When I was five years old, I discovered the fairytale section in the town library. It was kept on the top floor of a very dusty victorian house in Indiana. The words in the books were still too hard for me to read but the illustrations were wonderful. Arthur Rackham's silhouettes and his gorgeous paintings let me peer into Faerieland. Edmund Dulac, N.C.Wyeth, and Kay Nielsen led me into their worlds. Now we have Brian Froud and Alan Lee as two of the great illustrators of our time. Exploding all around us are incredible fantasy films thanks to the success of the adaptions of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings so images of the old ones are everywhere.

The Faerie Fey Folk began to creep, hop, stride, fly, and walk into my world from that long ago childhood attic library. Many come straight out of stories retold by Andrew Lang, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, written by Hans Christen Andersen, or found in stories and ballads from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland gathered by people such as W. B. Yeats. Many are beings I dream.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Joseph Campbell convinced me that the folk are very much alive. We each can feel them, dream them, and recognize their presence in our own way if we would only quiet ourselves down enough to see.

Nancy Moore, B.S., M.S., Ed.S.
was a storyteller, librarian, and
college professor for many years which was excellent practice for becoming
an artist.