I still remember quite well the day my brother ran around telling everyone he had seen a real fairy! He was six years old at the time, and I was nine. The experience had seemed so totally real to him that he continued to (privately) insist he had seen a real fairy even throughout his teenage years. He explained to me that he had walked into the shed just in time to see a female fairy brushing off her dress as she sat near the front edge of a rabbit hutch. When he entered, she looked up at him, opened her mouth wide in surprise, and then flew out the back of the shed through an open window.
Fairies are obviously real in some form, for so many people—especially children—in countries around the world have been able to see them. Several possible explanations for their existence come to mind, one being the fact that some spirits are able to appear in any form or size as needed to best fit the expectations of the human they wish to communicate with. It is also possible that the belief about them being "guardian angels" of plants and small animals is correct.
My brother was a child when he had his fairy encounter, but I also have a friend who, at nearly forty years old, saw a totally blue fairy busy in the grass one day as she was out walking. Naturally, she stopped to watch a while and quickly realized she was indeed observing a fairy. In
my book, I tell of seeing a ring of fairies dancing in a circle and singing on the floor of my mother's bedroom while she slept. I was only three years old at the time, but having been so impressed by them, the memory has never faded.
Have you seen or interacted with fairies? What do you think they actually are?