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The May Day Fairie Festival is the brainchild of Rob and Lucy Wood, owners of Spoutwood Farm, an organic farm in the Community Supported Agriculture movement. It began as a party for about 100 friends, and was last year celebrated by 12,000 "friends" of the little people from the area and as far away as Texas. Previously a one-day festival, a second day was added as a response to the festival's rising popularity.
Once again, the festival will celebrate the beginning of spring and all of the nature spirits return to the warm world with 70 arts and crafts vendors (mostly featuring handmade art inspired by the little people), performances by celtic musicians and dancers, magicians, participatory maypole dancing accompanied by bagpipes and other music, fairie craft activities such as fairie wand and garland making (involves a small fee), food vendors, fairie and other nature spirit environments to explore, a Nature Place offering a place for environmental, health, animal interest and other groups to share their vision, woodland gnome and elf tours, fairie tea parties, guest appearances by the Green Man, Shadow Fairie, and others.
The
fairie and May Day themes go back to ancient times
in almost all cultures, especially to the Celts of
the British Isles who had a festival on the first
of May called Beltane. It was a time of great rejoicing
at the return of the earth's abundance in spring and
the impending bounty of summer. The Celts celebrated
the spirits of nature by honoring not only the plants
that they could see and smell but also the unseen
beings of the fairie realm.
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