A Fairy House

When I was about seven years old, my best friend Laura, and sometimes our other friends, would make fairy houses. Laura's older sister Debbie came up with the idea, which tells you why Debbie was the world's most awesome babysitter.

I hadn't made a fairy house in decades, but today I suddenly thought of it and decided it was about time. Besides, I haven't posted here in a while--I haven't had time to do much of anything except write my current book--and fairies are a bit steampunk, right?

Here's the finished house in the flowerbed, in the upper lefthand corner:

The houses we made as kids were just single rooms built of twigs, with moss carpets and bark roofs. We made them in the forks of trees or among exposed roots. I decided to make mine in the corner of the raised garden bed I made recently, because it's pretty boring right now.

First I gathered up some materials: twigs, bark (from dead trees only; even as a kid it bothered me to pull bark off live trees), and other stuff. As I worked on the house, I kept getting up and gathering more things, and the things I gathered gave me ideas for what to build next. That's the lovely thing about making fairy houses: you start to think differently about the odds and ends of forest detritus you see.

First I set some flattish rocks down as a floor in the corner of the flowerbed. I decided this would be the larder because it's so protected. I started breaking twigs into the right lengths to make corner posts and remembered, with complete clarity, the concentration needed as a seven-year-old to find just the right size forked twigs. I put straight twigs across the top to hold up the roof, and added bits of pine bark as walls. Inside the larder I put things fairies would eat. The door is another piece of bark, slightly ajar. I made the roof from sycamore bark, which is heavy and scaly like shingles.

Here's the larder without the roof:

Next I decided on a bedroom, so I put a lot of moss down for the floor. Half a walnut husk with some moss in it made a cradle. More pine bark for the walls, and no door because fairies like lots of fresh air.

Here's the bedroom without the roof:

Lastly I made the kitchen, with pieces of walnut husk for bowls and a wall made partly of a stone. No door to this room either, but to keep rain from blowing in I put a piece of bark down as a partial shelter. I also set some shiny stones (from my gravel driveway) outside for the family to sit on while they eat together.

Here's the kitchen without the roof:

I added a few details before I decided I was done. Here's a close-up of the entire house with the roofs on.

Fairy houses are ephemeral. I did a pretty good job building this one, but after the first good wind, or the first curious squirrel, it will be mostly gone. But that's part of the enjoyment.