{"id":10399,"date":"2019-04-28T09:55:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T15:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10399"},"modified":"2019-04-28T19:15:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T01:15:04","slug":"pixie-problems-or-working-things-out-with-the-cousins-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10399","title":{"rendered":"Pixie Problems, or Working Things Out with the ‘Cousins’ (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Lonely Norwegian spoon.<\/p><\/div>\n

It all started with a fork, an antler-handled serving fork of clean Scandinavian design, part of a spoon & fork set that my parents bought while visiting Norway in the early 1990s and later gave to M. and me at Christmas. We liked them and used them nightly for salads and other dishes.<\/p>\n

Then after several years the fork disappeared. Our house is not large\u2014a little under 1,000 sq. ft. on the main level \u2014and we looked all over the kitchen and adjacent living\/dining room, \u2014 pulling out drawers, furniture, and appliances \u2014 but never found it. Things happen.<\/p>\n

I don’t do a lot of how-to Pagan writing. When it comes to magick-working, I hold with the “keep silent” part of the “magician’s (or witch’s) pyramid.<\/a>” But I wanted to share this story, which is not over yet, in case anyone gains anything from reading it. I expect it to spread over three or four blog posts.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

So the fork was gone and time passed, and then “they” decided to step up their game early this past winter. I say “they” because there seemed to be deliberate mischief in what was happening. Read on.<\/p>\n

We usually drink wine with dinner, so we have \u2014 had \u2014 this particular corkscrew for years. That evening, I could not find, neither in its drawer nor on the dining table. I just shook my head and pulled out my Swiss Army knife, which has a corkscrew. Problem solved.<\/p>\n

That corkscrew, incidentally, is still missing, five months later.<\/p>\n

Then last Friday, she went looking for a little plastic dish with a lid (think very small leftover dish, a quarter-cup capacity) that she uses when taking her own homemade almond butter to the coffeehouse to put on bagels. She has used this particular dish for several years, because she can slip it into a purse. It should have been in the dish rack. It was not. We both looked. I cleared the dish rack of clean dishes.<\/p>\n

The next day, there was the lid \u2014 only the lid \u2014 lying in the center of the dish rack.<\/p>\n

She had laughed when I blamed “the pixies” for the missing corkscrew. Now she was not laughing.<\/p>\n

The bottom of the dish showed a couple of days later \u2014 in a cupboard of empty jars and storage containers \u2014 inside another lidded container.<\/p>\n

And then the lid disappeared again, and M. found it in the pages of a magazine on the living room floor.<\/p>\n

Pagan blogger Anne Johnson \u2014 in the sidebar as The Gods Are Bored<\/em> <\/a>\u2014 writes about the fairies now and then, and she and I are keypals sharing common interests in blogging and vultures, so I wrote to her with the story that I have given here.<\/p>\n

She had blogged earlier about putting out shiny things for them, and in fact, I had put some old pieces of jewelry etc. on the outdoor shrine altar, whereupon they promptly disappeared.<\/p>\n

Yet something more was needed. What did “they” want?<\/p>\n

Read Part 2 here<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started with a fork, an antler-handled serving fork of clean Scandinavian design, part of a spoon & fork set that my parents bought while visiting Norway in the early 1990s and later gave to M. and me at Christmas. We liked them and used them nightly for salads and other dishes. Then after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[82,22],"class_list":["post-10399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fairies","tag-weirdness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2HJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3018,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3018","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":0},"title":"What Is It?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometime in the late 1970s I read in a book by Doreen Valiente how she found discarded ritual artifacts in a Brighton antiques shop. Unfortunately, I did not visit Brighton until shortly after her death, and while palling around with Evan John Jones, the only antiques shop I visited was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"witchcraft\"","block_context":{"text":"witchcraft","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=witchcraft"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/brasshand1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14101","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":1},"title":"Are the House Wights Studying the Renaissance?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 17, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of my stories about how the \"critters,\" the house wights, the Borrowers (to borrow a term), or whatever they are like shiny objects. There was the still-missed Norwegian salad-serving fork. Corkscrews vanished a couple of time. Another big serving fork disappeared and then reappeared, lying in plain view in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Pagan-Dream-Godwin.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5455,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5455","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":2},"title":"Science Cannot Explain Me . . .","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":". . . or any other left-handed person. Are we \"damaged\"? Genetically different? Who knows? When I was a student at Reed College, we often fled south to San Francisco at spring break or other times, \"itching to get away from Portland, Oregon.\" And one day five Reedies squeezed into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/insidescoopsf.sfgate.com\/files\/2012\/04\/Outside_Building-450x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":508,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=508","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":3},"title":"Love and fungusM. and I\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Love and fungusM. and I went mushrooming today in the Wets. The local news had carried the story of yet another lost mushroom hunter, so she kept reminding me that she had no sense of direction and it was my job to get us back to the Jeep.We found a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13928,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13928","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":4},"title":"Wassailing the Apple Trees Revived in the West of England","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Em Sibley, the \u201cwassail queen,\" after successfully completing the ceremony at Sheppy\u2019s farm in Bradford-on-Tone, England (New York TImes). From the New York TImes (February 13, 2025) A jet of steam rises with a hiss as a red hot poker plunges into a bowl of cider. A garlanded woman spears\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/wassail-queen.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/wassail-queen.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/wassail-queen.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/wassail-queen.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6720,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6720","url_meta":{"origin":10399,"position":5},"title":"La fiesta de los zombies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What do New Mexico zombies eat? Brain tacos, of course. 2 lbs. brains 6\u20138 tortillas 1 fresh tomato, sliced 1 small onion, diced, shredded lettuce 1 teaspoon salt 1\/4 teaspoon garlic powder salt and pepper to taste Cover brains with water in saucepan, add salt and simmer 15 minutes. Drain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"better off dead","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/better-off-dead-202x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10399"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10456,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399\/revisions\/10456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}