Strange Tales of Captured Fairies, Gnomes, and Other Mysterious Little People

Throughout the world and across cultures, there have always been stories of various types of magical little people. Fairies, gnomes, trolls, goblins, duendes - there are of as many types and go by as many names as the various regions and peoples that describe them, and they are a mainstay in the lore of many areas. One very rare type of occurrence among all of these cases and tales are those of these little people being somehow captured by humans in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons, and here we will look at this strange part of the world of mysterious little people. 

Stories of captured gnomes, fairies, and other assorted magical little people go back centuries. During the Roman Empire, it was said that gnomes or goblins of some sort were used for slave labor, and they were also used to work in mines. Weir de Boer, of the University of Groningen, says of this:

“In folk mythology they were seen as tricksters. But behind the myth there are genuine stories of genuine people. They worked at night, underground, in mines, and deep forests. Their trickery was either a form of entertainment, a form of revenge, or simply due to pots and pans being misplaced at night in the poor light. There are reported cases in some areas of the Holy Roman Empire of small people or gnomes (in Dutch: kabouters) being used in sandy soil areas in Brabant, Limburg, and the Luneburg heath. They were for instance used to illegally assart forested areas, hence their need to work at night, as to remain undetected by authorities.

There are also reported cases of them being used in mines in the Harz mountains in Saxony and Ore mountains near the border with Bohemia to mine iron ore. The forested timber would actually be used in the iron ore mines to prop up tunnels and mine shafts. The wood was also used as fuel to make brine, a commodity that was traded along the old salt route. This salt then would have been used to preserve herring, a valuable commodity during Lent. There were spawning grounds of herring in the Baltic Sea in the middle ages. The fish trade was known as the Scania market, named after a region nowadays part of Sweden, but then part of Denmark. This trade in salted fish meant Hanseatic merchants could amass great fortunes.

The deforested area often became heath, or worse shifting sands. Heather in the high middle ages would have been used as an ingredient in beer, until hops became more popular and replaced it, by which time those areas started to economically decline after they had destroyed much of their environment.”

There are numerous other stories of these little people being captured, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to disentangle possible facts from folklore. A famous tale is one from North Wales, which tells of a hunter wishing to capture a fox, placing a bag with its mouth open over the entrance of a den he had just seen a fox enter. With the trap set, the hunter retired a little and lay back against a tree, finally dozing off as the evening wore on. He was then awoken by a commotion in the bag, which he sealed up and threw over his shoulder to take back home. However, it wasn’t long before he heard footsteps behind him, and a tiny voice calling from the dark, “Where is my son, John?” As the hunter kept walking the voice continued to ask the same question, and then a voice came from the bag saying “There is my dear father calling for me.” The hunter dropped the bag in terror and ran off as fast as he could. There are plenty of stories like this, and author and fairy researcher Matt Collishaw classifies the capture of fairies into three categories, saying in his series Catching Fairies:

“1) the captive fairy dies- Keeping fairies as playthings in the human world is cruel and dooms them, attractive as it may sound- “I’d like to tame a fairy/ To keep it on a shelf” (The child and the fairies).  In the Suffolk story ‘Brother Mike’ a fairy is caught by a farmer in the act of stealing corn from his barn.  He puts the creature in his hat and takes back to the farmhouse for the amusement of his children.  The captive is tethered to the kitchen window and there he pines away and dies, refusing all food. This compares to the story of the Green Children, also from Suffolk.  These two infants strayed from faery into the human world; the boy of the pair soon died of grief. From Cheshire and Shropshire come tales of the water fairy called the asrai. This mysterious being, in the form of a young, naked woman, is from time to time dredged in fishing nets from lakes and meres.  When exposed to the air they never last long, simply melting away in the bottom of the fishing boat before it reaches the shore.

2) the captive fairy is forced to act against her will- Near Lochaber in Scotland a man somehow captured a malevolent glaistig that had haunted the neighbourhood.  He imprisoned it in an outhouse and, as a condition of its release, made it swear to leave the area and to no longer molest the population.  He and his family were thereafter cursed with bad luck for his  efforts.  A Welsh story from Llanberis concerns a lake maiden, a gwrag annwn, who is lured ashore with an apple and caught by a man.  She agrees under compulsion to marry him, but the marriage is subject to conditions which, as always happens in these stories, were eventually breached.  Lastly, from the Isle of Skye there comes an account of mass compulsion. A builder was asked to construct a byre to hold 365 cows at Minguinish.  When he had finished the walls, he realised that he knew of no way of roofing over the vast space.  Heading home, he encountered and caught a fairy.  He was immediately besieged by other fairies seeking to release their companion; the terms of his ransom were that they roofed the Great Byre, which they did overnight.

3) the captive fairy escapes- the most numerous of these accounts culminate in the fairy’s return home.  Sometimes, as with the Green Children, the fairy is simply lost and is taken in by humans.  This is the case in the Cornish story of Coleman Gray.  The pixie boy is found wandering and distressed and is cared for by a human family, until one day he hears his mother calling and returns to her.  More often the fairy is caught, although not always intentionally.  An account from Dartmoor describes how a woman returning from market met a pixie gambolling on the path in front of her.  She snatched it up, put it in her empty basket and latched the lid. For a while he complained loudly in a strange tongue.  When he fell silent, she opened the lid to check on him and found that he had disappeared.  From Lancashire there comes a story of two poachers who were out ferreting and who, instead of rabbits, flushed two fairies from a burrow into their sacks.  They were so alarmed by the voices crying out from inside the sacks that they dropped them and ran home.  The next day the sacks were retrieved, empty and neatly folded.  It seems that the fairies bore no ill will for the incident; likewise in the story of Skillywidden, a pixie captured at Treridge near Zennor, the fairy does not seem too put out by his ordeal.  A farmer was cutting furze when he spotted the young pixie asleep.  He scooped it up and took it home where it played contentedly by the hearth with his children.  However, one day when they all slipped outside to play, the pixie’s parents appeared searching for him and he readily went home with them.  Readers may note that there is a farm called Skillywadden to the south of Trendrine Hill where this incident took place; this may therefore be prime fairy catching country…”

Another old tale is that of the supposed witch Anne Bodenham, who was an English woman who was executed for witchcraft in 1653. All manner of rumors surrounded Bodenham, such as that she had made a pact with the Devil, and that she could teleport and transform into a dog, lion, bear, wolf, or monkey. She was perhaps most infamous for her alleged ability to conjure up various spirits to do her bidding, and one common entity she was said to summon was a group of little people called the “ragged boys,” often spelled “ragged boyes” and so named because they took the form of little boys in tattered clothing. These little people she would summon and send on all manner of errands, and one such conjuring is explained in the book An Antidote Against Atheism, by Henry More, who writes:

“She was imployed by others in a reall Negotiation twixt them and the Witch, and ever brought back her answers to them, receiving also things from her, by the help of those ragged Boyes she raised up; as appears in a third Conjuration of hers, when the Maid was another time sent to procure some exemplary punishment upon Mr Goddard's two Daughters, who yet were unjustly, as it seems, aspersed with the suspicion of endeavouring to poison their Mother-in-law. The Witch receiving the Wenches errand, made a Circle as formerly, and set her Pan of Coals therein, and burnt somewhat that stank extremely, and took her book and glass as before is related, and said, Belzebub, Tormentor, Lucifer and Satan appear. And then appeared five Spirits, as she conceived, in the shapes of little ragged Boyes, which the Witch commanded to appear, and goe along with the Maid to a Meadow at Wilton, which the VVitch shewed in a glass, and there to gather Vervine and Dill, And forthwith the ragged Boyes ran away before the Maid, and she followed them to the said Meadow: and when they came thither, the ragged Boyes looked about for the Herbs, and removed the Snow in two or three places before they could finde any, and at last they found some, and brought it away with them; and then the Maid and the Boyes returned again to the Witch, and found her in the Circle, paring her Nails: and then she took the said Herbs, and dried the same, and made Powder of some, and dried the Leaves of other, and threw bread to the Boyes, and they eat and danced as formerly; and then the Witch reading in a book they vanished away. And the VVitch gave the Maid in one paper the Powder, in another the Leaves, and in the third the paring of the Nails, all which the Maid was to give her Mistris. The Powder was to put in the young Gentlewomens, Mris Sarah and Mris Anne Goddard's, drink or broth, to rot their guts in their bellies; the Leaves to rub about the brims of the Pot, to make their teeth fall out of their heads; and the paring of the Nails to make them drunk and mad. And when the Maid came home and delivered it to her Mistris, and told her the effects of the Powder and the other things, her Mistris laughed and said, That is a very brave thing indeed. But yet she had the discretion not to make use of it.”

She would apparently conjure up these ragged boys to run all manner of errands and to do her bidding, often for others for a fee, and More spends a good length of his book talking about it. This is all presented as indisputable fact, and he concludes:

“Wherefore to conclude, there being found upon her, there being done and spoken by her such things as do evidently indigitate that she is a Witch, and has the power of raising Spirits, and she being accused by one of raising them up, who in no likelihood could excogitate any such either Magical Forms, Effects or Circumstances, as are above recited, and who tells her story so indifferently, that it touches her self near as much as the Witch, and upon her revealing of the villany was so handled that it was plainly above any natural distemper imaginable; it cannot, I say, but gain full assent of any man, whom prejudice and obstinacy has not utterly blinded, that what the Maid confessed concerning her self and the Witch is most certainly true.

And to come nearer home if we may believe the story of Anne Bodenham the Witch of Fisherton Anger in the County of Wilts, set forth at large by Edmund Bower, and the Reverend and Learned Hen. More D. D. The Spirits which she raised (as confest by Anne Stiles who was frequently at her Conjurations) always appeare’d in teh shape of little ragged boys, who ran round the house where the Witch had drawn her Staff, her Dog and Cat dancing with them.”

What were the Raggedy Boys and was Bodenham really able to summon them to do her bidding? Who knows? Beyond such tales and folklore, there have on occasion been actual news articles written on strange little people being captured. One very odd such case appeared in February of 1926 in The Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3261. The bizarre report speaks of a strange 14”-tall little person captured in a mine and explains:

“Gloucestershire has Been startled by the discovery of a Lilliputian creature living in the Poolway Colliery. The miners exploring old workings caught a mysterious creature fourteen inches high, with a round head the size of a teacup, resembling a human being. He was covered with soft brown hair and had two eyes, with eyebrows and eyelashes, little round ears, and a flat nose, a mouth containing a fine set or pearly white teeth, a short neck, tiny arms, perfect hands, robust legs 4 inches long, and human feet.

When trapped, he snarled like a monkey. Such was the extremity of his fright that he lived only an hour. The miners left the creature lying on a bank of coal. When they investigated the following day. the body had disappeared, it is believed, re. trleved by relatives in the miniature tribe. The story, at first regarded as the fantasy of a drunken imagination, was suddenly confirmed by a family living at Chief or d, ’ whose experience seemingly proves the existence of subterranean beings. Mrs Gwililam was serving supper when she was alarmed by a .movement in the coal scuttle. Tl)e daughter screamed at seeing a terrifying little creature like a tiny half-caste miner, well proportioned, with shapely hips and a smiling face, seated on a lump of coal. The husband, in view of the children’s hysterics threw the scuttle out of the door.

The story is highly reminiscent of the old fairy tales about gnomes, goblins, pixies, and elves. Mr H. G. Wells in one of his earliest tales of imagination, “The Time Machine,” described—in the far-distant future—• the evolution of mankind Into two races, one of which lives in idle luxury In ruined communal palaces above the ground, while the other dwells in the bowels of the earth and comes out at night to pick up stray creatures of the upper world for its cannibal feasts. The denizens of this underworld were named, according to Mr Wells, Morlocks.”

What in the world was this thing? From 1910 there is an article in the Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14171. The report describes a tiny little person being displayed as a sort of side-show freak, and who was supposedly found in a shipwreck speaking an unintelligible language. The article reads:

“THE CORNISH PIXIE. This mysterious anomaly of humanity known as "The Cornish Dixie” is announced to appear shortly in New Plymouth, in the reception rooms lately occupied as the Dominion Tea Rooms in Devon Street. The Pixie is described as a perfectly-proportioned man in miniature, weighing only 92 lb avoirdupois and standing 25 inches high. He is described as the Cornish Pixie, and is a mere handful of humanity, who can be mistaken for an ordinary child's doll. The Pixie is said to represent a per--feet man with no abnormal, physical defect beyond his diminutive' size. His age is unknown, but may be anything between 36 and 50 years, although his- head is well covered with hair, without the sign of a grey speck in it. The history of this singular little being is surrounded in mystery. All that is really known about him is 'that he was discovered in Cornwall, being one of the survivors from a shipwreck on that well-known treacherous coast. The Pixie’s habits are those of ordinary humans, and he does not require anv special food or liquids. He speaks French and understands English, but his own language is unintelligible to most, people. He enjoys a cigarette and sleeps about twelve hours cut of the twenty-four.

The last day of the miniature man is announced and public curiosity in this strange little creature remains unabated, as each reception given by him is attended by large numbers of sightseers eager to interview' such a wonderful specimen of mankind before ho loaves ior Australia. Many experiments are made by those who call oil the Pixie to test his intelligence, and on 110 occasion has the enquirer been dissatisfied with tho answer given by "Dick," who, sitting n state., cu his little stage, receives all honours with the air and glance of an Eastern sage. The wizened appearance of the little man makes his age a question of pure conjecture, but about his intelligence there can be no doubt whatever. All who are interested in matters which smack of the mysterious should take this opportunity (the last one) of seeing one- of the greatest wonders ever exhibited here.”

Odd, indeed, and hard to follow up on because there are no articles that mention just what happened to this little man after this. Who was he and where did he come from? All of these stories are very odd, and intriguing because they bring the magical into the realm of humans, where we could get a better understanding of these entities. Is any of it real, or is it all mere myth, folklore, and slow news days? Whatever the case may be, it is one side of the lore of little people that is rarely mentioned or covered, and I leave it for you to think about.