Do Fairies Exist

Princeton High Graduates Urged to 'Learn to Live'

Little kids ask their parents endless questions.

Do fairies really exist? Why can’t I go to Pluto? Why can’t fish live without water?

As kids grow up the questions become harder, Princeton High School Senior Amanda Phelan told her fellow graduates on Tuesday.

Who is my Prince Charming? What is tax evasion? Why are my parents so embarrassing?

“What’s great about being an adult is knowing how to find your own answers,” Phelan said, addressing students and families. “We are gathered here today both blessed and enabled by a wonderful and supportive education. It’s up to us to dictate what tomorrow will be.”

Princeton High School’s commencement on the high school’s front lawn took place on Tuesday evening. High school diplomas were awarded to 337 seniors, including those from both Princeton and Cranbury. Cranbury students enroll at Princeton High School beginning in ninth grade after graduating from the Cranbury School .

Although thunderstorms were predicted and school officials had plans to move the graduation indoors in case of rain, it was a rain-event as hundreds gathered to watch friends and loved ones walk across the stage to receive a high school diploma.

“This is a day you have waited for for so long, but like the last four years, it will pass so fast,” Principal Gary R. Snyder said. “You have truly learned. Your work here is finished. The world awaits your spirit, talent and leadership.”

Graduates each affixed two gold stars on his or her blue graduation gown to honor two classmates who died during high school- Helene Cody, who died from a sudden illness last year, and Emma Brunskill.

“You will always be missed,” Class of 2011 President Daniel Taub said of Cody and Brunskill “You will never be forgotten to anyone whose lives you have touched.”

Over the past four years, Princeton High’s Class of 2011 has overcome loss, made friends, traveled the world with school organizations and learned that student council is not a popularity contest.

Now the students will move to the next stage of their lives, which they should do without worry, embarrassment or fear of failure, senior speaker Andrew Sodern said.

"Today we have another chance to reinvent ourselves, wherever we are going," Sodern said. 

The Class of 2011 selected Sodern, Emefa Agawa and Phelan as student commencement speakers.

Do fairies exist?

I prefer to believe in magical, mystical things such as leprechauns, elves, mermaids and fairies. Believing in the unlikely or impractical puts a happy, hopeful, Disney-esque shine on our sometimes gloomy world.

Fairies - supernatural beings with magical powers - have existed in literature from Greek and Roman mythology to medieval legends to modern American bedtime stories. Although fairies look human, they are typically able to fly, cast spells (as with Tinkerbell's pixie dust) and they can sometimes foretell the future.

In The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries, author Pierre Dubois uses this description:

They are known as the little people, the beautiful maiden, the godmothers, the blessed, the ageless ones. Ruling over earth, fire and water, they protect forests, animals and children, and in their hands lie the dreamy souls of all creatures.

The fairies we are most familiar with are young, dainty, good-natured and female with a pair of gossamer wings. This has not always been the case. Before the 1800s most fairies were tall and a bit frightening, with a tendency toward evil.

In European Folklore, house elves, also called brownies, help with chores. The Arabic genie possesses supernatural powers and can change size or shape. Greek nymphs are young, lovely, loving and musical. The English pixie relishes fooling travelers into getting lost.

Perhaps most commonplace of modern fairies is the tooth fairy. How can you not adore a kindly being who sneaks into your room while you sleep to trade money for a useless tooth?

And then there is Cinderella whose Fairy Godmother swept her up for a rags-to-riches makeover - chariot included - and a dream date with a prince.

Sleeping Beauty was cursed an angry fairy to die at the age of 16. She was saved only by the combined spells of the other fairies in the kingdom. It is clear that people want to believe in fairies. But, should we?

I talked to Gary Gilbert, philosophy professor at Claremont McKenna College.

"Fairies, like other mythological beings, help us to make sense of and give meaning to the world in which we live," Professor Gilbert said. "But fairies do not exist in the same way that you and I exist."

While Professor Gilbert remains skeptical, Dora Van Gelder, author of "The Real World of Fairies," argues that fairies do indeed exist, but cannot be seen just anyone. "A special sense must be awakened in people if they are to see fairies," Van Gelder wrote. "The kind of world fairies live in does not affect our ordinary senses directly. They cannot be touched or felt, yet they can certainly be seen.

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