1. Neighbours

I am the fairy prince Arley.

I was seven recently. And it is a fact known to the fay and their friends that when one of our kind is seven he or she can begin to live on his or her own. 

I have just moved from my parents' home. And though I do not really live in Minced Forest, I spend so much time there that I consider its inhabitants my neighbours. And I get along very well with them. Even with the difficult ones. Because I try to be a good neighbour myself. 

Fairy legends tell that once there was a Golden Age. The world was one and everyone lived together in it in harmony. But at some point things changed. 

Fairies found it necessary to exile those who could not live in peace with the rest. Fairies who saw no harm in harming others had to go. They were sent away as far as possible from the dwelling places of the rest. 

But it seems they became even worse for it. 

They did great harm. But the worst was to themselves. They fought among themselves and were so determined to destroy each other that they began to degenerate and many became mortal. 

Humans are their descendants. Not all humans are bad. Evil beings can have good descendants. We are very sorry for the good mortals. They could have been like us.

The trouble reached a point when the world had to be divided. It was split in half. Many fairies were asked to move to the fay half. And so they did. And that is why we speak of the Fairy World and the Mortal World. 

But the evil ones did not respect these boundaries. They began to encroach on us. 

If exile was not the solution, neither was violence. It would only make us degenerate like our enemies had. And that would defeat our purpose.

My mum,  the fairy queen Titania, seeing how our people were being pushed out of part of our territory by the mortals, tried to paliate this problem with what is known as the House, Sheep and Pony Policy.

There is an  island of bliss away from the reach of mortals in the half of the world where only the Fay live. My mother decided to turn it into an even better place than it was and to make it as inaccesible to humans as we could. There, some years ago, she had a house of brick and / or granite stone built for every existing member of the fairy community.

New houses are built for new fairies as soon as they are born. These houses are ideal homes. They have been designed to have everything that their owners yearn for in a home. These homes come with two fine ponies and ten robust sheep. Because my dad insisted on it, owners also receive a coat with pockets that are always full of fairy gold coins. If anyone wants more than all this, it is up to him or her to find it. Which means that if you want to have peacocks on the grounds of your house instead of the sheep, you say so, and if your petition is reasonable, like peacocks is, it is granted. Or you can import your own peacocks and get to keep the sheep. But true fairies rarely want or need more than a house, ponies and sheep. Few are ambitious.

A catch to all this? Well, yes. You could call it a catch, I suppose. Apple Island is, as I said, an island of bliss. And it is meant to go on being so. Which is why it is also called The Land of the Strong Door.

You have to want peace to enter Apple Island. Many fairies have refused to claim the homes built for them there, because as I once explained, not everyone wants to cede territory in our half of the world to the mortals, or even the territory they have always shared with the mortals to these last, who do not know how to care for it.

"We gave them half," they say. "But they want it all. No way!"  

It is a matter of principle for them not to surrender already waning territory. So, they refuse to move to the isle of bliss. They stay to put up a fight for their space.This is the case of many forest fairies, like my friends the Leafies, as I have explained before.They have never even deigned to see what awaits them in Bliss Land, which they call Titania’s reservation.

My dad, Oberon, does not agree either with the belligerent fairies or with his wife. He thinks all we have to do is let things flow. All we need to solve this problem is patience and time. He says the humans are going to fight it out among themselves and eventually either the good will find a way to win or these people will destroy themselves entirely. None of them will be left standing. If the good win, they will be like us again. And the calm will come after the storm. If they all go, they went without our having stained our hands. Needless to say, many accuse him of doing nothing and of taking great risks.   

Minced Forest belongs to us, the Fay. But the mortals are invading it and doing away with parts of it. We do not know how long it will be here. My neigbours, rustic spirits that have inhabited these woods since times immemorial, feel the need to keep it alive somewhere, even if only in words that sustain memory.

That is why they have asked those who know how to write, including me, to write about us, the people who love this forest, and because they also really like stories, simple and everyday as they may be.

This is a record of things that have happened to my friends and to me since I frequent Minced Forest.