For #scaryfairies I'm sharing some stories from my book 'Suffolk Fairylore', which goes into depth about the fairy traditions of one English county. First up, an attempted fairy abduction in Stowmarket from the 1760s http://lassepress.com/suffolk_fairy.html

Another fairy abduction occurred in the late 12th century at nearby Lavenham. The fairies took a one year-old child while her mother was eating with others in the fields #scaryfairies

This story is particularly strange because we hear it from the point of view of the stolen child herself. Unable to take corporeal form for 7 years, 'Malekin' made friends with children at Dagworth Hall (pictured) #scaryfairies

Normally, changeling narratives are told from the perspective of the mother who has lost a child, to be replaced with a changeling. But 'Malekin' isn't Suffolk's only topsy-turvy fairytale #scaryfairies

Along the the fear of fairies as child-stealers, the greatest fear associated with the fairy realm was surely that of being trapped in fairyland. But what of fairies trapped in our world? #scaryfairies

On one interpretation, that's what the story of the Green Children of Woolpit is about. The children come out of the ground in Suffolk, but are unable to return to fairyland. The green boy wastes away, but the green girl learns to simulate humanity #scaryfairies

One key question about Suffolk's fairy lore is what exactly counts as a fairy. Are imps fairies? If so, Suffolk is full of them; able to take animal or human form, they are the familiars of witches #scaryfairies

But Suffolk's most famous imp is surely Tom Tit Tot, the 'English Rumpelstiltskin', whose name is discovered while he spins skeins of wool at the bottom of a chalk pit near Barningham