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.