Once again the year is turning! The wind is blowing form the north, and soon the nights will become bitterly cold here in Denmark. Aska the spirit of autumn will make sure the leaves will be decorated in red, yellow or brown colours, and in the mornings the frost will create lovely lace patterns on my windows, and I will light a candle to keep out the dark.

In the last issue I told you about the Pilienu fairies, and how they build the houses of Leafenheim City. I am very curious to know what the autumn and wintertime in Nidlongdir is going to be like. Will the fairies of Leafenheim go into hibernation, or will autumn and winter never come to this enchanted city? The city is busy as ever, and the fairies seem to carry on their life as usual. They are all preparing for the harvest celebration, and gathering apple juice for this, but I haven't seen any signs of real preparations for the winter.

In Dragonia they are gathering food, but their tree juice tapping won't start until the spring. The Dragonians let the trees rest for the autumn and winter season, to protect them from any kind of diseases. The Dragonian caves have been swept cleaned for the harvest celebration, and decorated with fruits and vegetables. Big fungus in all kinds of shapes and colors are planted in pots, and placed in the tunnels. I am amazed to see how the Dragonians are able to use kaputs (junk they have collected in the human world). The fungus pots are all plastic lids; some of them have even been decorated with lovely patterns. 

I asked Plotka what the winter is like in Leafenheim and Dragonia. She sighed and said; "Soon the time of the long pipes will come". I had a strange feeling about these words, because I remember my granddad saying exactly the same phrase, every time we had been celebrating the harvest on his farm during my childhood.

Plotka asked me to follow her! She took me to Lower Branch Road, to the place called Magic Seeds and Bulbs. Here we were met by an amusing sight! On a large field, hundreds of fairies and a few gnomes were sitting in a circle smoking on some long pipes. The field was covered in smoke, and I had to cough a little.  It was clearly not tobacco they were smoking! The smoke smelled more like pancakes and perhaps warm chocolate with a touch of burned wool. The gnomes on the field seemed to have the longest pipes, and they all had a flower bulb in their left hand. They used the bulb to open and close the pipe, so that the smoke created some very lovely patterns in the air. The fairies' pipes all had smoke in different colors, and most of them were resting the pipe in a fork shaped branch. The branches and pipes were decorated with lovely carvings.

"What are they doing?" I asked Plotka. "Why are they sitting in a field smoking long pipes? "  

"They are preparing their houses for the winter." Plotka explained. "The smoke from the pipes will keep their floral houses fresh and warm. The smoke also helps to insulate against the cold as it will fill in all the tiny gaps in the walls, so that not even the worst weather will be able to destroy the houses."

"What are they smoking?" I asked. "They are smoking different kinds of tree bark, dried fungus, black penguin feathers, and some magic long pipe powder. To give the smoke a better smell some add different kinds of flowers and fruits. The time of the long pipes always starts with some pipe testing, and there is always an ongoing competition to find the most delightful kind of smoke. The pipes and smoke are evaluated based on different characteristics such as: the insulating value, smell, color, and shape of the smoke. The insulating value and smell are the two most important characteristics; the color and shape of the smoke are more artistic values! The fairies will smoke the long pipes every night during the winter to keep their houses warm."

"Are the pipes also used in Dragonia?" I asked. I couldn't help thinking that if the Dragonian caves were filled with this kind of smoke; it would become unbearable to live there. Plotka laughed, "No of course not! We are not using the old-fashioned cave insulation like the fairies of Leafenheim. We have a central heating system! We get our heating from the earth, just like some humans do.  In Dragonia you need special permission to build fireplaces because of the risk of smoke poisoning. The Dragonian Caves are insulated with fresh moss every year, and the heat runs in pipes with hot water in the cave walls."

I had noticed that Plotka had said "we" when she spoke about the Dragonians, so despite the fact that she is living in Leafenheim City, she obviously feels like a Dragonian. I have started to feel the same way. I like to visit Leafenheim, but I feel at home in the Dragonian Caves. I especially feel some kind of close relationship to the gnomes. I know most of their habits, and I am very good at their traditional dance called The Hopsa. My grandmother taught me to dance this cheerful dance. I remember how she asked me as a little girl to stand on the tip of her toes, so that I could follow her Hopsa steps on the kitchen floor. The first time I saw the Tree Juice Brewery in the lower part of the Dragonian Caves, I had a feeling that I had been there before; I could vaguely recall the smell of the brewery. Is it possible that my grandparents had been in Nidlongdir before me? Perhaps I have been there in my early childhood? A lot of questions have popped up lately! And I think I am going to spend the long dark evenings during the autumn and winter, researching a box of letters and old photos I received after my grandparents' death. Perhaps I will find some clues among the letters and photos?

I have seen the first brown, red and yellow leaves in my garden, so I know Aska has been there. The days are getting shorter, and the sun is standing low in the sky, creating the most amazing colors in the early morning. The time of the long pipes has surely come!

By Marianne Mathiasen

Nidlongdir Whisperings

“Germinating seeds of imagination in your mind, and allowing them to bloom, will provide you with the greatest magic power in the world!

The only person in my family who truly believed in fairies was my grandmother. As a child, she asked me to bring stew and beer to the gnome living in the stable, otherwise the pigs would become ill and die. My grandfather was a painter, and he was the one who taught me about the magic of colours and how to mix them. I started to draw and paint as a child, so art has always been a part of my life.

My fairy name is Ranunkel and I was born in Denmark and still live on an island called Als in the south. I am a botanical illustrator and skilled cartoon animator, have worked as an art director and designed a computer game called Rosa and the Magic Fairy.

I find the inspiration for my art in nature, and strongly believe in recycling to save our planet.

May the fairies watch over you!”

Introduction to Nidlongdir and our Faezine Reporter Plotka Hildur

I would like to invite you to Nidlongdir, a fairy realm I discovered in my garden. The word Nidlongdir is the fairy's word for world, so they all live in Nidlongdir. There are two fractions of fairies. The Apple Fairies are ruled from Apple Hold Castle by a king and queen. Most of The Apple Fairies live in Leafenheim City. The other fairies are the Dragonians. The Dragonians live in Dragonia in underground caves and are also known as the black nosed fairies. The Dragonian fairies have a parliament called The Gathering where the elder elected advisors rule.

It all started late in the summer of 2008 when I was doing some botanical illustrations of apples in my garden. During the summer I spend many hours under the three old apple trees in the back of my garden, and sometimes I had a feeling that I was being watched. I also found things in the garden that indicated to me that there were fairies in the neighbourhood. My first encounter with the fairies was one morning when I saw two fairies resting in the morning sun in the apple tree. It turned out to be the fairy queen Agrafina and her king Applestrong.

Later in the fall my daughter found a pair of fairy baby twins in an apple from one of our trees. As she was a student she didn't have time for two small babies, so I decided to take care of them myself. I named the twins Selene and Ebbe. I soon discovered that there were many problems taking care of the twins, but one morning a fairy had left a gift for me, it was a fairy communicator that makes it possible for me to understand what the fairies are saying!

During the winter of 2008-2009 I have been travelling into Nidlongdir with the help of some of the fairies I got in contact with in my garden. I was appointed as ambassador of Dragonia, and my task is to tell the human world about Nidlongdir.

There are some ongoing conflicts between the two fairy fractions. They are fighting about the apple trees. The Apple Fairies live in the tops of the trees, and produce apple juice. The Dragonian fairies are living in caves underneath, and they produce tree juice from the roots of the trees. The Apple Fairies want the tree juice production to stop because they think they get fewer apples when the Dragonians take the juice out of the trees.

The Queen is very selfish and her guards are hunting down a jewellery crafter called Danagonia, because she has refused to send her spring collection of jewellery to the queen. I am appointed as ambassador of Dragonia and I had the task is to put an end to the conflicts. At the Snow Drop Ball I was to get an appointment with the Queen to find a way to stop the guards from hunting Danagonia. The queen is spoiled and has too much power, and the King is powerless to her plots.

You can read all my old blogs if you go to The Whispering Library. The fairies of Nidlongdir don't use paper to write on, they use whispering leaves! I am constantly adding new content to this site when I travel into Nidlongdir, and drawing/updating maps so that it will be easy for new visitors to get around. It is my hope that you should be able to go into every building when it has all been finished! For more information on travelling into Nidlongdir please visit the Nidlongdir.com travelling guide.

You can also follow the story through my Enchanted Folk site.

Faezine has hired a Nidlongdir reporter called Plotka Hildur so that you will be able read the latest news from this magic world. Plotka and I work together and have become very good friends. (You can read all about her in the interview I did in the first issue of Faezine Spring 09)  As of Summer 09, Plotka has her own column in Faezine.

Marianne - Ambassador of Dragonia

Marianne has been a member of Enchanted Folk since June 2008

members.enchantedfolk.com/mariannemathiasen