England Day 7: Away with the Faeries

Well, after a little pause, it’s time to continue the summary of my adventures on my first trip to England in November, 2023. This day, the seventh of my trip, was devoted to the faeries. I mean, every day is, but this one was special. It also included me crossing another item off of my life bucket list, but read on to learn more about that.

There was only one place on our destination list this day: Northwood Fairy Trail, located outside of York. The location has, since my visit, changed its name to Dreamery Garden. Honestly I personally prefer the former name and think it’s more apt.

When Bryony suggested this location as a destination, I admit I did look it up ahead of time, and wasn’t sure what to think. I can say with certainty now that none of the photos I saw on that search did this place justice. That day, I mentioned to Bryony my hesitation, and she enjoyed teasing me about how this should teach me to never question her taste in destinations again.

But to be fair, when I hear about a fairy trail, I picture the typical one here in the states, with little dolls and plastic furniture, based on the twee Victorian depiction of flower fey. This…was not that.

Spoiler alert: I cannot tell you how joyful it made me to walk paths through a forest where kindred humans had set up magical vignettes that honor true faerie lore in all its darkness and danger as well as whimsy. I’ve never been anywhere like this, and I would visit again in a second. Bryony, I can feel you smiling. ;)

We arrived at noon when they opened, and closed the place down at 5:30 when they closed. I wondered how we could spend that long at a fairy trail. I left wishing we had had more time.

Just look at her gleeful little foot kick as she walked us all down the trail from the car park. That’s the grin of someone who knows what’s coming.

Our friend Lee-Ann was able to join us on this day and I was able to meet her for the first time. Our first destination at the end of the walk from the cars was the ticket window, where the young lady who helped us exclaimed over us and lamented that she wished she was permitted to dress in horns or antlers to work (?!) As she put it, “I heard people saying there were faeries in the car park, but I didn’t understand what they meant until I saw you!”

Northwood Fairy Trail is described as “England’s first fairy sanctuary.” Here you might find signs in front of vignettes reminding you that Jenny Greenteeth “might have lost her mind, but she hasn’t lost her teeth.” Stand by a murky pond, and you’ll hear naiads call to you in eerie echoes. For a better idea of how wonderfully they’ve created the story of this place, look here to see the “history” of the location on their website.

The goblins had me lead the way down the start of the trail. The first vignette was this little (the door was about 4’ tall) fairy tavern. You could hear the sounds of feasting and tavern music from inside. I wanted to stop for a pint, but on we went.

I have to knock on every fairy door I find, so perhaps that was part of why it took us so long to walk the path.

Once again, it was so wonderful to visit a place like this with kindred spirits who wanted to stop to greet and photograph mushrooms and lichen as well as the fairy doors and destinations.

The below was a fairy offering door. You can see on the top step there was a place for people to leave offerings.

Bryony captured a lovely photo of me at this little seating area on the way to the maze.

The fairy trail isn’t all just fairy doors. For instance, this dragon’s nest. (Size is hard to show in photos. It was about 20’ in diameter.)

Here’s part of why the place was so amazing. It wasn’t just the vignettes. There were beautiful placards near each one with bits of story and beautiful Pre-Raphaelite and Golden Age artworks. This added so so very much dimension, and I didn’t even get a chance to read all of them.

By this point in the trail, I truly felt like a kelpie might trot out of this swampy water and convince me to twine my fingers in his muddy mane and climb on his back…

A giant’s sword. A person was probably about as tall as two of the wavy parts in the sword.

I mean, the Goblin Gang DID all end up in love with this place, so I can’t dispute the accuracy of this sign…

Another lovely sign that makes you see the nature that was already there in a new way. I tend to think this sort of whimsical thought already when I’m out in nature. (I have a tree I call the tired dryad because there are two thick vines that look like a dryad’s seated legs, and sooo many more examples.) But it’s wonderful to see them fostering this sort of creative thought in the people of all ages who visit.

Remember, as I said above, she still has her teeth.

So many lovely bridges and archways and portals and doors and gaaaaaaah

This was one of my favorites. Herne’s Passage.

Tree dwelling fey have a place here too.

This is probably my favorite picture of a fairy door I got at Northwood.

But again, there were so many good ones!!

We stopped at a platform to get some group photos, and I have so many delightful photos of all of us making absolute utter goblin mischief and being silly as heck, but those are all just for our delight and memories.

From there, we went on to this gorgeous grove of trees that were absolutely alight with fairy lights and will o wisps.

I took a few selfies here, and I was verrrry happy with the results.

Lee-Ann wore a gorgeously stunning looooong mossy scarf she’d made, and we all took turns wearing it for portraits. Here’s mine.

And here it is! My favorite group photo of the trip, and my current phone wallpaper.

I think the faeries sped up time, because by this point the sun was already getting glowy and low in the sky. How?

And here begins my story. We reached a point in the trail with a crossroads. The trail went off in one location over a bridge, or straight ahead down a slightly less manicured path. A few of the goblins started across the bridge, but something made me pause, and I asked if we could just see what was down the other path.

So…on my actual formal life bucket list is “see a fly agaric/amanita muscaria/classic red and white fairy tale mushroom in person.” And this whole day we’d all been keeping our eyes peeled. As we headed down this path, Bryony spotted one. Oh my goodness! It was…barely left at all, just like, one speckle left after some animal had eaten the rest of it, and it was almost total mush, but I was happy to see it anyway. Wasn’t what I expected, but still.

We continued on the trail, eyes even more peeled now that we’d found one of the fairy tale mushrooms. But the path ended in another kelpie pond and no more mushrooms. I snapped a photo and we turned around.

Bryony was in the lead, and suddenly I heard her shout of victory. Right next to the path, already plucked from the ground, was just the most perfect and adorable little amanita muscaria.

So here’s our theory. Since we had just gone down this path and saw absolutely nothing, we all agree that this is what happened:

This little guy heard us exclaiming over his friend and wanted some love too. So with a heave and a groan, he pulled his mycelium up out of the ground where he stood slightly off the path in a patch of tall grass, and hop hop hopped over to the path.

And then we found him. And gave him SO much attention. SO much.

This pretty accurately shows how I felt:

The path wasn’t quite done yet, even though I was already reeling from all the magic and beauty. First there was this stunning wooden mushroom circle in the twilight. Each mushroom was about 2-4’ tall.

More fairy doors and archways and bridges.

And this little guy, about three feet long, who really inspired me. I’d love to put him somewhere in a future short story. Doesn’t he look like something Miyazaki might have created?

Next was the domain of the fairy court, marked by this sign.

And then Titania and Oberon’s own thrones. These were blocked off when we went, and the light was too dark to get good photos, so here’s a photo from a few years ago when Bryony went with her husband Bruce and you could still get photos in the chairs.

Well. That was the end of the trail. Wasn’t that wonderful? But wait now, why did I still see Bryony giving me a look of utter mischief and delight?

Well, because there was still more to see. Now it was time to visit the fairy museum. Yes. The fairy museum. As if the trail wasn’t beautiful and mythic and magical enough. Now we got to walk into a little room in the main building filled with glass display cases and see all of these miniature wonders.

They even created this one (below) based on an Arthur Rackham portrait of Queen Mab. Come on. Seriously?

But wait, there’s more. At the far side of the museum, Bryony directed me to a door.

And on the other side was an entire room that was actually a fairy kingdom. Sadly, the lighting was extreme here. Beautiful in person, but hard to capture in photos.

A fairy theater stage, below.

Me admiring the fairy room, with a wisp in my hair.

But wait, there was still a glimmer in Bryony’s eye. I still had to see the Northwood cafe. Cafe? Why would a cafe be so wondr…..

Oh. Okay then. I stand corrected, again.

And this was the end of the adventure. Sort of. We still had time to do one more quick walk through the whole trail again in the dark.

The tavern was sooooo much more atmospheric in the dark. Please let me come inside!

And the whispering sounds in the grove were even more magical. We had to rescue Gilly from here. She walked into the grove and didn’t want to leave.

For some reason, Squarespace isn’t letting me embed the video I took of the grove in the dark, but click this link and turn your sound up to hear the atmosphere there.

So that was it, farewell magical Northwood! (The above photo was from earlier in the day but I thought it was a sweet farewell)

Stay tuned for my next trip blog to see us visit a Regency folly of a Druid Temple on Day 8! Only four more trip days to go. (Yay and also boo. Maybe I’ll get done with the blogs before I leave for my NEXT trip to England at the end of the month!)