Garden Fairies

FLOWER FAIRIES

OTHER NAMES: Violets, Poppies, and Foxgloves are a few of the many varieties.

LIKES: Weeds, bumblebees and butterflies, birdbaths

DISLIKES: Snow and cold, pesticides, fences

DIET: Herbivore—honey, fresh tea, herbs, seeds, nuts, dandelions

ALIGNMENT: Seelie

Really a broad term for many different subspecies, each type of flower fairy shares many features with the plant to which they’re most closely related, from personality to appearance. Still, they have enough in common and their varieties are so numerous—as wide-ranging as the flower selection at your local greenhouse or nursery!—that we’ve grouped them together for our purposes here. Flower fairies arrive to our world when the weather is warm, hibernating in underground burrows to wait out the winter once they’ve found a yard they’d like to call home. Pesticides that humans often spray on their plants make them terribly sick, sometimes proving fatal, and metal fences—another substance harmful to fairy folk—send a strong message to keep out, so these fairies tend to favor yards that embrace the natural: open areas with long, tall grasses that aren’t often mowed, and places where weeds and wildflowers are plentiful.

If bumblebees and butterflies frequently visit your yard, it’s likely you already have the right setup to attract the gentle, secretive presence of flower fairies, who range in size from one to five inches depending on the subspecies. There are a few other steps you can take to draw them close, such as adding a birdbath, which many varieties of flower fairy will happily bathe in. You can also set out a few stone garden pets that the flower fairies can enjoy sunning themselves on when you aren’t around. While dandelions are their favorite food, they do enjoy a taste of honey once in a while.

GARDEN GNOMES

OTHER NAMES: Garden Dwarfs, Gobbi

LIKES: Beehives, chickens, fishing, naps

DISLIKES: Pixies, gnome statues, weeds

DIET: Carnivore—insects, fish

ALIGNMENT: Solitary

These gruff, solitary types may prefer their own company and don’t answer to anyone but themselves, but they have their own sense of duty and order, preferring to inhabit tidy yards where their favorite pastimes might be peacefully enjoyed. They are great natural pest control, eating many troublesome insects that often plague vegetable plants. (Their favorites are scarab beetles.) Garden gnomes bear little resemblance to the statues that share their names, which is why they find these supposed likenesses so offensive that they won’t set foot on your property if you have one—except, perhaps, to push the statue to the ground, as has been observed on a handful of occasions.

True gnomes stand between one to two feet in height. They do wear colorful pointed caps on their heads, but their ears are wider and batlike. Their bodies are covered in coarse hair that grows thicker in the winter months, and their skin tones reflect shades of the earth ranging from red clay to the deep umber of freshly churned potting soil. Both male and female garden gnomes can grow beards, which they braid in different patterns to indicate everything from their age to their favorite hobbies and more.

At most, a yard could find itself hosting up to three garden gnomes, but never more than that. Generally, they prefer yards with the best bug selection, ones near a creek where they can fish, or ones that boast a beehive. In fact, gnomes are great friends to beekeepers, happily assisting in minding the bees when their human is otherwise occupied. They similarly enjoy tending flocks of chickens and helping collect their eggs.

LEAF SPRITES

OTHER NAMES: Saplings, Leaflets

LIKES: Wind, leaf piles, gardens, old trees

DISLIKES: Pets, fire

DIET: Omnivore—fresh weeds, nuts, and insects

ALIGNMENT: Seelie

These far-roaming fairies don’t ever call a single yard or garden home; rather, they’re often here for a day and gone the next, floating off to wherever the wind takes them. Catching these fairies at play—for they never work—is a rare and impressive feat, both due to their temporary nature and the way they so closely resemble actual leaves. Almost as light as air, these one- to three-inch-tall fairies each weigh less than half an ounce. To imagine what it’s like to hold one in your palm, just grab three jelly beans. To make them even more elusive, their clothing and coloring, from their skin to their hair, changes with the seasons, so a maple leaf sprite’s appearance shifts from bright yellow-green in spring to a fiery red-orange by autumn, allowing them to blend in year-round when they’re in our world.

The camouflage is much-needed, as leaf sprites are often eaten by deer or pets playing outside. Of course, they aren’t entirely without a means of self-defense—their teeth and claws are sharp enough to cut when they feel threatened.

The best way to attract a foliage of leaf sprites (the proper name for the groups they travel in, typically twenty to fifty sprites at a time) is to rake up a large pile of fallen leaves in autumn. A truly impressive leaf pile might cause them to take up residence within for an entire week. In the damp warmth of a leaf pile, these sprites will rest, search for tasty insects to eat, and play by throwing leaves and themselves into the air—look closely, and you just might spot the fluttering edge of a gown or a wild tangle of hair.

PIXIES

OTHER NAMES: Pisky, Pizkie, Pigsie, Puggsy

LIKES: Tricks, clothing, dancing, horses

DISLIKES: Quiet, boredom, being stuck in one place

DIET: Omnivore—cheese and bacon are favorites

ALIGNMENT: Solitary

Often known as the “children” of the fairy realm, that’s just what pixies resemble, from their tiny stature (a few inches in height at most), to their rounded ears that look more human than fae. Their smooth skin has been known to range in color from pale moonlit white to mossy green, which they cover with threadbare rags. Even so, their resemblance to miniature human children is noteworthy, and perhaps why they are overall fond of people. Enjoying a good laugh at all times, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a pack of pixies to jam up your garden hose so they can giggle when you get sprayed in the face or to startle a pet who’s come outside. A little pixie mischief is notoriously harmless and all in good fun, especially when you know they’ll pitch in to help someone in true need without being asked.

To lure a pack of pixies to your yard, simply leave an offering outdoors where they can find it. It’s rumored that pixies love burned bacon and cheeses (the stinkier, the better), but in more recent years, it’s been discovered that pixies also appreciate gifts of clothing, whether it’s fabric they can use for tiny slippers or little pieces of ribbons they can tie on as belts or use to wrap their hair. Small bells for them to shake, as they are quite musical, will earn you their deepest favor. In exchange for your gift, the pixies will do something nice for you as they sing, dance, and wrestle in the moonlight—like weed your garden, although always by night much like a brownie. Of course, due to their childlike nature, their help comes with a sprinkling of mischief—you might find the stems of your flowers braided together or funny patterns drawn in the dirt the next morning.

The pixies only stay in one place a few days at a time, as their desire to explore means they’re always on the move. They have a long-established love of horses (and of tangling up their manes as they ride). A single horse can carry an entire pack at once, though some pixies—older ones, it seems—have mastered the ability to shape-shift into horses themselves, which requires further study.