Origin Of The Scottish Tooth Fairies (Guided Sleep Story)

Hello,

My name is Rachel.

My country is Scotland,

A country steeped in fairy faith,

A place of mythical valleys,

Fairy glens and fairy pools and logs,

And ancient Caledonian pine forests,

Where fairies,

Or we folk,

Can be found in the tree hollows and abandoned birds' nests,

In the rivers and barns which flow through the mountainous valleys.

There are river sprites with webbed feet,

Who ride on the back of the leaping Scottish salmon,

Tucked away inside unused teapots and empty shortbread tins.

We folk,

Called brownies,

A sort of house fairy,

Live amongst the Scottish people,

Inside their very homes,

Although most people never look close enough in the nooks and crannies to ever spot them.

Now I'm guessing you might like to join me on an adventure here in Scotland and hear more about these mystical we folk,

Guardians of our hills,

Forests and homes,

So get comfortable,

Maybe have a little wiggle of fingers and toes,

Take a deep breath in to fill your chest full of air,

And a deep breath out again to relax your body down into whichever the spot you might be sitting or lying in.

Gently close your eyes and come with me to Scotland.

Now this is the story of the tooth brownies,

So you might have heard a few different explanations for who the tooth fairy is and why they take our old teeth from under our pillows at night and often leave a penny or two for us.

You might have heard that there is only one tooth fairy who collects teeth from all over the world to build her fairy palace,

Or you might think that there are lots of tooth fairies with knowledge of the language and currency of their particular region so that they can write notes and leave money for the children that they can use.

I however would like to propose a different theory,

One which explains a lot about how sometimes our tooth is taken but no money or gift is left for us,

Or how occasionally we might have been left something and our tooth taken but later we find our old tooth still in our house after all.

House fairies,

Or brownies as they are known in Scotland,

Come out at night or when families are away at school or work or maybe on holiday and it is very lucky to have a house brownie as they are good-natured little creatures and often perform little household tasks for you if they like living in your home.

They might use a bird's feather to dust the high up places around your lights or up on high shelves or they might tidy up a messy cupboard or drawer as they hunt for useful things.

Naturally curious and creative with a love of shiny things they are always keeping an eye out for bits and bobs to reuse or recycle.

Although they have colourful characters,

House brownies usually wear dark clothing,

Brown and grey,

So that they can hide in the shadows,

In the back of cupboards,

Under beds or sofas or behind boxes in the attic.

Brownies make their clothes out of scraps of out of scraps of fabric they find lying around the house.

However,

They are careful not to take anything that's too precious otherwise it might be noticed missing.

Things they repurpose for clothes include old holey socks that need to be ironed,

Getting dusty under a dresser or a tatty old tea towel or even clothes from an old dolly that is no longer played with as children have become grown up.

House brownies tend to be particularly well dressed and look very bawny if they live in the home of a dressmaker or someone who knits.

Then they have access to an endless supply of scraps of fabric and wool to fashion into their tiny clothes.

Our human needles are way too big for them to handle,

So kindly garden hedgehogs will let them snip off the tiny end of one of their quills and one of the house mice will give it a little nibble just in the right place to make a hole to make a hole for a tiny thread to go through and then they will sew together all the patches of fabric they found to make their clothes.

Now house brownies,

Like all other fairies,

Are nature's guardians and they will take great care of moths,

Spiders,

House mice and any other wee beasties which live in our homes.

A great way to make a house brownie your friend is to make sure you never harm a creature living in your home.

They find it truly shocking that us humans would squash a spider who had only entered our home for a warm place to have their babies.

The house brownies try to redirect the beasties in our home so that they don't come to any harm.

They warn the house mice not to nibble on anything like electric wires so that they don't hurt themselves or become too much of a nuisance and they use long sticks to set off the mouse traps so that they can't catch their furry friends.

They also suggest to the house spiders that they take up residence in garages and garden sheds or up in the attic as their beautiful webs go unappreciated by humans.

Spiders will donate their web silk to house brownies so that they can make beautiful dancing dresses and they will also set up guidelines for the house brownies to use as zip lines.

House brownies have smaller and less powerful wings than the outside dwelling fairies so these spider zip lines allow them to move quickly through the house without using too much energy.

The spiders will also give the house brownies a non-sticky type of silk to coat the bottom of their little shoes so that they can slide silently along house floors.

Most humans don't realize that spiders can produce many different types of silk from special spinneret glands near their tummies.

These different silks can make sticky silk for trapping their prey in their webs,

Silks to make trailed safety lines,

Silks to protect their eggs and spiders have to be careful to only cross the non-sticky threads on their own webs so not to become trapped themselves.

House brownies will often live amongst the house mice in the tunnels they create to live in.

House mice can have up to 10 litters of babies a year so the house brownies are very useful babysitters.

The house brownies will sneak seeds and grains for the house mice to eat and they will use little beech nut shells to groom the gray brown fur of the house mouse.

Now being such kind creatures,

House brownies will seize any opportunity to do a good deed.

Now many many years ago there was a very famous house brownie although you might not have ever heard their name every single fairy in the whole world has heard of them.

Now this house brownie was called Bonnie Bobbin.

Bonnie meaning beautiful or good and Bobbin which is a spool which holds yarn or thread and they lived in a cottage with a little girl called Fanula.

Now Fanula's family were a kind but poor family living in a Scottish White House called Tygall with walls of stone painted in limestone to make the cottage white and roofed with wooden rafters covered with thatch.

Now Bonnie Bobbin would watch from the rafters as little Fanula worked so hard to help her mother with all the household tasks as well as caring for her younger brothers and sisters.

One evening Bonnie Bobbin watched as Fanula was eating her tatty or potato stew when her baby tooth fell out.

Now despite having no running water or no toothbrush or toothpaste Fanula's tooth was remarkably white and shiny and Fanula was so proud of it that she took it to bed with her that night and made a wish on it.

Now as fairies have exceptional hearing for whispers and wishes Bonnie Bobbin heard her and knew that she had wished that her family didn't have to struggle so much that they could afford more animals for their croft and so that her mother and father wouldn't need to worry so much about feeding her and her brothers and sisters.

Now Bonnie Bobbin loved little Fanula so much that he desperately wanted her wish to come true so that night he left their croft and flew to the burn that ran close by and called out to his friends the water sprites.

Now Bonnie Bobbin was a clever little brownie and he knew that nuggets of gold were formed from very hot water and cracks and fissures in hard rocks and that over time these rocks weather and gold nuggets end up in bodies of water like Scottish rivers and burns.

Now when he called out to the water sprites a little water sprite called Murdo a name meaning sea warrior popped his head up from the water.

Now Bonnie Bobbin explained about Fanula and her wish.

Murdo grinned and then he dived back under the water and when he popped up again he had a golden nugget the size of a conquer in his hands.

Bonnie Bobbin clapped his little hands in delight and got rather soggy by giving a huge hug to Murdo before struggling back to the white house with the nugget.

Now remember we mentioned how house brownies have the smallest wings of all the fairies so it was a real struggle to carry back such a large nugget of gold but he was determined.

When he got back he removed Fanula's tooth hiding it up on a rafter before replacing it with the gold nugget.

Bonnie Bobbin could barely sleep all night excitement bubbling up in his tiny chest as he waited for Fanula to wake up.

When she did it only took seconds before she noticed the shiny gold beside her.

She ran out barefoot tightly clutching it in her hand and found her dad out tending to the sheep.

She silently extended her hand out to him and opened her palm for him to see the gold.

At first he was wide-eyed in astonishment.

He took the gold from her hand and examined it closely and then he put it in his pocket and he gathered her in a great big bear hug and spun her around and around and oh how she giggled with delight.

The gold was sold for a handsome fee and Fanula's dad was able to buy the croft from their landlord and then they could prosper and have plenty to eat and a much better life all because of Bonnie Bobbin.

Now gradually other children began to find out about putting your tooth under your bed under the covers or if you've got a pillow and other brownies started to find out about what Bonnie Bobbin had done and the myth of the tooth fairy grew and grew.

Over the years people began to forget the names of Bonnie Bobbin and Fanula only remembering the custom of leaving your tooth.

Nowadays house brownies tend to collect coins they find behind sofa cushions or in the rims of washing machines and they stash them in preparation for a child losing their tooth.

However house brownies aren't perfect and sometimes they fall asleep on the job and they forget to swap a tooth for treasure.

Also some house brownies are very good at hiding teeth choosing little holes and skirting boards or in the attic rafters where the teeth will never be found.

But if you have a young or inexperienced brownie in your house you might have your tooth swapped out for money only to find your tooth again in a drawer or a trinket dish.

Over time hopefully these house brownies will become as good at their job as Bonnie Bobbin.

Now I hope you've enjoyed this story and are thinking about how you can look after all the wee beasties in your house to make the house brownies happy.

I think it's time for you to drift off to sleep so that the house brownies can come out of hiding and laugh and have their fun.

Don't you?

Now good night and sweet dreams.