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Fourth Berkshire Faerie Festival Saturday

A group of people in costume as faeries stand in front of trees
Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival

A festival celebrating creativity, the arts, and faeries is set for Saturday in Adams, Massachusetts.

Phil Sellers, 70, is on the team behind the Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival. He says it was inspired by something one of his fellow organizers witnessed years ago.

“She saw this thing that happened in Ann Arbor, Michigan," said Sellers. "And it was a guy who was putting faerie doors on doors in the shops around town. And she was thinking, you know, we’re kind of economically deprived here, we’re not growing – maybe we can bring the faeries in and they’ll come down off the mountain and bring good luck and fortune to all the new businesses in town.”

From that, Berkshire County’s very own faerie festival was born – and is now entering its fourth year.

“The faerie festival is a child of the Adams Arts Advisory Board, and that started in 2015," explained Gail Sellers. "A nonprofit, so therefore, we are a nonprofit.”

Sellers, 71, is another member of the festival team. She knows that the word “faerie” comes with a lot of baggage.

“The faeries we’re looking at probably isn’t Tinkerbell so much as the keeper of the woods, the faes that are in the wood," she told WAMC. "Lifting the veil to an alternative environment. Taking care of what happens to the earth.”

She also knows what image it conjures up in most people’s imaginations.

“This isn’t just about little girls in pink wings," said Sellers. "This is about people exploring their creative inner self and giving permission to them to explore that.”

The alcohol-free event focuses on families learning, playing, and discovering together. Activities range from embellishing wearable faerie wings and painting dragon eggs to building a faerie village.

“It’s a whimsical fantasy celebrating the arts, and that’s the part that I focus on," Sellers said. "So that means that we embrace all kinds of characters, all kind of people.”

Attendees are encouraged to dress up in whatever costumes they see fit. The Sellers certainly will be.

“I find that being in character gives you an opportunity out of yourself – I’m in costume, I’m walking around, I’m playing a character,” said Gail. Her alter ego will be easily spotted with her flowing purple dress and amphibian accompaniment.

“I’m Liaganna, and that character name just came to me last year," she told WAMC. "Her sidekick is a toad, and she’s the keeper of the wishing tree legend.”

Phil is Turrenian, a 300-year-old wood elf. You’ll find him in a feathered cap and a tattered vest fringed with vines.

“I’m the keeper of the grounds and I’m the keeper of the earth," explained Phil. "I live in the Black Willow Woods. I have a special door that I’m going to try and get people to find – it will be in the village – and this door is how I come out into this world. From the netherworld, I come into this world. And when the festival’s over, I’m going to grab that door – I’m going to go through the door, grab the door, and pull it inside, and you won’t know where that door is. It’s gone.”

Deirdre Sullivan, 60, is the festival’s resident faerie queen. For the past three years, children have eagerly waited in line to meet the mythic monarch and take a photo on her lap.

“I’m surprised at how many show up and are not what you might expect of, ‘Oh, I’m Harry Potter,’ or ‘I’m a Disney character,’" Sullivan said. "They come up with their own costume, and when I give them their fairy name, I ask them what’s important to them and they’ll tell me. They love crystals, so they’re the crystal fairy. Or a little boy told me a whole background story about his elf backstory. And it was like he’d been thinking about it, and what he chose to wear, and how he wanted to be a guard for the queen, and could he be a guard. He’s storytelling, right out of his own head. So I think that’s kind of what’s being encouraged here, is what they come with their own sense of story and what they’re discovering at the faerie festival.”

The Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at Bowe Field in Adams, Massachusetts.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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