Once upon a time fairies didn’t wear clothes. The littlest fairies, the pixies, flitted through the air on light wings and nothing else.
This was in the time out of mind, the time before humans, and the fairies were content to live any way they pleased.
Lore has it, fairy clothing didn’t become part of their culture until the first pixie saw the first little girl human wearing a light, flowing nightgown.
A Pixie Story
It was early dawn, and the little girl wandered into the area far from the kitchen garden of the cottage where she lived with her parents and older brother.
She had been sent out to pick sweet carrots to have in a mush with the morning’s oatmeal and saw a butterfly flit past her. The butterfly was blue and so pretty that she had to chase it. Before she knew it, she had gone past the garden, past the pasture, and into the edge of the woods.
The butterfly continued to fly just out of her reach, settling on a flower off the branch of a tree just long enough for the little girl to catch up, and then the butterfly would suddenly zoom away. This made the little girl laugh because she knew the butterfly was playing with her.
Finally, she stopped on a log to catch her breath and to her amazement, the blue butterfly lit right next to her! She slowly held her hand out to the little creature and it crawled onto her arm. The little girl laughed out loud, and in the music from her laughter, the butterfly changed before her eyes into the littlest pixie.
The little girl was startled, but not frightened.
“Why did you follow me so far from your home?” said the little pixie, absentmindedly scratching one blue leg.
“You are the prettiest butterfly I’ve ever seen,” replied the little girl.
“You look like a butterfly yourself, running through the woods with your wings flowing out behind you like that,” said the fairy, and hopped up onto her shoulder.
“I’m not a butterfly, silly! I’m a human! These aren’t wings! This is my nightgown.”
“Well, I want to wear nightgowns, too.” The little pixie pouted.
“Well, I don’t see why you can’t,” said the little girl.
“I don’t know where to get one, and you are very large, you know,” said the pixie, jumping down and flitting around at her feet.
“I will make you one and bring it to you if you’ll help me get back home” said the little girl.
The pixie agreed and took the little girl back through the edge of the trees, through the pasture, and delivered her to the edge of her mother’s kitchen garden. They said goodbye and the little girl promised to give the pixie nightgowns in two colors the next morning. She quickly gathered her carrots and went back inside her cottage.
The next morning she waited in the carrot patch for the blue butterfly. She had fashioned a white gown and a blue gown from patches of her own nightgown, and the little pixie was very happy.
And that’s how the first pixie wore clothes.
Today fairy costumes and fairy jewelry are worn by little girls all over the world as trick or treat and dress-up costumes. The feeling of the breezy gauze against their skin makes them feel special and light, and all little girls look as pretty as fairies.
The next time you dress in fairy clothing, remember that the first kindness shown toward a fairy was clothing given by a little girl!
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