~KRANDLEKEEP~
The Wisconsin Gnomelore Database
The Barron Co. Trooping Fairies
“We won’t stop fighting till the end of the war, / In Nineteen-Hundred and Ninety-Four.”
-Song of the Fairies
From There Be Hodags, by C.A. McAllister:
The trooping fairies of Barron County, also called Barron County trolls or little men, are a type of little people which were spotted on the side of Highway 25 in Barron County in 1919. The trooping fairies are described as tiny, ugly, hairless men, with nearly albino skin, wearing nothing but patchwork leather overalls. They were witnessed traveling along the side of the road, quietly conversing with one another before suddenly breaking into military song, and then quieting back down to whispers.
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Their song implies that they were involved in some sort of war, which they thought would last until near the end of the 20th Century. The words of the song they sang were reported as:
We won’t stop fighting till the end of the war,
In Nineteen-Hundred and Ninety-Four.
Sound off one two,
Sound off three four,
Detail one two three four.
One two three four!
After the one sighting of the trooping fairies in 1919, they were never again spotted. Thus it is unknown whether or not their war, whatever it was they were fighting against, truly ended in 1994. Their patchwork clothing and shabby appearance gives them some parallels with the drone hunting duende, the leprechauns, and the dwendi. Many types of Native American little people were engaged in supernatural warfare, and so could perhaps also be linked with the trooping fairies and their own mysterious war.
From "Encounters with Little Men," by Jerome Clark, for Fate Magazine, November 1978
On a late summer's night in 1919, thirteen- year-old Harry Anderson, his family and some friends went for a drive in the family's new Ford Model T automobile.
At about 10 p.m., as they were headed back to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the car's engine began running a little rough. Papa Anderson eased it to a halt on the southbound lane of Highway 25.
"We're running low on oil," he said, handing the oil can to his son. "Head on up the road, Harry, and see if you can get some old farmer to lend you some."
And so, with the empty oil can swinging from his hand, Harry hiked down the darkened road. A roadside sign told him he was just outside Barron, Wis., about five miles west of Rice Lake. Seeing the roof of a farmhouse on the horizon, he took a shortcut across a cornfield.
The farmer filled Harry's oil can for him, and, "as he was walking back, he saw twenty little men walking towards him in single file. They had bald heads and white skins, and wore leather 'knee-pants' held up by braces over their shoulders."
Startled, Harry ducked behind a red maple tree, staying out of sight as the dwarfish platoon marched by. His ears caught fragments of their conversation, mostly mutterings and a quirky little song.
"We won't stop fighting
Till the end of the war
In Nineteen-Hundred
and Ninety-Four.
Sound off--one, two
Sound off--three, four
Detail, one, two, three, four
One--two...three--four!
The column marched on into the forest, leaving Harry, in his own words, "heart pumping and terrified."
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