Behind the fairy door: A look at fairy lore in Nova Scotia

Five-year-old Maddi MacNeil believes in fairies.

Sitting at a picnic bench, she colours a little door — a fairy door that she hopes will finally lure one into her world. 

"So when you put it on a tree trunk … it magically makes a hole," she said.

These fairy doors aren't uncommon in Halifax, and they're not exclusive to kids like Maddi.

Pink doors with golden hinges, blue doors with gemstones — some are even paired with little picnic tables and water dishes. Dozens of them sit at the bottom of trees, lining neighbourhoods with a healthy dose of wonder. 

Fairy lore runs deep in Nova Scotia and has for centuries. The Gaels, Acadians and Mi'kmaq all have stories to tell around small, human-like creatures that dwell in nature.

And these stories explain that there is more to fairies than what we've seen in movies and heard in bedtime stories.

'Magic is everywhere'

Alan and Sarah Cornfield believe in magic — fairy magic. 

"I define magic as everything … magic is everywhere," said Sarah.

"There's magic in the flowers and the way they bloom … it's just everywhere to me. You just have to stop and look for it and see it and recognize it. "

The Cornfields make fairy doors, or as they like to call them, "little portals into the magical world." They run a fairy door business, Sugarbush Fairies, out of their workshop in Digby, N.S.

"We got lots of people who thought we were crazy. They would walk in and say, 'What's this? Oh … these are fairy doors?' and then they just walk out," said Sarah. 

That skepticism doesn't bother Alan. They've sold more than 40,000 of their doors worldwide.

"We believe in 'woo-wee' things," he said. "And I'm perfectly fine with that, because I love being in that 'woo-wee' place."

That 'woo-wee' place may be closer than it seems, and they hope their fairy doors can take some people there.

"People need magic. I mean, when you think of the last two years of our lives with a pandemic and convoys and now a war, we need things to help us get through those times. And it's magic," said Mary Munson, author of the Fairies of Cape Breton.

"I think being an adult is tough. You know that probably something's not going to come along and take you out of a quandary. You're going to have to deal with it yourself. But maybe a walk in nature and a talk with a fairy would help." 

But people should proceed with caution when it comes to fairies, said Munson. "They have this reputation of being nasty too," she said.

Don't mess with the fairies

Collette Thomas is a writer, producer and fairy believer from Cape Breton, N.S. She grew up in a Gaelic household where her grandfather would share stories about fairies.

"He told a lot of these stories about these fantastical tales from the Gaelic mythology and the fairies were part of it," she said.

According to Thomas, anyone who speaks ill of a fairy will feel their wrath.

There are tales of fairies whisking people away into their world and tales of babies becoming sick due to fairies stealing the essence from their milk, she said. The fairies were even blamed for the Irish potato famine.

The tradition of Acadian nature spirits, also known as lutins, are mischievous as well. 

For centuries, braids have appeared in horses' manes. They're complicated braids made out of twists and knots that some people believe are too complicated for the human hand. 

Ronald Labelle, a specialist in Acadian traditional culture, knows this story well. 

In Acadian folklore, Labelle said, it's believed that the lutins take the horses out at night and braid their manes to use them as stirrups.

"They didn't mistreat the horse, but you don't want people going into your stables and taking your horse and riding them at night," he said.

"It'd be like somebody's going to drive away with your car during the night and go for a joyride and bring it back. You don't want that to happen. So it was a major annoyance for a lot of people."

The little people

Clifford Paul, a Mi'kmaw knowledge keeper and member of Membertou First Nation, has never seen a fairy. But he's heard stories, and he believes. 

"You might hear from other cultures, 'Oh fairies, they're magical … they're whimsical.' They're sort of like cartoon characters to them. But to us, the Mi'kmaq, they're real," he said. 

In Mi'kmaw, such spirits are wiklatmu'j — "the little people." 

The wiklatmu'j are part of the natural world. They protect it and guide people through it, Paul said, and aren't particularly mischievous or nasty. They also guard Kluskap's Cave, a sacred space to the Mi'kmaq on Cape Breton's north coast that's sometimes known in English as the Fairy Hole.

But always give these sprits their space and respect, Paul said. If they show up, you're in their way. 

"I don't go looking for them. I don't try to see them. I may not have seen one. But I know they see me. And I know they're watching us," he said.

"I don't think you want to be in a position where you can give a full physical description of one."

What's behind those fairy doors? 

No matter the tradition, one thing's for sure — people believe in them and the wonder they can provoke.

"Once you get into a solitude area in the wilderness, things really do change. You start really realizing how much true nature is so magical and so overpowering," said Alan Cornfield.

"You'll start to see things that are questionable.... You just have to admit that things are not what we think they are all the time. It could be fairies, could be elves, it could be something magical."

As for what lies behind a fairy door, he said the whole point is for it to be unknowable.

"I love the fact that some customers may buy this door and put it on the base of a tree on their property," he said.

"Then another passerby will walk down the sidewalk and see it and for a split second in their day, stop worrying about what's going on and just imagine that door could open."