heeler the peeler's supernatural tales of yoikes and ah for crying out loud that never happened

Coffee with Doctor Jill Allaway.
She is a lecturer in English literature.
We are in the Costa Cafe.
"The most ridiculous claims about the supernatural come from people who think they've seen fairies," I muse out of the blue.
"I've seen them," sez she without hesitation.
"No you haven't."
"Yes I have."
"When?"
"All the time up until the age of about seven or eight."
"What did they look like?"
"They had wings and flew above the tree tops."
"Could they have been insects?"
"They had little faces and bodies. To me they were fairies."
During her childhood, her family had lived in Prestatyn, a Welsh coastal town ringed by hills.
My curiosity tweaked, Jill agreed to tell me more.
"One day when I was three my father noticed I was missing," she says. "He looked out the window and saw me climbing over the fence at the bottom of our garden. There was a railway line on the far side of the fence running along the bottom of our garden. He ran out to fetch me. When he asked where I was going, I replied: I've got to go to the fairies. I've no memory of this incident. But he remembers it."
The noble Heelers nods sagely.
"But you say you do have actual concrete memories of seeing fairies?"
"All the time in my childhood. The woods were full of them. I think they were attracted to certain trees."
"Did you talk to them?"
"There was one little creature I talked to. He wasn't a fairy. He was a sort of woodland sprite. He didn't have wings. I thought of him as a brownie."
"Had he a name?"
"He was called Tiggy."
"Did you give him the name or did he tell you it was his name?"
"I don't know."
"Did anyone else see him?"
"Well he was very friendly to me. But he was shy. Very secretive. He would go away if anyone else came. Children played in the woods all the time."
"You're a Christian. Could he have been an evil spirit?"
"No. I had no impression of evil in him whatsoever."
Back in modern day Dublin, the day was bright and clear. We were in the window seat at the Costa Cafe. Buses creaked down Dawson Street.
"So eventually you stopped seeing the fairies?" I enquired.
"When I was seven or eight, yes," she said.
"Why do you think you stopped seeing them?"
"I don't know. Maybe they just went away."
"Did you ever see them again after you grew up?"
She thought for a moment.
"Just once," she admitted.
"Were you drunk?" quoth I.
Jill shook her head with a motion indicative of mild reproof.
"No," she said. "I was in London. Walking down the street at Victoria. A fairy just flew up to me around the corner. I saw his face. And then he whizzed away. That's the only time I've seen one since childhood."