of faries

Apr 05, 2008 - 02:27 AM PST

For generations the fairy has been misunderstood. Your great great great grandfather told your great grandmother a story that wasn’t’ wrong, it was just brief—a mere metaphor for the truth. You know the story well enough; you even told parts of it to your little sister before tucking her in. and it’s not a bad thing that it has become a fable—certainly it has helped protect the fairies.
What you’ve heard probably goes along the lines of this account: when the first baby laughed for the first time, it split into a million pieces and they all went skipping about: that was the beginning of fairies. Typically, there’s a picture of a fairy to go along with the story. They aren’t hard to find if you’re looking for one; painted on the walls and fences of shrouded gardens, carved into the wood near trails and pagodas, shaped from the stone of a fountain etched among deity within shrines; nearly everywhere the earth is honored.
The figured are brazen models of winged women; usually flying about causing mischief to strangers or guarding that which cannot guard itself. Sometimes they have wings like butterflies—two great, plated wings—and sometimes those of mayflies or dragonflies—two pairs of long, transparent, foldable wings. Occasionally you’ll see some variation—feathered wings of eagles or angels or fleshy wings like bats—but mostly the wings are those of some insect.