The Fairies’ Ball

Long ago (as far back as 1978), there lived a kindly old grandmother who told her granddaughters about fairies. This did not take place in a whimsical fairytale realm in which grandmothers must keep a weather eye out for big, bad wolves and child-thieving water sprites. This was a real grandmother who lived in the Appalachian Mountains who was keen to instruct future generations how to make friends with the fairies. Included in the next generation was Sarah Thomas who learned from Grandmother how to cut apart acorns in the woods and artfully arrange them on stumps in hopes the fairies might find them and have tea parties.

When Sarah was still very small, she had a dreadful, recurring nightmare that occupied her head in waking hours completely enough that she found herself telling Grandmother about it.

That won’t do, said Grandmother, and she hatched a plan to chase away Sarah’s nightmare for ever with the help of her friends, the fairies, and a very special quilt. Of course the plan worked beautifully. Sarah was so grateful that when she was a woman grown, she wrote down the story of how the fairies had a ball in honor of chasing away her bad dreams. This is the story we at Line By Lion Publications are privileged to share with readers like you.