The Fair Folk of the Wall (a story)

This is a story, albeit a true one. Make it a bedtime tale if you desire. It is about something that happened to me one evening when I was out and about on my land. 

You see, dry stone walls seem to be everywhere in the Lake District. I walk past them without thinking. I lean on them, cross them, repair them. And yet, every now and then, one asks me to stop. On this occasion, one did.

This particular wall is not a grand place. Just a line of stone running between woodland and open fell. But like many such walls, it sits at the edge of something.

On one side, trees are returning. Hazel thickens. Oak rises slowly through ground once kept short by grazing. On the other side, the fell remains open, shaped by wind and weather. And between them, the wall holds its ground, as it has done for longer than anyone can remember.

Across Cumbria, and far beyond, there are stories about such places. Old stories, passed on in low voices. Stories of paths that should not be blocked, of gaps that should not be filled too quickly, of walls that do not always behave as they should.

It is said that certain boundaries are shared.

This is a story about one such place.

It began with a simple walk, late in the day, when the light was fading and the land was neither fully awake nor fully asleep. It was the kind of hour when shapes soften and distances change, when the ordinary begins to shift.

There was no drama. No sudden movement. No raised voices.

Just a moment.

A figure, small and still, sat on the wall ahead of me.

Not a sheep. Not a fox. Not something easily explained.

And then, after a few quiet seconds, it was gone.

As gently as mist lifting.

It may be that this is a story of imagination. That the fading light played its part. That the mind filled in what the eye could not quite resolve. Yet I do not think so.

My story, this story, is not about proving anything.

It is about noticing.

It is about what changes when a place is treated differently. When noise is removed. When work is done by hand. When land is allowed to recover, slowly and without force. Just as I am doing right now.

Something does change.

The air feels different. The ground feels different. The walls seem to hold more than just stone.

Old stories of Lakeland say that the fair folk belong to margins. To edges. To places where one thing becomes another. They do not live in the middle of anything. They prefer the in-between.

And a dry stone wall, running between woodland and fell, is exactly that.

It is a place where, if you are patient, and not looking too hard, you might feel something shift at the very edge of your perception. It is that which happened to me.

This story is about standing still. Listening. Letting the moment arrive on its own terms.

If you are listening to this in bed, or in the dark, or simply in a quiet place, imagine yourself beside that wall.

Wind moves lightly across the fell.

The last of the daylight rests on the stones. Their daytime warmth is slowly vanishing.

If you wait, remain patient, silent, and stay motionless, you might just see a fairy.

Just do not go looking for one. You will maybe see one by accident, that is all, as some things prefer to be found. They do not respond to searching.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

The Fairfolk of the Wall with Richard Villa. When people ask me whether there are fairies on this land, I no longer dodge the question. Yes, I do believe there are. Not in the glitter and gore sense, not as decorations for children's books, but as presences that belong to margins, to edges, to transitions, to places that are neither entirely one thing nor entirely another. And this land is full of such places. Consider the dry stone wall that goes a long way across my land and was built quite possibly many centuries ago. On one side is woodland recovering itself, hazel thickening, oak pushing up through what used to be close grazed turf. On the other side is open fowl, wind shaped and uncompromising. The wall runs between them like a quiet agreement. Dry stone walls are peculiar structures. They look solid, yet they breathe. They keep sheep out, or at least that is the intention, but voles pass through. They divide land, but they are made entirely from the land they divide. In Cumbria, fair folk have always preferred the margins, hollows and hills, narrow rock steps, cave mouths, places where light changes quickly. There is a tradition at the ferry steps near Beatham. Climb them without touching the rock, and your wish is granted. Touch the sides, and it is not. The rule is simple, but it implies something larger. Certain thresholds are shared. Nearby are some old quarry scars, and you'll see where stone was taken from the hillside long ago. Those cuts must once have felt like human triumph, extraction, improvement, control. Plenty of nearby Ambleside town use stone from this very land. But the woodland is slowly taking the quarries back. Moss softens the edges, saplings stitch the wound closed, the land heals quietly, without trauma. Further along the wall is a collapsed sheepfold. Once it gathered animals tightly, efficiently. Now it gathers ferns and wrens and rainwater. It has moved from control to openness. I believe the furfolk prefer it that way. I made a decision when I began working here that nothing powered by fossil fuels would operate on this land, no petrol engines, no diesel machinery. Work is done by hand, by battery charged elsewhere, or not at all. Some people find that eccentric. But when you remove the engines, something changes. You begin to hear the wall, not metaphorically, but physically. The tiny movements within it, the wind threading through it, the life it shelters. And you become aware that this boundary is not empty space. I had an experience here one autumn evening that confirmed my belief. It was just after dusk. The woodland darkened more quickly than the fowl, and the wall was holding the last of the day's warmth. I was walking along near the bend by the old sheepfold when I saw a figure sitting on the wall ahead of me. Small, perfectly poised, very still. It was not a sheep, not a fox, not a trick of peripheral vision. It was there, distinct against the fading light. I stopped. For several seconds we regarded one another. I cannot describe it better than that. There was no fear, no drama, simply recognition. Then as gently as mislifting, it was gone, not running, not darting. Simply no longer there. I have considered that carefully. But what I know is this since I stopped forcing this land, since I reduced grazing pressure, since I refused engines and allowed woodland to return, the atmosphere here has altered. It feels inhabited, not haunted, not theatrical, shared. The fair folk, as they have long been understood in northern tradition, are not separate from land. They are expressions of its aliveness. They appear where we pay attention and where we tread carefully. And the wall which runs between regeneration and exposure, between past use and future intention, is precisely the kind of place they would choose. If you stand there quietly, you may feel it. Not something dramatic, just a subtle quickening of the edge of perception. That is enough. I do not claim proof, I do not offer evidence in a laboratory sense, but I believe that when a piece of land is treated with restraint, when quarry scars are allowed to heal, when sheepfolds become circles of shelter rather than control, when walls are repaired by hand rather than machine, the furfolk approve. And sometimes, if you are very fortunate, they allow you to see them only briefly. Just long enough to remind you that you are not the sole custodian of the boundary.