00  

Silver Belle

Silver Belle tinkles with the musical notes of a joyous holiday season.This delicate flying fairy is dressed in sheer white silk that is fringed in silver fairy dust, pearls and glitter.Delicate ostrich plumes that swirl gently around her skirt set off the handkerchief hemline.  She carries with her 2 silver bells suspended at the ends of a glistening rope of beads.  Listen carefully and you will here her chime holiday greetings to all who catch a glimpse of her delicate features.

Introductory Price:  $79.00  

Many, many thanks to our fairy helpers of the past 6 months including Brenda S. and Kimberlee R.

Our deep thanks also are extended to our newsletter contributors, Dr. Win Mellor-Hay, Pam Overbaugh and Paolina Calabro

Miniature Enthusiasts of Toronto
Show & Sale
Japanese Cultural Centre
6 Garamond Court
Toronto, Ontario

Art Market Show & Sale
Grand Exhibition Hall
Telus Convention Centre
Calgary, Alberta
Booth # 115

National Trade Centre
Toronto, Ontario
Booth # A19

Originals Christmas Craft Sale
Lansdowne Park
Ottawa, Ontario