FAIRIES AND FAIRYLAND

Southland Times, Issue 21832, 8 October 1932, Page 21

FAIRIES AND FAIRYLAND

Do I believe in Fairies? Well, I do and I don’t. What I mean by that is, we really cannot believe in Fairies as we would believe in God, and yet we may love Fairies better than we love God. But that is because Fairies and all other beautiful things are really part of God. Grown men and women have scorned the idea of Fairyland. But they are old. They cannot be else. Only those who have drunk from the fountain of youth, and who have been blessed for evermore with perpetual youth, are young. For there is a Fairyland and those who turn their backs on it when they grow up have lost the key of that hidden pathway for ever. Indeed some find it again and those favoured few must really be loved by the gods. Yes, there is a Fairyland, but it is not the dazzling realm that exists in storybooks. Fairies are pod’s messengers and they only can keep the heart young. Thousands of great men and women have believed in Fairies and their lives have been enriched because of this. And then millions teeming round them have mocked; but where are they? Dead and gone. Unnamed and unknown. Only those who have believed will live for ever in the history of mankind. —Cousin Lesley Shand (17), Rimu,