My name is Marianne and my fairy name is Ranunkel. I was born in Denmark in 1962 where I still live.

The only person in my family who truly believed in fairies and gnomes was my grandmother. As a child she asked me to bring stew and beer to the gnome living in the stable. She told me that if we didn't bring him food the pigs in the stable would become ill and die. I also remember one time when she got mad because my dad was supposed to help my granddad to cut down some trees behind the farm. They wanted to cut down an old elder tree, and my granddad laughed at my grandmother, because she thought that the elder spirit living inside the tree would get angry if we cut down her home. She told us the story about a farm near by that burned down, after they had cut down an old elder tree near by the main building of the farm.

When I was 17 years old I got to know my husband, and he introduced me to the books by Tolkien. I started to read about the Hobbits. My husband and I decided that we would tell our children fairy tales, and of cause we also taught our children to be kind to fairies, gnomes and other nature spirits.

When my son started in school he had a hard time learning to read, and it was with a great deal of thanks to Harry Potter he actually sat down and began to read for him self. I bought the first book, and read it to him, but when the second book was published he just couldn't wait for me to read to him, so he began to read the book him self.

My daughter went through a period in her teen years where she got interested in pagan believes, and she began to read books on the old Viking mythology and the English Wicca believes. To day she is a strong believer in fairies and gnomes.

Now I live on Als, and during the summertime I spend most of the time drawing and painting in my garden.

I hope you will enjoy traveling into Nidlongdir to explore this magic fairy realm!

May the fairies watch over you!

Marianne

Ranunkel

www.nidlongdir.com/