A Memoir by Signe Pike
With language precise and economical, the title of Charleston author Signe Pike’s first book tells what to expect: Faery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment in a Modern World. The Who: a woman by herself. What: search for enchantment, specifically creatures known as fairies. When: not an investigation of scholarly or historic sources but a search that takes place today.
Pike lets her book reveal the How: a journey through several countries, and the Why: to bring enchantment to her life so she can recover from the death of her father. She chooses to define enchantment, not as magic spells or haunted castles, but as fairies — those shape-shifting creatures from ancient legends who exist on a different plane from humans, and occasionally reveal themselves to us, for good or ill.
Logic asks: if you believe in angels, why not believe in fairies? Why not indeed? Isn’t it human arrogance to assume that all the creatures God made are just like us?
The three threads of her book — travel, memoir, and seeker — are too thin to stand on their own, but combined, they make a hefty and fascinating story. As a young, single woman usually traveling alone, Pike has the freedom to accept adventures that other travelers might not have. In her clear, breezy, observant style, she makes readers imagine they are her companions, sharing her frustrations with travel logistics, as well as her awe at the beauty of foreign lands and the strange wonders she encounters.
As many people discover when they travel, Pike’s antennae for unusual experiences are heightened. Her psychic perception is keyed up, she may be having flashes of past lives, she’s sensitive to all kinds of atypical phenomenon, such as omens and spirits. She finds she has a “voice” that comes to her in surprisingly unpredictable ways. There’s a robin that appears to her so many times, it can’t possibly be coincidence. The voice says to her, “I’m not really a bird, you know.” Was it a fairy, shape-shifting into a bird? Another time she is overlooking a vast Irish ruin and the voice says, “I was king of all you see here.” Another fairy? Or is Pike tuning into to the remnants of an ancient ruler who still walks his domain?
In the Yucatan in Mexico, Pike meets a dark, scary creature known to locals as an Alux—but cuts short more contact with this Mayan sprite. She moves on to traditional fairy territory, the lands of the Celts (England, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, not Wales, alas). She goes to the usual magical places — Glastonbury in England (where she is enthralled by a swarm of flashing orbs of lights) and Findhorrn at the northern tip of Scotland (whose abundant gardens grow with the help of plant devas). An unfamiliar but very important stop is the Isle of Man with its magical glens and coves. Unfortunately, Pike didn’t include the U.S. in her journey, a disappointment, I’m sure, to the fairy lovers in Asheville.
With pre-planning, Pike is able to meet and interview a few leaders in the fairy world, such as fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, whose images of fairies have influenced believers around the world (www.worldoffroud.com). But to find other sources of information on fairies, Pike ends up relying on luck, or synchronicity, as the more experienced seekers call it. As if by magic, she ends up meeting the people she needs to talk to. Finally — around the next bend, the hidden magical spot she’s been seeking turns up. Everywhere it seems, “strange” things happen — and no amount of rational thinking can explain them.
Sometimes it’s long after an event occurs that Pike realizes its significance. All along her journey, black crow feathers appear. At first she marvels at the coincidence, then she sees them as magical messages, signs to her that fairies communicate in their way, not ours. She realizes that she has received gifts in one location, such as sea shells from the ocean, only to be guided to leave them as offerings in another location, such as a forest, as if she is a servant linking the two magical places.
Most eerily, she sees a white haired man, with piercing blue eyes, walk a black dog toward her on a meadow. The man seems to have come out of nowhere and walks past her without speaking. Only later does Pike wonder if the stranger could have been the fairy advocate she had been promised would help her in her search.
Bottom line: An enjoyable primer on fairy hunting.