Posts: 11
Location: summer-York Me., winter-F...
Registered: March 2003
Re: Harbor Island
Tue, 26 August 2003 15:16
Well those two structures are what i believe to be "Fairy Houses" Fairy houses started at monhegan. (I think) I remember making them when i was a kid there, but you only made them on a particular trail. It was trail #11, Cathedral Woods.
The islanders began to get upset when people started to use live moss when making the houses. They would destroy them and put up didplays and signs in the village telling people not to pick off the moss. There was even an article about all this in the New York Times.
Fairy houses are still being made at Monhegan on trail#11, but in fewer numbers because now less people now about them, though there used to be quite a bit all along the edges of the trail. So far there is only one other place in maine where i have seen these creative little houses, and that is Buckle Island off of York Narrows, at the northern tip of Swan's Island. The ones I saw there were very large and elaborate, similar to the ones that MarkC photographed. The fairy houses at Monhegan are smaller and blend into their surroundings better.
Re: Harbor Island
Tue, 26 August 2003 15:16
