Faerie Size, Shape and Number

~Faerie Size, Shape & Number~: The size with which fairies appear to a mortal is proportionate to the belief that the mortal has in them. Fairies have little desire to parade before unbelievers; and since humans have become so arrogant as to believe in nothing greater than themselves, fairies have ceased to be seen as greater than mortal heights. It takes a high-minded mortal to endure the sight of the fairies in all their majestic beauty. A tale written about the cute "wee people" is one that can be dismissed as fiction. But if fairies were accepted as gods, as awesome gods, they would stand before mortals.; Fairies physically resemble mortals in every way, save that not a one resides among them who is defective in beauty or grace. It is possible for faeries to suffer certain debilities, but the defective ones are rejected forthwith from the community. Some declare that fairies actually old, deformed and withered and therefore wear lovely but false forms so as to tempt mortals to mate with them; but who can heed the words of the jealous? Yet enough that a fairy can assume any form - sometimes as a furious, fire-breathing horse with eagle wings and dragon tail; sometimes as a rumpled hag, oftentimes as a baby with an old man's face.; When in great troops they ride out from their forts, their horses kicking up whirls of dust, they cannot be seen for the dust cloud that surround them, and all that is heard is a loud monotonous sound like the buzzing of innumerable bees. Contrary to speculation, fairies have neither wings nor cloven feet, being neither angels nor devils. Being immortal, fairies never submit to autopsy, and hence it has never been determined of what material fairy bodies are composed. Most speculators agree that they are not formed of flesh and bones but of some ethereal but otherwise undetermined substance, like that of a condensed cloud which, being light and thin, enables them to appear and disappear at will. Although these immaterial bodies are subject neither to decay nor destruction, they have all the sensuous advantages of pleasure, and, one supposes (although this has not been recorded), the disadvantages of pain. A Scottish minister claimed that they did not ingest food through the mouth, but rather absorbed 'fine spiritous liquours' like oil and air through the pores into the veins, arteries and vessels, and hence had no need of our messy manner of digestion. But this fine man never saw a fairy lustily attack a mutton at a feast. Their senses, if such they can be called, are splendidly developed; the love embrace or the draught of finely aged wine excites such extremities of delight that few mortals could endure.; Over the generations faeries have rapidly disappeared from mortal view, mostly because of mortal disbelief. Smugly content with themselves, humans have broken the dialogue and put a wall of blindness between the two worlds. And with the loss of the Irish language the faeries probably find few they can talk to. Although the Irish National Schools encourage the language, they have, to some degree, driven fairies from the country because the good people hate to associate with those who have so cluttered their heads with ideas that they are no longer comfortable with their senses and emotions. Thought alienates the good people, while human emotions excite their attention.; Although unseen, fairies still exist and are considered more numerous than the human race; more fairies are added to their number each year and few are ever taken away from them.