My Weirdest Personal Experience

Illustration by Arthur Rackman

Can you believe it's already July 1st?! 2020 is half over (thank goodness) and to celebrate a new month and a new Ultimate Blog Challenge, I thought I'd start off with sharing a personal experience that I've never shared before. I'm usually pretty open about sharing my potential paranormal experiences, but this one is so weird that I've had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it...

So, several years ago I was awake at the literal ass-crack of dawn. I had gone to bed early the previous night, so by 5 am I was up and ready to go. It was a school day so I decided to go ahead and get everything ready to send Luke off to school. But, I had left his backpack, with his student planner that needed signed daily and his lunchbox in it, in my car.

I opened my front door and walked out on my porch stoop, but before I could step down off the stoop and onto the short, paved sidewalk leading to the driveway, I was startled by some movement. I looked down, fully expecting to see one of the dozens of rabbits that live around my yard, scurrying away.

What I saw DID scurry away, but as hard as my skeptical brain tries to rationalize it, I'm not so sure it was a bunny.

Running from the direction of my house, across the sidewalk, and disappearing around the back of my car, was a small creature. It was a light brown/tan color, very similar to our local rabbits. It stood a little under a foot tall, from my estimation. Being a late Spring morning sometime between 5 am and 6 am, there wasn't full sunshine, but it certainly wasn't super dark out, either. Plus, the porch light, while not super bright, was still turned on.

Everything about this encounter screams RABBIT to my rational side. It was about the same color and size as a rabbit, which are especially plentiful in my area around that time of year. It ran away, like you'd expect a rabbit to do when a human suddenly pops up, and it can be argued that in the early morning light, I couldn't get that good a look at the thing.

But...I did. I was standing only about 8 feet away from the creature when it stopped and looked directly at me for what seemed like much longer than it actually was. I wasn't looking into the eyes of any rabbit species I've ever seen. What I saw was a fully formed little man. He was nude, except for what looked like a tattered loincloth-type garment that was approximately the same color as his skin tone. He was barefoot. He had a somewhat stocky, not quite muscular, build. While he didn't seem dirty, per se, he just seemed sort of...weathered.

I couldn't see what color his eyes were, although for a brief second, he did look me directly in the eye before running off, on two feet, obviously. He didn't have a beard, and he wasn't bald, but his hair seemed very sparse, very light, and very wispy. His face reminded me of a combination of Dobby the House Elf from Harry Potter, Hoggle from Labyrinth and the Russ troll dolls from my childhood. It was heavily lined and creased, giving the creature a very old and wizened appearance. He seemed as shocked to see me as I was to see him. I also remember that his nose, while not huge, seemed to be his most prominent facial feature.

Dobby is a great example of a Brownie

Honestly, the description of it reminds me of a type of house spirit known as a Brownie, or sometimes called a Robin Goodfellow. According to Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins, by Carol Rose, a brownie is defined as:

"A household spirit of northern English and Scottish folklore; in southern England goes by the name of Robin Goodfellow. The Brownie is described as being like a very small, brown, shaggy human, sometimes naked and sometimes wearing ragged brown clothes. Families were proud of their Brownies as they brought good fortune; to lose one was disastrous. Outside of the family, a Brownie was viewed with caution, as they were prone to mischief when annoyed.

In general, the Brownie was the most industrious of the household spirits, ploughing, reaping, grinding grain, cleaning the house and barns, churning butter-in fact, most of the tedious jobs he would gladly do. In return, the Brownie was entitled to a bowl of the best cream and new baked cake or bread, to be put within his reach. To offer the Brownie any form of payment other than this, especially to take pity and to give him new clothes, was an insult, and he would vanish immediately."

After standing there a few seconds in shock, I walked over behind my car where he had run off to, and couldn't find anything. No little man, no little bunny, nothing. I quickly grabbed Luke's school stuff out of the car and headed back in, telling myself I had just seen a rabbit, nothing more.

But, rabbits don't usually run on two feet and they certainly don't wear little loincloths. For several years, I've tried to convince myself that I must not have been completely awake, and simply imagined seeing what I saw, but on the off-chance I DID see something, I wanted to finally document and share it.

After all, its not the first time I've had something fae-related happen at this house! We owned the house for about 6 months before we could even move in. It needed a LOT of work, both inside and out, but as the renovations neared completion, we were staying much more often. One day, we noticed a very distinct fairy ring had popped up in the front yard. It wasn't huge, only about 4-5 feet across. If you've never heard of a fairy ring or fairy circle, it's basically a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms that take on a circle shape thanks to how the spores are released. But, they have quite a folkloric connection with the fae.

Fairy Ring, Source

It is said that anyone who enters a fairy ring may disappear, only to be lost among the fae world forever. Or in a scarier alternative, a child entering into the fairy world through such a fairy ring would be replaced by a changeling. So, when Luke saw the fairy ring and started running towards it like he was going to jump in the middle, the superstitious side of me overpowered the skeptical side and I plucked that kid out of air, mid-jump, and ushered him back into the house!

Those are the only two things I've personally noticed around here and I'm sure both have a perfectly natural explanation. However, I like to keep my mind open to the possibility of things surrounding our world that we don't quite fully understand. Let me know down in the comments, or join me over on Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State Facebook page if YOU'VE ever had an encounter with the fae!

Stay Spooky!

For more info on the folklore of fairy circles, check out the article 

'Never, Ever Step Into a Fairy Ring', by Marla Brooks