Corpulence

Corpulence – bulkiness or largeness of body

    The fairy’s most favorite food is corn and only a chosen few that to have corpulence can collect it.  You see, to gather corn is a tough job.  You must chop the corn stalk down with an axe.  Then you must shave off the leaves surrounding the corn cob.  When the “shaving” is done, twenty male fairies with a lot of corpulence will carry the cob off to fairyland where they pluck the corn from the cob.  After five chosen fairies complete the plucking, the corn is wrapped and sent to the market where they could cost as much as half a butterfly wing!  Corn is rare for fairies because it is hard work and it is only around during the harvest.  Oh, and farmers have no need to worry about aliens in the corn field. It’s just fairies and they like to make designs while chopping which they do apologize for.  Fairies also love corn so much that they have a habit of using corpulence to seal corn from humans!  So watch out!  The best way to protect your corn is to keep it near the color black.  Fairies are colorful and hate black.  There eyes don’t even have black on them.  So keep your eye open!

Demur

Demur – the act of making objections

The demur in a fairies life is when they are shown how to fly with their wings which they do not get until they are 5 hours old.  This can be difficult since the young fairies are so eager to begin using those wings.  The demur is a serious time as the Demur master tries to calm the young ones.  They could hurt themselves if they aren’t careful and do not pay attention as they move about.  They could easily fly right into a tree.  When the Demur master gets them calm down, he lines them up on the leave of a sunflower.  He begins to teach them the breathing exercises that they will need to know as they fly through the air.  This takes awhile as all young fairies are impatient.  They don’t care about breathing.  They just want to go.  Next comes how to hold their arms as they go through the air and around the plants and trees.  It includes teaching them how to stop and turn quickly to escape anything chasing them.  After a few hours of this, the Demur master allows them to begin to flap their wings and try to fly in place.  Only after all small fairies have learned to do this can they begin to move off the leave.  They are allowed to only fly to the next sunflower and then to the next and then to the next.  By the end of the sunflower row the young fairies are flying like they have been flying for years.  They begin to fly all around the valley to show off their new skill to their family and friends.  Cheers rise up as all the older fairies watch the young ones.  The demur time is a very important and fun time.

Foretopman

Foretopman – a member of a ship’s crew stationed on the foretop (a platform at the head of a fore lower most of a ship).

Foretopman is a game that fairies play on humans. When the humans come into the area where fairies live, four of the fairies fly around the human’s head and crawl up into his hair. The human always thinks that it is just flies buzzing in and out, but that is what makes the fairies laugh. They like to make the humans flap their hands and shake their heads. To make the other fairies laugh even louder, they sometimes buzz into the ear of the humans. The humans dance around trying to get rid of the buzzing sound. All the fairies come to watch the dance and laugh. In fact some of them laugh so hard that they fall off the flowers that they were sitting on. This makes them all laugh even more.

Welkin-eyed

Welkin-eyed – sky colored eyes

The fairies have a unique way to tell when anyone is sick. They look into the eyes of each other each morning and each night. If they are welkin-eyed, they have to go see the fairy doctor first thing. Their eyes will turn from their normal blue to a deep purple with small pink dots. The longer they stay sick, the larger the pink dots. The doctors get really worried when the dots begin to turn black. So when they first become welkin-eyed, the fairy mothers fly them to the small hollow in the oak tree where the doctor lives. He is an old man whose wings are a dark grey now. His wings still beat as fast any young fairy’s. He knows a lot of medicine as he has spent the last 200 years studying all the plants in the valley and in the neighboring woods. He knows what is good to use and what is poisonous. He knows all when it comes to medicine. When a fairy first comes to him sick, he is given a spoonful of aster juice. He is to be watched. If it does not get better, the doctor gives them a bite of ginger root which cures welkin-eye but puts the fairy to sleep for ten days. That is why the aster juice is used first as an easier cure. Being welkin-eyed is the most common sickness for fairies. That is why fairy mothers watch their children’s eyes day and night.

Cynosure

Cynosure – something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.

Cynosure means to incinerate or fire. It must be the night for the big cynosure. The fairies all go out into the woods and the meadows and look for wood. They get all shapes and sizes of it because once it is in the cynosure it doesn’t matter what it looked like. This is a big night in fairy land because it is the night when young fairies become adult fairies. They are all gathered around the big cynosure and they begin the dance of the fairy growth. They turn their backs to the cynosure and slowly begin to flap their wings. The wings begin to faster and faster in time to the music from the berry drums. It gets louder as the fairies begin to him and move around the fire. Their feet have to begin moving faster and faster. They hold hands and as the music gets louder and faster the fairies rise as they are still holding hands and going around the fire. They rise higher and higher and spin faster faster until they are just a blur. Then all of a sudden the stop and plummet to the ground. The cynosure dies down to almost nothing and then all of a sudden as they hit the ground it flames up to the sky and each of the fairies turn bright orange before each turn into their special color. Before the cynosure ceremony, each is a light yellow color until now when their true colors come out and they are now adult fairies. It is an amazing sight to see and the only humans who get to see it are the ones who can sneak in with owl feathers covering their faces so that the fairies will not see them as human. Only the quiet ones who are good at pretending can see the magical cynosure.

Groggeries

Groggeries – a slightly disreputable barroom.

The fairy chef must be low on groceries. Once a year the chef for the fairies looks through his kitchen to see what food he needs. It is a long process. It takes about one month to do this job. He flies around his kitchen looking behind each door. He looks into each jar. Usually everything is almost gone. Those fairies can sure eat a lot. The list usually includes such things as purple mushrooms, the kiss of a honeybee, and the dust from starfish. The jar of butterfly cream is always low. The petals from the first roses disappear fast. He just cannot keep the juice of the honeysuckle around much. The fairies like to have it at every meal and even before bed. They drink it with sprinkles of stardust. The hardest thing for them is gathering the light from the firefly. They don’t like to have the fairy chef sneak up on them and squeeze their light. It makes them cranky and they tend to zoom by other fairies to send them spinning just for revenge. Fairies hate it when the chef goes out for groggeries. They usually get the anger of the other animals if they are disturbed. The fun part of getting groggeries is shopping for grapes. It is usually the time that all the wooly caterpillars are climbing on the vines. To get the grapes the chef has to pass over them which always tickles his belly. He seems to always keep having to make multiple trips to the grape vines. The fairy guards think that it is just for the fun of the tickled belly. This is a busy time for the fairy chef but he is responsible for keeping the groggeries full.

Murat

Murat – French general, King of Naples

Murat. That’s a strange word. Muuuuuraaat. Must be some kind of rock. Yeah, that’s it. A rock! A rock that looks like a cow. A rock that was once a cow. I see how it is now. Long ago, the fairies of the land were playing in a field. In the midst of their dancing and singing, a cow wondered in and ruined it all. In their anger, the fairies began to scream (though to the cow it sounded more like a little buzzing noise) at the cow and ordered it to go away. But since the cow couldn’t hear what they were saying, it just stood there and didn’t move as it chewed over and over again. The chief fairy came up to the group and asked what was going on. When he heard what was the matter, he flew up to the rude cow and asked him if he would please leave their playground. The cow only shook his head to get rid of the buzzing sound in his ear. The chief thought the shake of the head was the cow saying no. He got really angry and turned a bright red. He turned away and told everyone to move back. He raised his hand that had this sparkly wand in it and waved it at the cow. “Because of you being rude and not letting us fairies play in the field, you will become a rock that will never leave.” Poof!!!! Smoke came from the wand and the cow disappeared. On the ground where it had stood was a rock that was large and was black and white all over. It is still there in the playground of the fairies and is used as a high diving board after every rain.