TINY PRISONERS: True Tales of Captured Fairies, Gnomes, and Duendes
For centuries, people have told eerie tales of fairies, gnomes, and other magical creatures being captured — some more believable than others, and some more frightening than others!
Stories about magical little people exist in practically every culture around the world. Whether they’re called fairies, gnomes, trolls, goblins, or duendes, these mysterious tiny beings appear in countless legends. But among all these tales, there’s something especially fascinating – stories where humans actually manage to capture these magical creatures!
These capture stories go way back in history. During the Roman Empire, there were accounts of gnomes or goblins being forced to work as slaves, especially in mines. According to researcher Weir de Boer from the University of Groningen, these little people weren’t just myths – they might have been real people who worked at night in mines, forests, and other hidden places.
The small workers reportedly engaged in clandestine activities, often illegal operations like clearing forests when authorities weren’t watching. They moved through the darkness, their small size an advantage in remaining unseen. In the Harz mountains of Saxony and along the borders with Bohemia, these diminutive laborers toiled in iron ore mines, using forest timber to support tunnels and mine shafts. The wood they harvested served a dual purpose – not only for structural support but also as fuel to produce brine, a valuable commodity traded along the ancient salt routes. This salt played a crucial role in preserving herring caught in the Baltic Sea’s spawning grounds, particularly important during the religious observance of Lent when meat consumption was restricted. The thriving fish trade, known as the Scania market (named after a region now part of Sweden but then belonging to Denmark), created vast fortunes for Hanseatic merchants who controlled these commercial networks.
The consequences of this exploitation were severe for both the little people and the environment. The once-forested areas transformed into barren heathlands or, worse, shifting sands. Initially, the heather growing in these deforested regions found use as an ingredient in beer production, but as hops gained popularity and replaced heather, these areas fell into economic decline, their natural resources depleted and their ecosystem fundamentally altered.
Throughout history, numerous accounts describe encounters with captured magical beings, each tale offering a glimpse into how humans interacted with these mysterious creatures. In the misty hills of North Wales, a hunter’s experience became legendary among locals. Setting a trap for a fox, he placed a bag with its mouth open at the entrance of a den where he had spotted the animal entering. After positioning his trap, the weary hunter leaned against a nearby tree and eventually dozed off as twilight descended. Later, he was startled awake by movement in the bag, which he quickly sealed before slinging it over his shoulder for the journey home. But the forest had more surprises in store.
As the hunter walked through the darkening woods, the sound of tiny footsteps followed him, accompanied by a small, desperate voice calling out from the darkness: “Where is my son, John?” The hunter quickened his pace, but the voice persisted with increasing urgency. Then, most terrifying of all, a tiny voice responded from within the hunter’s bag: “There is my dear father calling for me.” Overcome with fear, the hunter dropped the bag immediately and fled through the forest, never looking back.
Fairy researcher Matt Collishaw has extensively studied such encounters and categorized the stories of captured fairies into three distinct patterns, each reflecting different outcomes for these magical beings when they fall into human hands.
The first category includes tragic tales where the captured fairy meets its end. In Suffolk, a story tells of a farmer who caught a fairy in the act of stealing corn from his barn. The farmer placed the tiny being in his hat and brought it home to entertain his children. The family tethered the fairy to their kitchen window, but the creature refused all food, gradually wasting away until it died of grief. This mirrors another Suffolk tale of the Green Children who strayed from fairy realms into the human world – the boy of the pair soon perished from heartbreak, unable to adapt to our world. From the regions of Cheshire and Shropshire come accounts of water fairies called asrai, mysterious beings appearing as young, naked women occasionally caught in fishing nets. These delicate creatures cannot survive exposure to air, melting away in the bottom of fishing boats before reaching shore.
The second category involves stories where humans force captured fairies to act against their will. Near Lochaber in Scotland, local legend speaks of a man who managed to capture a malevolent glaistig that had long troubled the area. He imprisoned the creature in an outhouse and, as a condition for its release, made it swear to leave the region and cease tormenting the inhabitants. Despite this apparent service to the community, he and his family subsequently suffered misfortune, believed to be the fairy’s curse for his actions. Welsh folklore from Llanberis recounts how a lake maiden, a gwrag annwn, was lured ashore with an apple and captured by a man who then compelled her to marry him. As in many such tales, the marriage came with strict conditions which were eventually broken, leading to consequences for the human captor.
From the Isle of Skye comes a remarkable story of mass fairy labor. A builder tasked with constructing a byre to hold 365 cows at Minguinish completed the walls only to realize he had no solution for roofing the vast space. On his journey home, contemplating his dilemma, he encountered and captured a fairy. Almost immediately, he found himself surrounded by other fairies desperate to secure their companion’s release. The builder named his price – the completion of the Great Byre’s roof – which the fairies accomplished overnight, demonstrating both their loyalty to their kind and their remarkable abilities.
The third and most common category involves tales where the fairies ultimately escape their human captors. Sometimes, like with the Green Children, the fairy is simply lost and temporarily sheltered by humans. In Cornwall, the story of Coleman Gray tells of a pixie boy found wandering and distressed, taken in by a human family. He lived with them until one day, hearing his mother calling from beyond, he returned to his own kind. More frequently, the stories involve deliberate capture, though not always intentional.
A Dartmoor account describes a woman returning from market who encountered a pixie playfully dancing on the path before her. Acting on impulse, she snatched up the tiny being, placed it in her empty basket, and secured the lid. For some time, the pixie complained loudly in a strange language, but when it eventually fell silent, the woman opened the lid to check on her captive – only to find it had mysteriously vanished. From Lancashire comes the tale of two poachers setting traps for rabbits who instead captured two fairies in their sacks. The frightened men, hearing voices crying out from inside the sacks, dropped them and fled homeward. When they cautiously returned the following day, they found their sacks empty but neatly folded – the fairies apparently harboring no grudge for their temporary imprisonment.
Similarly, the story of Skillywidden, a pixie captured near Zennor, suggests these beings sometimes viewed their time with humans with curiosity rather than fear. A farmer cutting furze (another name for gorse, a spiky yellow-flowered shrub) spotted the young pixie sleeping, scooped it up, and brought it home where it contentedly played by the hearth with his children. However, during an outdoor excursion, the pixie’s parents appeared searching for their offspring, and the young fairy readily departed with them. Interestingly, a farm called Skillywadden still exists near where this event supposedly occurred, suggesting to some that the area remains rich with fairy presence.
Beyond folklore, historical documents occasionally mention these supernatural encounters. Anne Bodenham, an English woman executed for witchcraft in 1653, reportedly commanded small entities known as “ragged boys” – little people dressed in tattered clothing who performed various tasks at her bidding. Contemporary accounts describe elaborate rituals through which she summoned these beings, creating magic circles, burning strange-smelling substances, and reciting incantations until they appeared. These little servants would gather herbs, deliver messages, and allegedly carry out malicious errands for those who paid for Bodenham’s services.
Even newspapers have occasionally reported supposed captures of little people. In 1926, The Manawatu Times published an extraordinary account of miners in Gloucestershire who discovered a 14-inch tall creature in the Poolway Colliery. The being had a head the size of a teacup, soft brown hair covering its body, and perfectly formed but miniature human features. When captured, it reportedly snarled like a monkey and, overcome with fright, survived only an hour. When the miners returned the following day, the body had vanished, leading to speculation that others of its kind had retrieved their fallen comrade. This incident gained credibility when a family in Chieford reported seeing a similar creature – “a tiny half-caste miner” with shapely proportions and a smiling face – sitting on a lump of coal in their scuttle.
Another newspaper report from 1910 describes a “Cornish Pixie” exhibited to the public – a perfectly proportioned tiny man standing just 25 inches tall and weighing only 92 pounds. This mysterious little person was supposedly found after a shipwreck on Cornwall’s treacherous coast. Observers noted that he spoke French and understood English, though his native language remained unintelligible to human ears. He enjoyed smoking cigarettes and slept about twelve hours daily. Visitors who paid to see this “miniature man” remarked on his intelligence and the wise expression he maintained while receiving his curious audience. The newspaper tantalizingly mentions that he was scheduled to depart for Australia, but no follow-up reports detail what became of this enigmatic being.
Are these stories merely folklore, myths created during slow news days, or could they contain kernels of truth? Whatever the case, accounts of captured magical little people represent a fascinating aspect of supernatural lore – brief moments when the magical world supposedly intersected with our own, allowing humans a fleeting glimpse into realms usually hidden from view. These tales continue to captivate our imagination, reminding us that perhaps, in the shadows and quiet places of our world, other forms of intelligence might still exist, living lives parallel to our own.
Views: 10