Dragons, Elves, Trolls, And Wise Women

I know that dragons, trolls, faeries, and so on are the subject of fantasy literature, but that doesn't mean that they aren't real--they're usually just invisible now, in my experience. When I was a little girl, my dearest wish was to see the faeries. I sat out in the backyard, wishing as hard as I could, but I never saw any. It's too bad, because that would have really perked up my childhood.

On the other hand, a few years ago I invited two dragons to guard my house, which they did by flying around overhead, invisible but very much there. After a few months I noticed that they didn’t seem to be around as much, so I asked them why. They told me that they needed to be honored and wanted me to have two dragon figures on my altar. I found some dragons on eBay and painted them red. The real dragons were thrilled! However, after a while I didn’t care for having the dragons on my altar. I’m not sure why, but maybe my affinity with them wasn’t strong enough—I’m not really a dragon person. I removed them and soon after, the dragons left. I do recommend them as guardians of your home, if you really like dragons.

A while back, I wrote a fantasy novel for children, and in an early version, a few of the characters were dwarfs. They felt so honored at being in the book that a dwarf came and took up residence in my study. He sits on a basketball-size stone by the door. After he’d been there for a while, he told me his name was Uglo. He’s very low maintenance—rarely says or does anything. He does occasionally ask me to put some coins under the stone. As the novel progressed, it was developing too many subplots, so I wrote out the dwarfs. That didn’t seem to bother Uglo, who is still with me.

A few years ago I was fascinated to learn that the majority of the people of Iceland believe that trolls and elves still live there. The elves live in large stones and under hills. Icelanders have many stories of how the elves protect these homes. When a large rock is scheduled to be moved to make way for a road, the bulldozers won’t run. The same thing happened when a certain hill was about to be razed for a cemetery. Not only did the earth-moving equipment fail to work, even the TV cameras wouldn’t function while trying to film the hill. People having those problems often consult someone who can talk with the elves to see what can be worked out. . Usually the rock or hill stays put! The trolls live way out in uninhabited areas. There are tours you can take in Iceland to visit sites where trolls and elves are supposed to live.

And finally, the term "wise woman" means witch, and since I and some of my friends are witches, I'd have to say we exist, too!