FAi R IE S: THE CAR E AnD NoT Pi SsING OFf oF BY JORDAN DOLL BEST OF BIRDY ISSUE 069 S ummer is gone. It jammed in on its wind surfer, had its bodacious way with us, and left us sticky and hungover by the swimming pool. It is only now in the percolating days of autumn that we can begin to heal. Here, within a cocoon of outerwear we can grow our strength and a nice layer of winter marbling against the changing of the seasons — for autumn can be a very dangerous time, and I’m not just talking flu shots and mold allergies. It is a time of shifting, a changing of the guard from light to dark, merry to mournful, warm to cold. It is a thin place between one state of existence and another. No. 129 Simply put, it’s fairy season. Now you’re probably thinking, Fairies?! Big whoop! They look pretty cute and harmless on TV, and movies, and the Tinkerbell burlesque fan art message board that is tearing my marriage apart. But I assure you, those aren’t the fairies I’m talking about. A few hundred years ago in medieval Europe, fairies were one of the more terrifying threats a person could encounter while traipsing through the wilderness of Gaul, Brittany or Saxony. Right up there with poison ivy and AMY SHAMBLEN
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