THE Isle of Man’s fascination with The Fairy Bridge and Manx traditions about fairies has resulted in a British historian arranging a visit to the Island to give a lecture on the subject in January.

Professor Ronald Hutton will deliver his lecture - ‘Traditional Fairy Beliefs’ - at the Gaiety Theatre and will explore the intriguing subject of fairies, including the value that fairy stories served, whether ‘real’ or not.

Professor Hutton’s lecture will be delivered in the centenary year of Sophia Morrison's much loved story book ‘Manx Fairy Tales’ which was originally published in October 1911.

Professor Hutton lectures at the University of Bristol and frequently appears as a consultant on British television and radio. He is also an author and an authority in a range of subjects, including Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries, ancient and medieval paganism, folklore and the global context of witchcraft beliefs. Professor Hutton holds a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford and is also a Commissioner of English Heritage.

The Isle of Man is famous as an Island full of fairy traditions and is regarded as having the greatest concentration of them in the British Isles.

The Isle of Man has numerous traditions linked to fairy beliefs and the Manx are believed to have coined the phrase “away with the fairies” which is today used to describe someone who embraces fantasy.

Sophia Morrison, who was also secretary of the Manx Language Society, believed that the Norse background of the Isle of Man played a significant part in introducing fairy beliefs to the Island, bringing with them Scandinavian stories of “little people”, (mooinjer veggey), “little folk”, “little boys” or “little fellas”

They were believed to live in “a little middle world of their own”, being neither good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell, resulting in Manx people living in a “certain dread” of them. There are also stories about people leaving out cakes and water for the fairies at night.

Reports of fairies include “fleets of fairy boats” off the rocks at Lag ny Killey; ‘Willy the Fairy’ who lived at Rhenass; “little people” singing and dancing at night in Colby Glen; the ‘Fairy Hound - white as driven snow’; the ‘Fairy Woman’ of Derbyhaven and the ‘Fairy Dog’ of Kerrow Keill. A cross made from sprigs of mountain ash with red berries was also placed over doors to ward off fairies and to keep out bad luck.

One of the most famous of all Manx fairies is the fairy dog The Mhoddey Dhoo - the black dog - which is said to patrol the battlements of Peel Castle. T.C. Kermode, who was a member of the House of Keys in the 19th century, was a firm believer in fairies.

He is accredited with an experience which he recorded: ‘There is much belief here in the island that there actually are fairies ; and I consider such belief based on an actual fact in nature, because of my own strange experience. About forty years ago, one October night, I and another young man were going to a kind of Manx harvest-home at Cronk-a-Voddy. On the Glen Helen road, just at the Beary Farm, as we walked along talking, my friend happened to look across the river (a small brook), and said : " Oh look, there are the fairies. Did you ever see them ? " I looked across the river and saw a circle of supernatural light, which I have now come to regard as the astral light " or . the light of Nature, as it is called by mystics, and in which spirits become visible. The spot where the light appeared was a flat space surrounded on the sides away from the river by banks formed by low hills; and into this space and the circle of light, from the surrounding sides apparently, I saw come in twos and threes a great crowd of little beings smaller than Tom Thumb and his wife. All of them, who appeared like soldiers, were dressed in red. They moved back and forth amid the circle of light, as they formed into order like troops drilling. I advised getting nearer to them, but my friend said, " No, I’m going to the party." Then after we had looked at them a few minutes my friend struck the roadside wall with a stick and shouted, and we lost the vision and the light vanished.’

The southern slopes of South Barrule are believed to be the most fairy haunted part of the Isle of Man. Manannan, the sea god, is said to have had his stronghold on the summit of South Barrule from where he worked his ‘magic’, covering the Kingdom of Mann in dense fog whenever he beheld the coming of an enemy’s ship or fleet.

Earlier this year it was suggested that the Post Office installed new letter boxes, exclusively for sending mail to fairies. Linda Williams, who runs The Fairy Shop in Douglas, came up with the idea in a bid to prevent the possibility of accidents at the Fairy Bridge where tourists and locals often tie ribbons and leave messages on roadside trees.

So far the idea has not gone any further and it has been suggested that a letterbox at the Fair Bridge might increase the number of people stopping their cars on a stretch of road known as an accident blackspot.

Anthea Young of Manx National Heritage said, “Sophia Morrison not only shared Professor Hutton’s view that the Isle of Man is an exceptional place for folklore and fairy beliefs, but both authors and storytellers demonstrate how an audience can be enchanted by those with a passion for life and literature.

“I am among many, who will be looking forward to Professor Hutton’s captivating presentation on another fascinating subject.”

In her 1911 book, Sophia Morrison wrote: ‘There is at least one spot in the world where Fairies are still believed in, and where, if you look in the right places, they may still be found, and that is the little island from which these stories come - Ellan Vannin, the Isle of Mann...’

Tickets to the lecture are priced at £10 per adult, £5 for members of the Friends of Manx National Heritage and £5 per child. All tickets are available at the Manx Museum Heritage Shop, House of Manannan or online at www.manxheritageshop.com.