Encountering Elementals

ENCOUNTERING ELEMENTALS

An Elemental Wood Spirit

In the county of Cumbria UK there is located a National Park known as The Lake District which, surprising as it may seem, has no lakes. There is Windemere, Derwent Water, Buttermere, Coniston Water etc. but no lakes. Of course some people speak of visiting lake Windermere but that is incorrect English as the word mere means lake. However the Lake District is one beautiful place and it is there that my dear wife Mary and I visit in search of elemental beings also known by many other names such as fairies, goblins, gnomes, elves etc. My interest in investigating these elusive beings began over twenty five years ago when I met Professor Joe Cooper (1924-2011) the academic and author of many books including ‘The Case of The Cottingley Fairies’. Joe told me that he held a sincere belief in the veracity of elementals and said something to me that I have never forgotten. Joe said, ‘it is not so much if you believe in fairies, it is more, do the fairies believe in you?’

Joe Cooper and I became great friends and over the years he shared with me many of his thoughts on elemental beings and where they could be contacted. It was Joe that exposed the truth about the fake fairy photographs taken by two young girls in 1917 at Cottingley beck in the county of Yorkshire. He had interviewed Frances Griffiths one of the two girls and she admitted to Joe that she and her cousin Elsie had used cut out illustrations from a book and placed them beside the trees at the side of the stream then photographed them as a kind of joke. The prank got out of hand when the printed photographs were sent to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Conan Doyle accepted these photographs as being real and wrote about them in a feature for the 1920 Christmas issue of The Strand magazine. Suddenly the two girls were in the news along with their fairy photographs and they had to continue with the lie. Joe told me that Frances had confessed her part in the fabrication of these fake photographs but she had confided in him that both she and her cousin Elsie had seen real fairies in Cottingley glen.

Joe and I visited Cottingley Glen on a number of occasions and he showed me exactly where the two girls claimed to have seen fairies. The glen is little more than a narrow stream or beck running over stones with steep sides overgrown by trees, bushes and brambles. Once there we spent some time tuning in to the atmosphere and Joe told me how he felt that the fairy folk could sense our presence. It was essential, he said, that we maintain a lightness of spirit and be joyful, whistle even to enable the elemental beings there to accept that we were friendly and full of fun. We whistled, I even sang a song and Joe joined in ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ but the fairies did not appear. However I did feel a deep affinity with that ancient area and could well imagine that almost one hundred years ago two little girls really did dance with the fairy folk. And so it began, my interest in encountering elemental beings was stirred that day. I truly did believe Joe when he explained that once the fairies believed in me then they would appear. So I determined to continue what Joe and I attempted and began a series of visits to remote locations in woodlands, usually with streams, in the hope that one day I really would meet with the little people.

My planned elemental encountering visits to The Lake District began shortly after the Cottingley Glen experience with Joe Cooper. At first my dear wife Mary appeared convinced that I had taken leave of my senses. I believe she formed that opinion when she first observed me talking to a rather attractive old oak tree by the side of Conniston Water. Then as I began playing my antique wooden flute and calling out ‘Hello, Hello, Happy Happy Days, Say Hello!’  to the fairies she really gave me a very strange look. But I had to get the fairies to believe in me, so I played the part of a jolly gentleman and made some music. Mary, with great reluctance I might add, agreed to take photographs of me, the hope being that we would capture on camera a image of an elemental entity. Initially the photographs showed no more than one would expect, me in a daft hat with a flute and lots of trees. But over time we began to find that there were numerous inexplicable anomalies within some of the photographs and even images of what looked like elemental beings. At this stage I started to wonder if my old friend Joe Cooper had been right, maybe the fairies had begun to believe in me.

Over the years I have visited hundreds of sites in and around The Lake District as it is an area rich in woodlands with streams running down the hills and mountain sides. There is no particular tried and tested method of locating a site that is inhabited by elementals, in fact I use my own psychic sensitivity to tune in. However once I have found a location where I feel there are fairy folk and Mary has captured something positively paranormal on camera, we note this and return. It is my belief that by repeating visitations to these sites of elemental activity the fairies will develop trust in me and allow encounters to happen. That appears to be the case with regards to a number of such sites and at one certain wooded location virtually every time Mary and I visit we do capture on camera various anomalous phenomena. For example on our last visit to these woods Mary photographed me tuning in and on opening the digital files containing the pictures we found that two overlapping bright blue orbs containing faces were present. On other occasions we have captured photographs of elemental entities that appear to be goblins, dark green small of stature beings with wide eyes and a tiny mouth.

It is now over twenty years since I began my quest to encounter elementals in the Lake District and have a list of supernaturally active locations that I visit regularly.  Gradually the photographic evidence is accumulating and it is my plan, in time, to publish a guide to exploring the sites I have discovered in and around the Lake District within the county of Cumbria UK.  If you have personally encountered fairies or are interested in photographing them then do, please, contact me.