As real as real can be

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Though I will remember this spring as the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, my young sons will long recall the “daoine sidhe.” This is not a new disease but a very old story stretching all the way back to Ireland. Pronounced “down she,” they are “the little people” who live in the woods, making their hidden homes in the small plants growing beside our neighborhood creek.

The daoine sidhe are small and quick, able to disappear without a trace despite the best efforts of a young boy to sneak up on them. But my sons have been able to write questions in the smooth dirt beside the creek bed and, the next day, the daoine sidhe have left answers scrawled on the backs of large leaves and flat pieces of bark.

What do you eat?

Nuts and berries.

Do you have pets?

Bumblebees.

Do you like Christmas?

Yes, especially the presents.

My boys have also left gifts of soft feathers and bright leaves and, the next day, have found smooth stones stacked in a small tower and a pile of red berries, although I prohibited them from eating the offering from the daoine sidhe.

Generally speaking, my sons do consider me to be a reliable source of information. So, after tucking them in their bunk beds at night, I have been duly questioned about the little people, particularly in regards to the peculiar nature of their existence. My late friend, the writer Brian Doyle, had told me that the daoine sidhe were once the size of young boys and had lived among the rest of us, but they had retreated into the woods because of the cruelty and callousness of people — the tall people who did not treat the fragile plants and tender animals of the forest with utmost respect and kindness.

I conceded that another theory (often propagated on the internet) contends that the daoine sidhe are supernatural creatures like fairies. The tall people have a disturbing tendency to use labels like “legend” and “fable” and “myth” to dismiss unfamiliar things. In doing so, just what do we overlook?

I am aware that certain tall people would accuse me of filling the minds of my impressionable young boys with nonsense and silliness and outright falsehoods. To which I would reply that, first, the daoine sidhe bring joy to the hearts and minds of those children. And how is that such a bad thing, particularly in this time of change and anxiety?

Second, if these boys learn to respect and value the unseen things of the woods and creeks, might they be more likely to grow up to respect and value the lives of their fellow human creatures? Might they be more likely to have compassion for people who are often overlooked, many of whom are dying from COVID-19 in nursing homes hidden from the rest of society? Is it not true that this epidemic has revealed how many of our elderly, particularly those living with dementia, are warehoused in underfunded, cramped, and cloistered facilities?

But to say that my sons “believe” in the daoine sidhe is not quite right. These boys do not seek to explain their existence or to advance arguments of any kind. Rather, they believe that the little people are their friends. Can we agree that such a belief is as real as real can be? And, if viewing others as friends rather than overlooking them is our goal, what might we learn from living through such a time as this?