I’ve always had an open mind on the reality of ‘fairies’ – earth elementals to many magical folk, and a very real presence to many in our woodland, and particularly landscapes with streams.

We recently had a visit by my son, his wife and family – two young girls who are both intelligent and delightfully open to new expereinces. They live in Queensland, Australia, where the climate and terrain is very different to Cumbria.

Our daughter-in-law has fond memories of staying with us during part of her final year at Durham-Newcastle medical school, when we had just begun the conversion of the old bungalow into what would be our future home. She wanted to show the children the places of her memories of the Lake District, even if their stay was to be only a few days.

We do our best to keep in touch with ‘the Aussies’ via video link and email, and the two girls love the little videos that I make when we are on walks, or when I’m taking Tess through the forest. A particular favourite was a series of video ‘shorts’ I took last spring, to introduce them to our very own ‘fairy-land’ on the Low Sizergh Estate. They are fond of the idea of fairies, and I had noticed they had several books on the topic.

We got busy devising an agenda that would dovetail one event into another without exhausting anyone…

Australia is a long way from Cumbria and they were still a little jet-lagged when they arrived.

Low Sizergh is a great place for families to bring their children either en-route to or coming back from a visit to the Lake Windermere area.

The fast-expanding old farm is both farm shop and cafe and offers a short walk through the forest and back through the place of the fairies. When we moved here, 13 years ago, we spent many days exploring the local walks.

The arrival of Tess the Collie regularised my visits to this beautiful enclave, which follows the banks of the largest stream to emerge from the higher ground near Levens and flows down the wooded farmland to enter the River Kent.

The Sizergh team have invested in expanding the ‘fairy presence’, and have recently added a magical tunnel made from willow. Our two girls, enchanted, began their journey there:

The end of the willow tunnel intersects with the return of the stream and soon we came to the ‘fairies parliament’ – a set of carved mushrooms on which they are reputed to sit and sing via moonlight. The girls loved it and crossed the stream to sit with them.

They looked very happy when they returned, jumping across the stream ‘as instructed’, and they hinted of conversations with the fairy-folk…

But our visit had to be brief, as we were due to catch a ferry from Bowness to Ambleside in the next 90 minutes, so I promised them I would come back on a sunny day after they had returned to Australia and see if I could take photographs of the real fairies to send to them.

In a grandfather-grandchild conspiracy, we had agreed that real fairies were free to take many physical forms, including those ‘bursts’ of sunlight through dense foliage.

I waited until one of those days where the autumn light was perfect and returned. The fairies must have been okay with my grown-up presence because they were very cooperative. Here are two of the best…

As I was leaving, I noticed a part-buried wooden stump on which were carved the words:

I sit in the sunshine and muse: the doorway to past lives

Hard to ignore…

©Stephen Tanham 2024

All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio Al.

Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.