FAIRIES, FOLKLORE AND FORTEANA

TREE SPIRITS

n the past two issues of I have written about how we see fairies today. I mentioned the SWFs (small-winged fairies) and the dwomes (dwarf-gnomes) who together go to make up about two thirds of fairies glimpsed by British and Irish fairy-seers. However, there is one. Tresps are usually tall and thin. They are tree-shaped or with tree appendages (branches etc). They often have awkward movements as they lumber along. An example: “The figure was approximately seven foot tall, slim… a trunk-like body from the waist up, branch-like arms and a quite haggard face with short branches coming from the top of the head and sides, but not like a true tree, they didn’t seem to taper to twigs… walked… as though putting one foot down and then making [an] effort to pull forward, arms swinging’ (§39).