Pixie. It was my nickname as a baby, toddler and preschooler. I still get called it - on rare occasions - by my parents. Pixies, piskies, fairies and faeries have enchanted me for as long as I can remember. I'm bored by the Disney-fied fairies of today...give me pixies with a touch of menace, a splash of mischievousness, and a smidgeon of allure. Shakespeare's Queen Mab? Perfect...
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
I've had many a pixie crop...
I have a pixie lamp...
I have pixie earrings...and I plan to get a pixie tattoo in the next year or so.
To me, pixies encapsulate the things I enjoy most in life: music, words, aesthetics and freedom.
