Spirited Away: Fairy Stories of Old Newfoundland

Written by Tom Dawe

Illustrated by Veselina Tomova

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides Inc.

978-1-927917-13-8

60 pp.

Ages 9+

October 2017

If the cover of Spirited Away leaves you with a feeling of dark and foreboding forces at play, then artist Veselina Tomova has done her job admirably because the stories that Tom Dawe recounts from family members and others about the nefarious fairies of old Newfoundland are truly spooky and frightening, if they are to be believed.  Tom Dawe and those who tell and listen believe, and so do I.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe

 illus. by Veselina Tomova

Nine stories, addended with a glossary and notes about each story's derivation, recall stories of children, a war bride, a visiting nurse, grandmothers and more as they were touched by fairies or were witness to such encounters.  In the first story In a Place Like This, a girl recalls an abandoned house near a pool where her grandfather gathered eels.  She'd heard the warnings of it being a place of spirits and evil fairies and the tales of a man in green dancing upon the house's door ledge.  But her story relates to evil done to the baby sister she watched over as her family cut hay in the adjacent fields.  Only the baby and a green butterfly know how her arm was broken as she lay on a blanket.

Paddy the Hermit, called the Music Man, often told scary stories but they became reality when walking home he is encircled by a group of little fairies who put a spell on him to play his harmonica until he collapses.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe

 illus. by Veselina Tomova

In several stories, people seek shelter inside at night when fairies seek to harm them outside.  In The Marsh, floating lights, said to portend death, follow two young men on their return from a dance.  Only shelter in a church all night with the light hoovering outside kept the men safe. Where Water Ran the Other Way tells of trapper Solomon finds refuge in a small cabin when caught at dusk.  Though feeling compelled to open the door to those calling him, he wills himself not to listen or look out the windows at the strange goings-on.

There's the story of The Fairy Funeral, Bones and Fallen Angels (from which the cover illustration is derived)  but the other two most compelling stories for me were Spirited Away and The Changeling.  In Spirited Away, a grandmother disappears from a family outing of blueberry-picking.  She recalls being lured deep into the forest by drumming and hours later being found but without memory of her extraordinary walk including the crossing of major rivers. The Changeling is perhaps the most disturbing.  It is the story of a visiting nurse called in the night to the home where less than two months earlier little Gracie was born.  Fearing the only child of John and Sally was ill, she discovers a mother declaring that there was something in the crib but not her child.

Finally, I found the courage to approach the crib. I pulled back the sheet.  And then, God protect us all! I'll never forget the sight. (pg. 46)

It's a chilling story of fairies taking babies and leaving something in its place but it's the certainty of what that nurse saw that was the most compelling.

I know what I saw.  And I know what happened.  John and Sally lost their only child. And that night in an outport years ago, I witnessed an evil transformation.  Something ugly and strange was left in the cot where Gracie was supposed to be. (pg. 49)

Tom Dawe tells some disturbing stories in Spirited Away, enhancing the atmosphere with the flavour of Newfoundland and coastal Labrador.  From the music to blueberry picking and the vocabulary much unknown to me (you may not need to look up duckish, emper, fetch, livyers and herts but I did), these are the stories of the people of Newfoundland.  Veselina Tomova's woodcut illustrations, in dark tones and snatches of light, reflect the very settings in which the fairies appear.  These are not your Disney fairies.  These are frightening, and Tom Dawe ensures that we know that they are real.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe 

illus. by Veselina Tomova