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Fairy door at Monmouth, Wales.

A fairy door is a miniature door, usually set into the base of a tree. Behind the fairy door there may be a small space where notes, wishes and gifts can be left for the fairies. The lore behind the doors claims that they are portals to a fairy world, and that the doors arrive and disappear by surprise. For this reason many fairy doors are public art installations crafted by unknown artists. They are also available commercially. Many fairy doors are to be found in woods and parks in Ireland, England, and the United States.

Uses

Art

Outdoor fairy doors were called environmental art by one journalist, who also noted the potential for encouraging increased use of woodlands by children. Fairy doors can inspire children to engage with the outside world.

Fairy doors can also be found in urban areas.

These doors are created with a wide variety of materials and many architectural styles. They may follow the woodland theme and be crafted and decorated with natural items like bark, pine cones, and pebbles. They may use metal hinges and open. Key holes with working locks may open these tiny doors, and some have been found with a tiny working key under a front mat. Details to mimic a home are crafted in miniature, such as mail slots or interior lights. A fairy door with working lights is found in the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor, Michigan public library, in the fairy tale section of the children's library. Several adjacent hollowed-out books with little windows line the shelf, representing the fairy apartment, and the door is located on the aisle side of the shelf. Doors do not have to include the functionality of opening. Doors may be glued directly to the building or tree where it is installed, and some doors are simply painted on to represent the idea of a door.

Doors are also available commercially. Supplies for building a fairy door or a fairy garden are available at national chain hobby art stores.

Entertainment

Fairy doors are both decorative and for entertainment. Parents can use them to help promote the use of their children’s imaginations and creative thinking, describing the fairies as creatures that use their magical powers to protect children from bad dreams, grant their wishes if they are well-behaved, and replace lost teeth with small rewards. While some parents criticize make believe as being bad for their children, child psychologists have claimed that participating in pretend play can help develop a child’s cognitive abilities, such as their learning process. Interactive activities that children can participate in include corresponding with their fairies. They may write notes to the fairies that ask questions about their identities, special abilities, and places of origin. In some cases people will write notes to seek advice from the fairies. Responses to these notes may be found inside the doors within a matter of days. Likewise, fairies may write personal notes to their human caretakers of their own accord. If children have experienced loss, separation, and loneliness, their fairies can leave notes of encouragement and comfort to help them cope with such struggles.

Folklore

The folklore behind fairies and fairy doors comes mainly from Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Irish Fairy Door Company came up with and abides by the idea that the magical creatures of the fairy realm in Ireland ran out of housing space, and therefore called upon the human world for help, pleading with children to provide new homes for them inside their own homes. Many parents, however, choose to install a fairy door apart from the knowledge and assistance of their children, encouraging them to discover the door by themselves. Once the door has been spotted, they can leave a welcoming gift at the threshold to formally introduce the fairy to the human world. If that gift has disappeared the following day, it is a sure sign that the fairy has officially moved in.

Urban Fairies

Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA is one popular location for fairy doors, attracting what local self-certified “fairyologist” Jonathan Wright describes as “urban fairies,” or displaced fairies that have, in adapting to the more modernized part of the human world, preferred to take up residence inside buildings. Miniature replicas of the doors of local shops and businesses can be found throughout the town, sometimes inside the buildings whose doors they replicate.

Fairy doors can be found in Brooklyn, New York. They were installed by fans of Cynthia von Buhler and the interactive theater production Speakeasy Dollhouse. The doors are labeled with QR codes that give information about the production. The doors themselves are in a traditional colonial American style, matching the architecture of New York City.

Fairy Door in Corvallis, Oregon

Tinker Nature Park in upstate New York is a 68-acre nature park with fairy doors. Beginning in 2014, about 20 doors appeared as the work of an anonymous artist. The doors do not have commercial ties. They are handmade, or hand-painted. Some are sculptural, using found wood to create fairy houses decorated with wood slice ladders, miniature log benches, pebble stepping stones, and decorative pine cones. Some have working hinges, and open to little nooks that may be empty or hold little bells or notes inside.

Downtown Putnam, Connecticut has a dozen fairy doors. Each door is stylized to represent the major American cities: New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Nashville, and New Orleans. Nashville's doors include a horseshoe and guitar music motif, as well as a western saloon by artist Laura Moorehead, and a "42 Heartbreak Lane" door by artist Clara Costabile. New Orleans is represented by a Dia de los Muertos door by artist Jennifer Beckett and a Bourbon Street door by artist Steve Veilleux. New York's two doors include a historical mystery theme and a clock theme by Moorehead. Seattle's door references the city's "Emerald City" nickname with a Wizard of Oz theme by Beckett, and a Fremont Freak troll motif by Costabile. Chicago's doors include a Bean There by Costabile and Windy City by Moorehead. Boston's door is a woodland riff on the traditional brownstone architecture by artist Ann Monterio.

Fairy Door in Corvallis, OR

San Francisco, California has its own little fairy door at Golden Gate Park. This door was left by an anonymous artist. It was hand-crafted with stain-finished wood, complete with a drawer-pull door handle and brass hinges, and measuring a foot tall. There is a natural space behind this door where visitors leave notes.

Small cities and towns are also decorated with whimsical fairy doors. There are less publicized doors to be found. Corvallis, Oregon is a small college city that has a local fairy door, found in a residential neighborhood.

The forested city of Portland, Oregon is home to two known fairy doors in a Northeast neighborhood garden. The doors are housed in a miniature fairy garden within the community garden. The fairy garden holds a hotel, a Ferris wheel, and an archery field.

Mt. Erskine Provincial Park on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, is home to several fairy doors along the hiking trails.

Part of the culture of fairy doors is to install them anonymously in public places. The fairy folklore proclaims that these doors appear and disappear as needed by the fairies, so an individual door may be installed or removed without public notice.

Cultural Boundaries

Although fairy doors are in high demand in places like Ireland, England and the United States, they are not marketable in every culture. The modern representation of fairies is mainly inspired by European fairy mythology, and some cultures view fairies as wicked, malicious beings intent on creating mischief and harming people rather than helping them. In Japan, there are spirits similar to fairies known as Yōkai, which are sometimes very frightening to children. The association with frightening spirits makes fairy doors more often found in Western cultures.

Removal

Fairy doors have incited controversy in some cases.

There were once over 200 fairy doors in Wayford Woods in Crewkerne, Somerset. The situation was described by locals as becoming increasingly complicated and  "in danger of getting out of control." Observers attribute this to the doors’ relatively recent growth in popularity within the last couple of years, despite that fairy stories have been around for centuries. The main complaint was that the small village, with only one-lane dirt roads, didn't have the infrastructure to accommodate the large number of tourists arriving to walk in the woods and view the fairy doors. There was also an undesired accumulation of trash along the trail. The woodland's trustees have since "ripped out" all the fairy doors.

Another removal event occurred in Portland, Oregon in 2016. Many fairy doors were installed in The Maricara Natural Area in Southwest Portland. They were well received by the city and many locals. However, one anonymous environmentalist vandal went to the park posed as a city Parks and Recreation worker and removed the doors. They went as far as to post a falsified notice from Parks and Rec, citing city codes as the reason for the door's removal. Parks and Rec clarified that they did not remove the doors.