on faerie — part i

*I am presenting in two parts over the next two weeks an essay I once composed on the topic of childhood fancy, beginning with the magical realm of faerie.*

The last time I saw an elf dancing under the moonlight in the cool of a spring evening must have been almost twenty years ago now, and for a man in his late-twenties that is an very long time. There was an age, of course, when the fair folk were as common as butterflies in summer or golden leaves in fall, even if they have always been...