A TRUE TALE

OF
ELVES & WITCHCRAFT

By Mandrake

The events described in the following story are real events that actually happened to me and
my ex-fiancée. All the details and descriptions given in the story have been kept accurate to the best of
my ability. The location, dates, times, and circumstances surrounding the events are all factual. Only
our legal names have been omitted in the interest of our privacy.
It is my hope that those interested in occult/paranormal phenomenon might find this story
helpful in some way, and that this story might also be of some use to someone somewhere.
 I never believed in the existence of elves until I experienced the story I am about to tell, but
now I know for certain that they do indeed exist, or that at least something quite similar to such
creatures is lurking among the northern forests of Pennsylvania.
I do not expect the reader to believe my story, but I would at least invite the reader to re-
create and repeat my tale in as precise a manner as possible before condemning the testimony I have
presented here for the world to read. It is, at the least, my hope that this story should be preserved for
the sake of serious investigation as well as individual significance.
The story written in these pages is now some six years old. I had originally recorded the
events of that night on the hard drive of the computer I was utilizing at the time immediately following
the incident, but that computer is no longer in my possession; therefore, I have decided to once again
chronicle those events and place the record into the hands of the public for its safe keeping.

I do not recall why we chose to perform a ritual to call upon the elven faerie folk that
autumn day of 2004. Perhaps it was a matter of curiousity? Nevertheless, we both found ourselves
dabbling in an area of wonders that neither of us were yet ready to confront.
We chose a simple ritual of evocation, selected a remote location, happened upon a most
perfect time and celestial event, and immediately set about to acquire our necessary instruments. No
major planning was involved, no elaborate words were spoken, and no formal rite was conducted; in all
it was really quite informal. Our only tools were four meager candlesticks of the basic elemental
colors: green (N), yellow (E), red (S), and blue (W), rosemary incense, an athame, and a pipe for the
sacred ceremonial offering. The location we had selected was an open field (that turned out to be a
heliport) just up the mountain from the old ghost town of Masten, Pennsylvania in the black forest
known as Loyalsock State Forest (formerly Tiadaghton State Forest) just northeast of Williamsport.
We arrived at the heliport in Masten sometime around 11:00 pm on that Wednesday night
in the hopes that the total lunar eclipse that was to occur (and actually was occuring at that time)
between the cusp of the 27th and Thursday the 28th would aid us in our efforts to conjure up the elven
folk. We parked on the short dirt road leading to the heliport, grabbed our tools, exited the vehicle, and
quickly stumbled off into the night with nothing but our bag of tools and a large maglight. It was quite
dark at that time with a thin gray cloud cover which neatly concealed the eclipsing moon. The forest
floor was covered in leaves that crunched loudly beneath our feet as we continued up the narrow road
that then opened into a large and flat grassy clearing.
I remember my insistence that we had to hurry, as we could not miss the eclipse, though at
the time neither of us knew what was supposed to be the exact timing of the eclipse; we would learn
later that we were precisely within the correct time period.
We walked around a bit in an attempt to determine the best location for our ritual and
settled on a small level area that was located between the midpoint of the field and the woodland near
the far end of the clearing from where we had entered. In this location we were several dozen yards
from the entrance with a comfortable buffer between ourselves and the dense forest with the exception
of our location being within several feet of a downward sloping wooded area which consisted mainly of
tall brush, small trees, and some bushes.
We then proceeded to unpack our tools and set-up a ritual circle for ourselves after a very
brief consecration of the area and a quick foot sweeping to clear any debris or potentially flammable
material from the area. I then removed a six inch double-edged dagger (our athame) from the inner
coat pocket of my leather jacket, grabbed the black handle, unsheathed it, and proceeded to use it to
make holes in the ground at our four cardinal points in which we would be able to place our candles.
We passed the pipe back and forth, chatted a bit about how we wanted to go about our
anticipated deed, and then began to light our candles. Coree took the green candle, lit it, and placed it
in the north. Then I took the yellow candle, lit it, and placed it in the east, followed by the lighting of
the red candle and its placement in the south. Finally, Coree completed the task with the lighting of the
blue candle and its placement in the west.
Coree then lit the stick of incense, wafted it a bit, and held it within the confines of our
forming circle. Then, once more starting in the north, I took the athame and drew our circle out in a
clockwise fashion while we both declared our purposes for this action in unison.
I then looked to Coree, who offered up a loud invitation for the forest folk to come to our
gathering. She then followed this invitation with a declaration to offer the smoke of our ceremonial
pipe as a gift, of which we both then began to partake of.
Immediately, once we had begun the offering, we both heard a rustling of leaves upon the
forest floor coming towards us from up the mountain. It grew louder and louder as the sound drew
closer and closer to our location. In an instant, what had begun as the sound of two feet quickly
became the sound of many feet trampling upon the fallen leaves of the night forest and drawing ever
more closely to our location.
Coree and I both looked at one another in utter astonishment as the feelings of fascination
and fear began to mingle in our bellies. We could literally sense each others pulse beginning to
quicken as our hearts raced in total fear and total awe. We had certainly hoped for some sort of result,
but such an undeniable physical manifestation quickly became overwhelming, as neither of us were
certain of exactly what was coming our way.
The loud and unmistakable sifting of downed leaves had now reached our location, where it
ended briefly at the edge of the treeline before zipping off around the perimeter towards the road. We
listened as we heard one pair of feet after another crunching their way across the road for what seemed
an eternity. How many of them were there?
I felt Coree grab my arm, and at this gesture I instinctively flashed the athame out in front
of me. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I had made the decision within myself that
while we had invited our guests we still had no experience with their nature, and at this point we still
had no idea that it was our intended guests whom we were hearing approach. I most certainly did not
want to appear unkind, but in the same instance I did not wish to place either of us into a vulnerable
position. Perhaps I did so mainly out of fear, but I saw nothing wrong with taken precautionary
measures. I thought that if these were indeed creatures of nature, surely they could understand my
position and perhaps such a feeling was why they had not yet shown themselves (maybe they were
frightened as well?). Surely, any creature of intelligence has observed such a show of caution as a
nearly universe occurrence when one species happens upon another of which it is unfamiliar. In such
instances it is customary to bear the teeth, stomp the feet, or otherwise warn a swiftly approaching
animal that while they may enter the territory they must not come to closely.
The sounds had now finished crossing the road and were working their way towards us
much more slowly now. It had become completely evident to us that whatever we were dealing with
was in fact intelligent, as it wished to get closer to us, but to still remain hidden from our sight and our
reach, which at the moment, was perfectly fine with us.
Coree cried out, "Hello! Is that you? Can you say something to us?"
There was no reply. The shuffling of the leaves and now brush directly in front of us (just
mere feet away from us), simply continued.
We both stood within the circle and our hearts began to race even stronger. Suddenly, we
could hear what can only be described as many whispers upon whispers coming from the dark night in
the rustling brush before us. It was simply magical, but totally paralyzing. We could both hear their
voices, yet neither of us could make out a word. All we were able to hear was the sound of roaring
whispers in waves of roaring whispers.
"Do you hear them?", I asked Coree.
 "Yes", she replied without hesitation.
The whispers began to roar even loader.
"Hello. Can you show youself?", Coree pleaded.
The brush in front of us shook some more and the voices grew louder, but we were still
unable to make out any distinct language or meaning. All we could hear was the sound of whispering
voices on top of whispering voices.
We waited a bit longer, but despite our pleas our guests refused to come forward out of the
night. It was at this moment that any fascination we had entertained began to quickly subside.
Whoever our visitors were, they most certainly were not open to the idea of exposing their identities to
us which only further served to raise the spectrum of caution and fear that the two of us were beginning
to feel. It had become apparent that we were being visited by guests who had no intention of direct
interaction, but rather observation, or worse – ill intention.
"You're scaring us!", Coree exclaimed.
There was no response.
"Ok. You can go now. Please leave!", she added.
The whispers and movement of brush continued, as if taunting us.
After several minutes of this we both become overcome with fear. The reason for our fear
was a total overload of uncertainty. Here we were, two twenty-somethings in the middle of the forest
at night surrounded by creatures we had very little knowledge of, and they wished to play "Moses and
the burning bush" with us minus the flaming bush. The uncertainty of the entire situation became too
overwhelming for either of us to handle any longer.
"Yes! Please leave. We're scared now", I exclaimed in agreement while thrusting the
athame a bit forward, much like how a cat would swipe its claws through the air as a warning to those
who would traverse into its space any farther..
The whispering persisted a little while longer and then suddenly ceased. We could both
hear the brush crackling as our visitors slowly moved away.
We did not wait around for the mysterious forest sounds of our visitors to completely
subside, but instead we began to immediately tear down our ceremonial circle with great haste.
Something about these visitors no longer felt right.
It seemed that all our tools were gathered, extinguished, and flung into Coree's bag in a
near instantaneous moment. In what seemed to have been just the blink of an eye we had closed our
circle, gathered our instruments, and were quickly fleeing our present location for the security of our
parked car. We scrambled down the dirt road in absolute fear, unable to breath, until both of us were
seated in the confines of the vehicle. We then slowly drove off into the night and back down the
mountain towards Pleasant Stream Rd.
On the way back to Coree's house we re-affirmed to one another just what exactly we had
experienced. We had both heard the footsteps, both heard the voices, and both felt the same sense of
fear and fascination. We debated for a bit about possible physical occurrences that could have
explained our experience, but quickly dismissed the idea both due to the distinct sound of bipedal
footfall and the unmistakable sound of voices originating from the areas where motion and footsteps
had been heard or observed. We also noted how the creatures seemed to have had some sort of
understanding of our words.
As we talked on we decided that we had perhaps been too easily frightened (which was an
easy thing to say after the fact). It was supposed that possibly our visitors meant us no harm, but rather
a lack of proper communication had taken place; that per-chance we were not capable of understanding
their language, or they were not fully capable of understanding us. We even postulated that they might
have had good reason to not wish for us to see their physical bodies, but rather wished to observe us
instead. One possible conclusion we had reached was that communication was taking place, but that
we had not recognized it as such. It seemed that the possibilities for what might have been were
endless, and so we dropped the postulation and continued to chat about our experiences.
Looking back upon that night from my current standpoint it is easy for me to say that I
should not have been so fearful, or perhaps I should have done or not done this or that; however, I find
myself coming to these conclusions after the fact, and it becomes obvious to me that I would not have
reacted any differently without first having had the experience on which I now reflect. It is the lessons
of our life experiences which cause us to ask such questions in the first place!
In the years since that wonderous occasion, I have managed to gather some additional
information concerning the magic of that autumn night. It turns out that the total lunar eclipse had
actually occurred between 10:23 pm and 11:45 pm; precisely at the time that we had conducted our
ritual. It also so happens that on that very next day there was a Grand Quintile that was to occur;
indeed, the second one of that month!
The total lunar eclipse on that night was part of Saros Cycle 136, and it was the 3rd of four
metonic cycle lunar eclipses occurring on those dates.
At the present time I have still not found another who has had a similar experience as the
one we had that amazing night. I've heard of paranormal type phenomenon occurring in and around the
area of the old ghost town of Masten, Pennsylvania before, yet I had never experienced any oddities
myself despite the many camping trips and hikes I had taken in the area. One thing I am absolutely
certain of though: there are elves in those woods; I'm just not certain which kind!

I would now like to ask the reader to take our experience however you may choose, but
please do not completely dismiss it as fantasy or label it anything other than what has been relayed.
We saw no glowing orbs, dragonflies, or any other sort of supposed things associated with the elven
folk What I have written here is exactly how it all occurred and exactly what did occur. We did not
see anything except moving brush; other than that the entire event was auditory, and witnessed in that
manner by both of us.
I also wish to caution the serious researcher. We were ill-prepared for this event. We did
not expect anything more than a couple of glowing orbs and some dragonflies, as this is all that ever
seems to be available as a description of elvish phenomenon. We went into the endeavor expecting a
visual manifestation and quickly found ourselves blind, yet very adept at hearing. This was an
enormous shock to our normal physical sense perception, much like sudden blindness would be for
most anyone.
Our experience quickly became frightening because there were too many unknowns.
Should you ever find yourself in the right circumstance to reconstruct our experience or desire to do so
you need to understand this. It is very easy for those who have not had this experience to say they
would have reacted differently, but they were not there. They were not standing in the middle of a
coyote infested forest at night, nine miles from the nearest paved road, under an eclipsed moon, during
the Halloween season, surrounded by mysterious voices and movements that obviously greatly
outnumbered them, wondering what the hell they had got their self into! It truly was a unique
circumstance to place oneself in, and most certainly is not often experienced by others.

I put this information out to the public for two reasons. First, I wanted others who might
have had similar experiences to have something they can relate to. Secondly, it is my hope that serious
researchers and investigators of elf, faerie, and paranormal phenomenon in general might find this
information helpful in some way. While I whole-heartedly believe we were visited by elves I have my
doubts as to whether or not they were of a benevolent kind. Furthermore, I can not deny the reality that
these events did in fact occur near an abandoned old logging town known for paranormal phenomenon,
nor I can deny that the events occurred at the heliport and that some speculation has been made on
ghosts, faeries, and UFO phenomenon as often sharing similar qualities and physical evidence (if there
is indeed any correlation then this story and the location of Masten might support that).