This story about fairies/faeries (assuming you're talking about
diminutive magical creatures and not boats which transports people
and/or vehicles across bodies of water) reminds me of a similar
practice seen in parts of SE Asia (I saw it in Laos, Thailand and
Cambodia, I didn't see it in Vietnam). There you have to keep your
house spirits happy and also encourage them not to live inside your
house where they would cause all kinds of trouble. So every house has
a "spirit house" in the yard for the house spirits to live. The idea
is to offer the spirits a more comfortable place for them to live than
inside your house.
There's a whole host of requirements for where the spirit house should
be placed, the only one I remember is that it needs to be positioned
so that your house doesn't cast a shadow on it. Any time you improve
your own house you need to make improvements to the spirit house as
well. You also have to leave out food offerings for the spirits.
Usually this is items of fruit but in a strange modern twist I did see
some spirit houses with bottles of Pepsi left as offerings.
As an indicator of how Buddhism and Animism are both intertwined in
the culture, anyone who I spoke to about the houses referred to them
as "Buddhist houses" even though there's not connection to Buddhism in
this practice; it's 100% Animism.
On 10/25/05, Willie Wonka <alienspecimen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> When we arrived, I was told that there are good little ferries that live in
> the forest. People build for them little houses they like to live in. It
> was in the middle of the day and we did not see any ferries, but enjoyed
> looking at the little houses scattered over the churhyard.
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