This particular story I read is said to have happened in Hartburn (near Morpeth) in Northumberland,

This particular story I read is said to have happened in Hartburn (near Morpeth) in Northumberland, England, though there are many versions of it. It’s called My Ainsel, and, if you’re familiar with the Geordie or Northumbrian accent you’ll know ‘My ain sel’ is the northern pronunciation of “My Own Self”. There is a reference in the story to “Moss-troopers”, brigands who roamed the Borders during the periods of the English Commonwealth and Restoration, which places the story in the mid-17th Century.It’s the story of a young boy, a very bored boy living in rural England with only his mother for company. Their cottage was surrounded by fairies, as after all, as they say, Northumberland is full of them! Malcolm Green writes,[Their] front door looked straight up the hillside and the back looked out into the woods that plunged down to the Hartburn River. There were no neighborus. The only company was the fairy folk that called to each other from the oak trees of the valley sides and the will-’o-the-’wykes that lit up the moors on misty nights and would come tapping on the cottage windows.The boy, in his boredom, had grown increasingly wilful and irritable and one night refused to go to bed. His mother warned him if he didn’t the fairy folk would visit. Unperturbed the stubborn boy remained awake staring into the fire. Soon enough a young fairy leaped down the chimney, over the fire, and stood in front of the boy. Her name, she said, was “My Ainsel”, and the boy quite wisely said that was his name, too. She asked if he would like to play, and she began to make little figures out of the ash of the fire. She went on to make trees and animals, and they began to move. Then out of nowhere, she screamed - she had burned her foot on a spark from the fire. A voice shouted down to the chimney, “What’s going on down there?” My Ainsel, like Polyphemus to the other Cyclops after being blinded by Odysseus, called back, “My Ainsel burned my foot!”, and a long, bony hand reached down the chimney and whisked her away, admonishing her for making such a fuss for something that was her own fault. The boy realised that playing with fairies was no game, and from then he became more obedient. [Sources: English Fairy Tales, Northumberland Folk Tales by Malcolm Green] -- source link
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