UFOs, Time Slips, Other Realms, And The Science Of Fairies

When Edwin Sidney Hartland published his book, The Science of Fairy Tales, in 1891, little did he realize the impact his research into the myths and folklore of the supernatural world of the little folk would have for many generations afterwards.

From the Preface

Hartland's exhaustive study of the old stories of fairies, elves, pixies and other paranormal denizens of the Fairyworld has played an important role for researchers who, years later, noticed distinct similarities between the early tales of fairy/human contact and modern reports of contacts with alleged UFO entities.

Even though in The Science of Fairy Tales Hartland was seeking rational, scientific conclusions to the worldwide similarities of fairytales and their ancient, pagan origins, he did future researchers a great service by relating these fascinating tales exactly as they had been told for hundreds of years. Because of this, we are provided with an unhindered view of how people viewed their contacts with the Fairyworld and incorporated their beliefs into their societal structures.

In this expanded version of Hartland's groundbreaking work, noted paranormal researchers Timothy Green Beckley, Sean Casteel, Brent Raynes, and Tim R. Swartz have contributed their own intensive research into the mystery of modern UFO contact and the fascinating connections with the fairy contacts as cited by Hartland. Mysterious glowing flying objects, strange little creatures, and missing time are all part of the modern UFO era. Yet, these same unusual experiences were also reported centuries ago and attributed to interactions with supernatural creatures that existed on Earth alongside of mankind.

The UFO phenomenon is obviously more peculiar and mysterious than most investigators care to admit. To simply say that UFOs only represent alien spacecraft from some far off planet shows a lack of understanding of how people looked at strange encounters in a time when there was simply no concept of outer space and distant galaxies. Hopefully, this book will help carve a new path from the past to the present to gain a better understanding of the mysteries of our world, and the strange creatures that obviously share it with us.

Excerpt

We should not be surprised at this, for the root whence all these phenomena spring is the predominance of imagination over reason in the uncivilized. Man) while his experience is limited to a small tract of earth, and his life is divided between a struggle with nature and his fellow-man for the permission and the means to live, on the one hand, and seasons of idleness, empty perforce of every opportunity and every desire for improving his condition, on the other, cannot acquire the materials of a real knowledge of his physical environment.

His only data for interpreting the world and the objects it contains, so far as he is acquainted with them, are his own consciousness and his own emotions. Upon these his drafts are unbounded; and if he have any curiosity about the origin and government of things, his hypotheses take the shape of tales in which the actors, whatever form they bear, are essentially himself in motive and deed, but magnified and distorted to meet his wishes or his fears, or the conditions of the problem as presented to his limited vision. The thought which is the measure of his universe is as yet hardly disciplined by anything beyond his passions.

Nor does the predominance of the imagination issue only in these tales and in songs-the two modes of expression we most readily attribute to the imagination. In practical life it issues in superstitious observances, and in social and political institutions. Social institutions are sometimes of great complexity, even in the depth of savagery. Together with political institutions they supply the model on which are framed man's ideas of the relationship to one another and to himself of the supernatural beings whom he creates; and in turn they reflect and perpetuate those ideas in ceremonial and other observances.

METHOD OF THE INQUIRY

The student of Fairy Tales, therefore, cannot afford to neglect the study of institutions; for it often throws a light altogether unexpected on the origin and meaning of a story. Tradition must, indeed, be studied as a whole. As with other sciences, its division into parts is natural and necessary; but it should never be forgotten that none of its parts can be rightly understood without reference to the others. By Tradition I mean the entire circle of thought and practice, custom as well as belief, ceremonies, tales, music, songs, dances and other amusements, the philosophy and the superstitions and the institutions, delivered by word of mouth and by example from generation to generation through unremembered ages: in a word, the sum total of the psychological phenomena of uncivilized man.

Every people has its own body of Tradition, its own Folk-lore, which comprises a slowly diminishing part, or the whole, of its mental furniture, according as the art of writing is, or is not, known. The invention of writing, by enabling records to be made and thoughts and facts to be communicated with certainty from one to another, first renders possible the accumulation of true knowledge and ensures a constantly accelerating advance in civilization. But in every civilized nation there are backward classes to whom reading and writing are either quite unknown, or at least unfamiliar; and there are certain matters in the lives even of the lettered classes which remain more or less under the dominion of Tradition. Culture, in the sense of a mode of life guided by reason and utilizing the discoveries and inventions that are the gift of science, finds its way but slowly among a people, and filters only sluggishly through its habits, its institutions and its creeds.

Surely, however, though gradually it advances, like a rising tide which creeps along the beach, here undermining a heap of sand, there surrounding, isolating, and at last submerging a rock, here swallowing up a pool brilliant with living creatures and many-colored weed, there mingling with and overwhelming a rivulet that leaps down to its embrace, until all the shore is covered with its waters. Meanwhile, he who would understand its course must know the conformation of the coast, the windings, the crags (their composition as well as their shape), the hollows, the sands, the streams; for without these its currents and its force are alike inexplicable.

The analogy must not be pressed too far; but it will help us to understand why we find a fragment of a custom in one place, a portion of a tale jumbled up with portions of dissimilar tales in another place, a segment of a superstition, and again a worn and broken relic of a once vigorous institution. They are the rocks and the sands which the flood of civilization is first isolating, then undermining, and at last overwhelming, and hiding from our view. They are (to change the figure) survivals of an earlier state of existence, unintelligible if regarded singly, made to render up their secret only by comparison with other survivals, and with examples of a like state of existence elsewhere. Taken collectively, they enable us to trace the evolution of civilization from a period before history begins, and through more recent times by channels whereof history gives no account.

These are the premises whence we set out, and the principles which will guide us, in the study on which we are about to enter. The name of Fairy Tales is legion; but they are made up of incidents whose number is comparatively limited. And though it would be impossible to deal adequately with more than a small fraction of them in a work like the present, still a selection may be so treated as to convey a reasonably just notion of the application of the principles laid down and of the results to be obtained. In making such a selection several interesting groups of stories, unconnected as between themselves, might be chosen for consideration. The disadvantage of this course would be the fragmentary nature of the discussions, and consequently of the conclusions arrived at. It is not wholly possible to avoid this disadvantage in any mode of treatment; but it is possible to lessen it.

I propose, therefore, to deal with a few of the most interesting sagas relative to the Fairy Mythology strictly so called. We shall thus confine our view to a well-defined area, in the hope that we may obtain such an idea of it as in its main lines at all events may be taken to be fairly true to the facts, and that we may learn who really were these mysterious beings who played so large a part in our fathers' superstitions. As yet, however, we must not be disappointed if we find that the state of scientific inquiry will not admit of many conclusions, and such as we may reach can at present be stated only tentatively and with caution. Science, like Mr. Fox in the nursery tale, writes up over all the doors of her palace:

"Be bold, be bold, but not too bold."

Many a victim has found to his cost what it meant to disregard this warning.