the mud fairy

The Mud Fairy stood about 5 foot 4 inches tall, in human measurements. She had long, shiny brown hair – brown like the chestnuts on a chestnut tree after they come out of their green suits. Sometimes, she let it all hang down around her shoulders and it got a bit scraggely – probably from all the tromping round fields and climbing up trees that she did. Sometimes she tied it round with a long piece of green meadow grass, but there were always little stragglers that worked themselves loose of the grass and fell down around her deep brown eyes and high, dark cheekbones.

The Mud Fairy did wear fairy clothes, they just got a bit higgledy piggeldy from all the scaling ladders and schlomping through boggy meadows that she did. She had light, floaty cloth clothes that hung off her slender shoulders and fairy like hips. Her fairy skirt was raggedy and torn, so she wore some black cotton trousers underneath to keep her warm on those chilly forest evenings. She had found them somewhere – she never could quite remember where, when people asked her – but whoever had left the trousers in this unremembered place had been either a bit shorter than the Mud Fairy (with shorter legs) or a lot taller than the Mud Fairy (and was wearing shorts). Personally I think that some children noticed how the Mud Fairy looked less like a delicate little fairy and more like a scarecrow, and decided to leave some spare clothes for her at the edge of the woods for her to find.

And because fairies don't know about stealing (everything in the forest belongs to everyone in the forest – which is why they all look after it so well) she will have just seen them, looked this way and that, and put them on. This was also the probably the way she found her thick black stompy leather boots, too. She needed those because of her poor little muddy fairy feet, muddy from all the squelching around in ponds and sneaking through farmers' yards that she did. She never really got to grips with tying laces in a bow, though, and sometimes – not always – would trip up and fall over, landing with her too short shorts, thin little legs and clumpy bumpy boots all waggling in the air like a pair of ice-cream lolly sticks upside down.

I haven't really explained why the Mud Fairy looks like a scarecrow, or why she is called the Mud Fairy. I suppose I should explain, so I will.

While most fairies are out and about sprinkling magic dust to make the flowers grow, the Mud Fairy roots around the meadows and fields looking for mushrooms. While most well-behaved fairies are sewing their intricate dresses and combing their delicate blond hair, the Mud Fairy can be found leaping across water-lillies after new-born frogs. And while most well-brought-up fairies are lazily looking at their luscious reflections in the stream, the Mud Fairy is usually covered top to toe in earth, leaves, and most of all, mud.

The Mud Fairy loved mud. All the other fairies thought it was horrid, cold, and hated it; but the Mud Fairy loved the feel of it between her fingers as it went gloop, or the smell of it on the forest's leafy floor, or the warmth of it on a chilly forest evening. To the Mud Fairy, mud was everything, and she loved it. It brought the world alive to her, all the sounds and smells and tastes and creatures that she met. She loved it to pieces. And, somehow, it seemed to love her, because it always found her, wherever she was. Even after one of the rare occasions that she had to have a bath. Mud allowed her to leap higher, run further, dance longer and sing louder than any other fairy that ever lived.

coming soon... chapter 2, the mud fairy's hat